Lamb
Summer…
This summer has been incredibly hot and humid, to the point that I don’t really want to cook. Most of the time, my dinner during the week has been the tomato and onion salad, which I sometimes eat with a hot-dog. I love hot-dogs and I found a brand I like that uses good ingredients and I tend to boil the tar out of them (try it, see how much salt and fat floats to the top) and they are still tasty. But I have cooked some things: Fruit and Cheese Bars from Lola Mansurov — Mine didn’t turn out so pretty and I’ll make this again and post the results of the second attempt. Blueberry Muffins — from Lola Mansurov – These turned out pretty...
Read MoreMastava – Uzbek soup
After our last visit to Chaihana, I’ve been wanting to make this recipe and I was lucky enough to have a recipe handy. As a matter of fact, I actually have two. One is from Lynn Visson’s book and one is from a Russian-published book. This attempt is from the Russian-published version and I don’t know how authentic it is. Anyone with such knowledge, please let me know if this is even remotely authentic. That’s the book and the page with the recipe. If you can read Russian, please take a close look at it. For those who don’t read Russian, here’s the rundown of issues with this recipe: 1. It’s not clear enough in...
Read MoreChaihana Continued…
Ok, as promised, now to the food…. My dad ordered Lagman. I love lagman (pronounced: lah-g-mahn, with emphasis on the last syllable). I subconsciously tried making it when I was adding my own twist on a chili recipe I read on the back of a can of beans. And I’ve made it myself quite a few times and you can check out my version. It has carrots and celery (though I don’t know how authentic the celery is and I never use it) and noodles and red bell peppers and lamb. Dad liked it. And it had scallions as a garnish. This time around, I ordered Mastava (I think that’s how that soup is called and spelled and if...
Read MoreGrandpa’s Mashkitchiri
UPDATE: I was recently corrected. This dish is not “mashkhurda” as I previously had it named, but mashkitchiri instead. ~~~~~~~~~~ After a long but unintentional absence from the blog, I have a recipe to make up for the absence. I don’t know if this recipe is “authentic Uzbek”, but this is how my grandpa does it, so that’s how I made it. Having been making this for ages and ages, he wasn’t really clear on all the quantities and such, so I had to improvise a little and guess at times as well. Ingredients: 1.5-2 lb of lamb (diced into large-ish pieces since the meat will shrink during cooking) 1 large onion 2 medium carrots...
Read MoreShashlik (shish-kabob/ ??????) – authentic Uzbek dish
I have to admit something. I am a bit of a purist when it comes to certain things and Uzbek food happens to be one of them. See, some of my friends try to tell me that they make great kabobs and then they go into great detail telling me how they marinate it in vinegar (eek!) and that they use pork (oy!). I grit my teeth and smile and say “sounds nice”. But to me, that’s just meat on a stick. Actually, anything that deviates from the shashlik I grew up with, to me, is just meat on a stick. And I’m sure others have the same reaction to other dishes they grew up with. The recipe that follows is a little unusual, but trust me, if you...
Read MoreMeat filled flat-bread (lepeshka) – ???????
We made this flat bread (???????) the same day as when we made manti. See, we had some leftover dough as well as a little bit of the meat mixture. We can’t let anything so good go to waste, so we combined them together into a most delicious bread (with meat). For the ingredients and steps to create the dough and meat mixture, see the Manti recipe. The dough was rolled out and slightly stabbed with a fork. This is done so it doesn’t puff up (we’re not making puff pastry after-all). So, after stabbing the dough with the fork to make some holes, place the meat evenly throughout (see the first image). Then, roll the dough into a rope shape. Once you...
Read MoreShurpa
When I say we cooked yesterday, I mean we really cooked. In addition to Nora’s Salad and Damlyama, we also made Shurpa. Shurpa is a rich and brothy lamb soup that warms your soul. There are many variations, mainly having to do with vegetables and garbanzo beans. My dad likes garbanzo beans in shurpa and that’s how we made it back home, so that’s how we made it here too, though many people leave out the garbanzo beans. The main thing to keep in mind is that you want the broth to be clear and free of color. Take a look at the picture at the bottom of this post. That is why the vegetables are generally whole or halved. But here is our version. Nora,...
Read MoreDamlyama (Uzbek dish)
I’ve never eaten an Uzbek dish that isn’t tasty. They just don’t exist. This is also a layered dish. I guess we had a subconscious theme today with this dish and Nora’s Salad. So, here’s another finger-licking goodness and this one packs a TON of veggies. Ingredients: 1-2 lbs of lamb 2 zucchinis 2 yellow zucchinis (summer squash) 2 large onions 4 or more tomatoes 2 large carrots 2 red bell peppers 1/2 – 1 eggplant 1 head of cabbage (remove core) Spices (salt, cumin, freshly ground black pepper) Steps: 1. Cut all vegetables into rounds about 1/4 inch thick. Cut the eggplant a little thicker otherwise it gets too soggy. 2. Cut the...
Read MoreManti – an authentic Uzbek dish (?????)
I (and my family) have been craving this staple of Uzbek cooking for more than a decade, maybe even as long as 15 years. You see, this isn’t a dish you make every day or even every weekend. This is a dish for special occasions. It requires absolutely the freshest lamb, from a butcher shop, not a grocery store, and a specific steamer (??????????). Since there are no Uzbek restaurants where I live, not even a decent middle-eastern or central-asian restaurant, so we couldn’t even go out and get this dish. The dish is juicy, flavorful, scrumptious, recognizable by the “number 8″ design on top, and completely depends on fresh ingredients. It...
Read MoreLagman (Uzbek soup/sauce)
This is an easy, delicious, completely satisfying, and fairly quick soup to make. The slicing and dicing is very much worth the effort, especially considering that you can do it a day in advance. Growing up in Uzbekistan (Tashkent), we ate this frequently enough to have registered in my mind when I was a child, and this version is almost the same as the one my grandma made (and her cooking is legendary). There are many variation on Lagman, some have it really “dry” and more like a sauce, some have it more “wet”, like a soup. Our version is the more like soup one. Hope you give it a try and enjoy it. Ingredients: 1lb lamb (cut into small...
