Second edition, corrected and expanded
Peter Weil
Stalik is with us
Peter Weil (1949–2009) – writer, journalist and traveler, radio and television presenter, winner of prestigious literary awards. Author of the most popular books “Genius of Loci”, “Map of the Motherland”, “Poems about Me”.
In co-authorship with Alexander Genis, he wrote the bestsellers “Russian Cuisine in Exile” and “Native Speech”, which were reprinted many times in the USA and Russia, as well as “60s: The World of the Soviet Man”, “Americana”, etc.
Author of the script and presenter of a television series based on the book “Genius of the Locus,” which was repeatedly shown on national air with great success. A historian of Russian culture, a keen researcher and political commentator, Pyotr Weil is also known as an expert and connoisseur of gastronomic art.
The book is not only extremely informative and useful, not only is it very exciting. This is a charming book. Starting from the very first word on the cover: it seems correct that the author’s name sounds diminutive to Russian ears. You immediately enter into a trusting relationship with the author and the book - of course, because it is he, Stalik, who sets the tone.
Everything is for you, detailed and intelligible, the author does not spare the details, accurately and fairly understanding that in the culinary business only the details matter. After all, general food correspondences are quickly grasped, the layout of the ingredients can be taken from a reference book, the order of actions can be followed scrupulously, but the food will turn out to be inedible. Stalik pays tribute to inspiration and talent, but relies on knowledge and work. That’s why he starts from afar – not with the cooking itself, but with the choice of utensils. “You definitely have to bargain hard - these sellers have a huge price reserve. If you are suddenly offered a cast-iron cauldron that has already been used, take it without hesitation: it is much less hassle than a new one, and it will also serve your grandchildren.”
“Grandchildren” – directly or indirectly – arise constantly. Cooking is a matter of life: not only in the immediate meaning of the word, but in the highest metaphysical sense. The cauldron is one of the instruments (Stalik calls it “tool”) for the continuation of the human race. Moreover, continuation in the most worthy way.
Food is a folk tradition, a folk character, a folk essence. Preserving and enriching culinary skills is, without any exaggeration, a social and moral task.
In addition to his own experience oozing from every page, the author refers to primary sources: “A seventy-year-old Bukharan Jew shared this secret with me, and he, in turn, was told about it fifty years ago by a ninety-year-old Uzbek.” After which, having outlined the ancient method of rendering lamb fat, Stalik adds his know-how, which, apparently, those old people from heaven look at with disapproval, but we accept with delight: “Remove the fat from the cauldron and use it for its intended purpose: that is, drink cold vodka with them.”
Vodka in Stalik’s book passes through as an interjection, it seems to be of no use in essence, but it’s nice to grunt and shudder: “It would be nice to have hot flatbreads with the liver: just dip them in the sauce like that and into your mouth. Well, and vodka, of course, from the freezer. But what about it?”
The primary importance - much more effective than guns and other civilizing tools - of Russian vodka for the development of the southern and eastern spaces is still underestimated. In the Caucasus, vodka met local wine, but Central and especially northern Asia were unconditionally conquered. In fact, the bottle turned out to be the only point of convergence of completely different ways of life. And so it turned out that “frying fat tail fat is one of the best appetizers for Russian forty-degree.” That’s why Stalik easily throws out: “They start drinking vodka for the second time while waiting for the pilaf...” - it is indicated under what, but then it is unshakable: “The libations stop shortly before the pilaf is brought out. This rule is strict, and it does not tolerate exceptions.” The Muslim world has not completely decomposed: the pilaf is holding up.
Everything is all the more convincing because it is accompanied by the author’s photographs of the dishes he created. Depicting food is a challenge that has not been overcome since the Dutch still lifes of the 17th century. In everyday life we know: what is tasty is beautiful. But how often in illustrations this correspondence disappears. Stalik also knows how to show: his pictures exude fragrance.
From the overwhelming information, from the awe of beauty - gustatory and visual, from the reverent attitude towards the subject, the author sometimes even drifts into high style. In the theme of lula kebab, “words from the Bible came to mind for some reason” - and a quote. But the combination of the Bible and lula-kebab does not offend; rather, you note with respect the poetic ear that caught the roll call of the same consonants in two such different words.
However, the general intonation of the book is simple-minded and conversational, so that the reader understands how not only to cook lamb ribs with beans and herbs, but also what to do afterwards: “Having eaten everything, the guests drink from thin glass glasses black tea, brewed to match the color of the rooster’s tail.” , with finely chopped sugar, and play backgammon.” Well, of course, you can’t drink espresso while playing baseball. You can't go wrong with the color of the tail.
The goal is clarity. Explaining how to mount a kebab, Stalik writes: “If we designate the meat as “O” and the lard as the letter “X,” then we should get “OOHO-HOO” on the stick. If we continue to do everything correctly, then these are the sounds that the eaters will make: “oooh-oh-hoo!”” Let’s remember.
And how useful is the advice for those who have overeaten: “Along with green tea, the unfortunate person should be given thinly chopped and washed onions, sprinkled with vinegar.”
Heated by the heat of the stove, the author is not only caring, but also passionate. There are things that he cannot, does not want, and does not advise anyone to cross. Stalik’s main enemy is the meat grinder: “There’s one thing I can’t understand: why did God allow people to create a meat grinder?” Here he rises to true artistic heights: “Have you seen people joyfully chopping veal tenderloin into small pieces, and then crushing it in this meat grinder-juicer? Tell me? Well, the same ones who are then very upset because their minced meat - in manti or dumplings, say - is somewhat dry? I have never seen such people in my life, but I have met them on the Internet.”
Stalik and carrots for pilaf are not grated (let alone put in a food processor), but only cut. As for meat, if you chop it with anything other than a knife, you are left with “rag-like crushed fibers.” Only the knife leaves juice in the meat. There must be principles.
For example, you can eat pilaf either with a spoon or with your hands. “But not with a fork! Eating pilaf with a fork is an insult to the cook: the fact is that a well-made pilaf should be crumbly,” and crumbly pilaf will crumble through a fork, Stalik rightly points out.
It is from this, and not from the numbers of ingredients, that trust arises, without which there is no point in opening a cookbook. From the feelings that burst through when, out of good faith, indicating cheaper varieties of products, the author almost plaintively conjures: “Honestly, I hope none of our readers are interested in how to save on food at the expense of its quality.”
At the same time, Stalik stands firmly on the ground, like a dug-in barbecue, knowing who and what he is dealing with: “Shashlik can be prepared from almost any type of meat, fish or poultry and with almost any type of seasoning and even without it at all. There is no “inappropriate” meat, “unsuccessful” seasoning, but there are methods of cutting meat, marinating and cooking that were incorrectly selected in this particular case.”
Current page: 1 (book has 19 pages total) [available reading passage: 11 pages]
Stalik Khankishiev
Kazan, barbecue and other men's pleasures
Stalic came to us from the World Wide Web. For more than five years now, he has been, as they say, the “guru” of the Russian gastronomic Internet, a star and legend of the most popular culinary sites and forums. In fact, behind the pseudonym Stalic there is a living person: his name is Stalik Khankishiev, and he lives in Uzbekistan, and not even in the capital Tashkent, but in cozy, patriarchal Fergana. And you would never say that this man has so much passion, so much cheerful, seething love of life. Stalik is a completely self-taught person, a brilliant amateur, but he really cooks amazingly, writes wonderfully about his cooking and takes absolutely breathtaking photographs of what he gets.
His book is by no means a collection of recipes for Uzbek cuisine, not a guide to Central Asian cuisine or even, more broadly, to Eastern cuisine. This is an invitation to look at the world through the eyes of a passionate, talented and generous person who has had the opportunity to penetrate an ancient and beautiful culture, filled with the flavors of such different countries and enriched with the traditions of such different peoples. This cuisine is bright, spicy, fun, sophisticated, yet simple. Such as Stalik himself is, and what his “philosophy of life” is.
Peter Weil. Stalik is with us
The book is not only extremely informative and useful, not only is it very exciting. This is a charming book. Starting from the very first word on the cover: it seems correct that the author’s name sounds diminutive to Russian ears. You immediately enter into a trusting relationship with the author and the book - of course, because it is he, Stalik, who sets such questions for her.
Everything is for you, detailed and intelligible, the author does not spare the details, accurately and fairly understanding that in the culinary business only the details matter. After all, general food correspondences are quickly grasped, the layout of the ingredients can be taken from a reference book, the order of actions can be followed scrupulously, but the food will turn out to be inedible. Stalik pays tribute to inspiration and talent, but relies on knowledge and work. That’s why he starts from afar – not with the cooking itself, but with the choice of utensils. “You definitely have to bargain hard - these sellers have a huge price reserve. If you are suddenly offered a cast-iron cauldron that has already been used, take it without hesitation: it is much less hassle than a new one, and it will also serve your grandchildren.”
“Grandchildren” – directly or indirectly – arise constantly. Cooking is a matter of life: not only in the immediate meaning of the word, but in the highest metaphysical sense. The cauldron is one of the instruments (Stalik calls it “tool”) for the continuation of the human race. Moreover, continuation in the most worthy way.
Food is a folk tradition, a folk character, a folk essence. Preserving and enriching culinary skills is, without any exaggeration, a social and moral task.
In addition to his own experience oozing from every page, the author refers to primary sources: “A seventy-year-old Bukharan Jew shared this secret with me, and he, in turn, was told about it fifty years ago by a ninety-year-old Uzbek.” After which, having outlined the ancient method of rendering lamb fat, Stalik adds his own know-how, which is apparently looked upon with disapproval by those old people from heaven, but we accept with delight: “Remove the fat from the cauldron and use it for its intended purpose: that is, drink cold vodka with them.”
Vodka in Stalik’s book passes through as an interjection, it seems to be of no use in essence, but it’s nice to grunt and shudder: “It would be nice to have hot flatbreads with the liver: just dip them in the sauce like that and into your mouth. Well, and vodka, of course, from the freezer. But what about it?”
The primary importance - much more effective than guns and other civilizing tools - of Russian vodka for the development of the southern and eastern spaces is still underestimated. In the Caucasus, vodka met local wine, but Central and especially northern Asia were unconditionally conquered. In fact, the bottle turned out to be the only point of convergence of completely different ways of life. And so it turned out that “frying fat tail fat is one of the best appetizers for Russian forty-degree.” That’s why Stalik easily throws out: “They start drinking vodka for the second time while waiting for the pilaf...” - it is indicated under what, but then it is unshakable: “The libations stop shortly before the pilaf is brought out. This rule is strict, and it does not tolerate exceptions.” The Muslim world has not completely decomposed: the pilaf is holding up.
Everything is all the more convincing because it is accompanied by the author’s photographs of the dishes he created. Depicting food is a challenge that has not been overcome since the Dutch still lifes of the 17th century. In everyday life we know: what is tasty is beautiful. But how often in illustrations this correspondence disappears. Stalik also knows how to show: his pictures exude fragrance.
From the overwhelming information, from the awe of beauty - gustatory and visual, from the reverent attitude towards the subject, the author sometimes even drifts into high style. In the theme of lula kebab, “words from the Bible came to mind for some reason” - and a quote. But the combination of the Bible and lula-kebab does not offend; rather, you note with respect the poetic ear that caught the roll call of the same consonants in two such different words.
However, the general intonation of the book is simple-minded and conversational, so that the reader understands how not only to cook lamb ribs with beans and herbs, but also what to do afterwards: “Having eaten everything, the guests drink from thin glass glasses black tea, brewed to match the color of the rooster’s tail.” , with finely chopped sugar, and play backgammon.” Well, of course, you can’t drink espresso while playing baseball. You can't go wrong with the color of the tail.
The goal is clarity. Explaining how to mount a kebab, Stalik writes: “If we designate the meat as “O”, and the lard as the letter “X”, then we should get “OOHOHOO” on the stick. If we continue to do everything correctly, then these are the sounds that the eaters will make: “oooh-oh-hoo!”” Let’s remember.
And how useful is the advice for those who have overeaten: “Along with green tea, the unfortunate person should be given thinly chopped and washed onions, sprinkled with vinegar.”
Heated by the heat of the stove, the author is not only caring, but also passionate. There are things that he cannot, does not want, and does not advise anyone to cross. Stalik’s main enemy is the meat grinder: “There’s one thing I can’t understand: why did God allow people to create a meat grinder?” Here he rises to true artistic heights: “Have you seen people joyfully chopping veal tenderloin into small pieces, and then crushing it in this meat grinder-juicer? Tell me? Well, the same ones who are then very upset because their minced meat - in manti or dumplings, say - is somewhat dry? I have never seen such people in my life, but I have met them on the Internet.”
Stalik and carrots for pilaf are not grated (let alone put in a food processor), but only cut. As for meat, if you chop it with anything other than a knife, you are left with “rag-like crushed fibers.” Only the knife leaves juice in the meat. There must be principles.
For example, you can eat pilaf either with a spoon or with your hands. “But not with a fork! Eating pilaf with a fork is an insult to the cook: the fact is that a well-made pilaf should be crumbly,” and crumbly pilaf will crumble through a fork, Stalik rightly points out.
It is from this, and not from the numbers of ingredients, that trust arises, without which there is no point in opening a cookbook. From the feelings that burst through when, out of good faith, indicating cheaper varieties of products, the author almost plaintively conjures: “Honestly, I hope none of our readers are interested in how to save on food at the expense of its quality.”
At the same time, Stalik stands firmly on the ground, like a dug-in barbecue, knowing who and what he is dealing with: “Shashlik can be prepared from almost any type of meat, fish or poultry and with almost any type of seasoning and even without it at all. There is no “inappropriate” meat, “unsuccessful” seasoning, but there are methods of cutting meat, marinating and cooking that were incorrectly selected in this particular case.”
A very important passage. Stalik surveys the entire gastronomic horizon as a whole. Here you can see a real master, who, unlike the petty amateur with his carefully nurtured narrowness (“I marinate only in lemon!”), has a broad outlook: it’s all just a matter of knowledge and skill. Let us imagine Pushkin declaring: “I only write sonnets.” We don't need such a Pushkin.
This resident of Fergana demonstrates a captivating and surprisingly modern global breadth at every step. Stalik, however, explains his gastronomic ecumenism historically: “In Central Asia there live extremely culinaryly receptive people. In just over a hundred years of close contacts with Russia and its peoples, a lot of Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar and even Korean dishes have been adopted here... For thousands of years, the states of Central Asia bordered and had the closest ties with Persia and the countries of the Middle East...” And then - about Chinese, Uyghur , Dungan, Indian influences.
Stalik even elegantly wove in the idea of culinary restoration of a collapsed empire in one place. He tells how once between Bukhara and Samarkand the Karakalpaks fed him incomparable jiz (there is a lamb dish with a musical name - it, like everything else, is described in detail). The delighted Stalik began to ask questions, the Karakalpaks began to share secrets, and then suddenly asked: “Tell me, boss, will there still be a USSR?” A direct transition from jizz to the Union is more than logical. If the former empire remains anywhere, it’s on the tables.
From the height of understanding and skill, Stalik allows himself almost a heresy: “It’s better to cook from good fresh pork than to cook from any kind of frozen beef, or not to cook at all.” And so throughout the book - a combination of traditionalism and cosmopolitanism. A separate chapter is about Jewish cuisine in Central Asia. Separately, the unification of the traditions of pilaf and couscous, that is, a bridge all the way to North Africa. It’s not for nothing that the last chapter is called “Dastarkhan at the crossroads of civilizations.”
By the way, the table of contents is an exciting read in itself, even though it should be published as a separate edition. “Finding a cauldron”, “Choosing and setting up”, “Tidbits - what remains of the lamb?”, “What does potato have to do with it?”, “Haltadagi savot, or “Saturday pilaf in a bag”, “By the way, about overeating”, “ Lula-kebab in uniform", "Beef steak in the Uzbek style"... I want - and need to! - read all this immediately and get to the stove (cauldron, barbecue). Cooking books are divided into those that are convenient for cooking, and those that are interesting to read. The best ones are a combination of both. This one is one of the best ones.
Peter Weil is a writer and journalist, radio and television presenter, winner of prestigious literary awards. Author of the most popular books “Genius Loci” and “Map of the Motherland”. In co-authorship with Alexander Genis, he wrote the bestsellers “Russian Cuisine in Exile” and “Native Speech”, which were reprinted many times in the USA and Russia, as well as “60s: The World of the Soviet Man”, “Americana”, etc. Scriptwriter and presenter of the television series based on the book “Genius Loci”, which was broadcast with great success on the “Culture” TV channel in 2005-2006. A historian and researcher of Russian culture, a keen traveler and political commentator, Peter Weil is also known as a connoisseur and connoisseur of gastronomic art.
Boris Burda. Own pleasures
I became acquainted with Stalik Khankishiev and his recipes very easily. One day, my TV cooking program received an email with a recipe. I receive a lot of letters, I try to quickly read them and decide what to do with him next. But it didn’t work out that way with this one – I read it, sat for a while and re-read it a couple of times. Just for my own pleasure.
For my show, the recipe was a little long - I would have gladly shortened it, but I didn’t raise my hand: there is nothing superfluous. But all the little secrets that could really hinder a novice cook were carefully revealed with intelligent explanations, precise details and gentle humor, making it completely harmless even for a capricious prima donna like yours truly to be taught something that he doesn’t know.
Actually, I was not taught, nor was I instructed, trained or lined up in two lines - I was told an interesting story that I also wanted to experience as a character. A story about pilaf - not about a plate of food or rice porridge with meat, but about a great dish, an ethnocultural sign of a grandiose and ancient civilization, with which we were criminally little familiar, even when we lived in the same country, and now what can we say... When I read the recipe to the end, I not only learned something new - I also comprehended, and experienced, and felt, not to mention the fact that I really wanted a plate or two of pilaf according to this recipe.
And I clearly remember one more thing - the thought that if a book of such recipes were on sale, I would take it not only for myself, but for all my friends so that they could also enjoy it. By the way, after the program they asked me: “Did he come out with a recipe book?” Now you can answer that it came out - and even with what photos the author himself took, you can hardly restrain yourself from tearing a page out of the book and devouring it without bread or even green tea. It’s a complete illusion that it smells not of printing ink, but of tender meat and aromatic spices, and your hand doesn’t rise to turn the page, although you understand that what’s next is no worse, but it’s hard to part with that too... In general, wah-wah-wah! - how much has merged in this word for our hearts... It’s good for you - since you’re reading this, the book is in your hands. And for friends? Don't miss the opportunity to please them, otherwise you will regret it later!
Boris Burda is a writer, poet, TV presenter, one of the veterans and most popular players of the “What? Where? When?”, as well as the intellectual television championship “Own Game”. In Ukraine – and now increasingly in Russia – Boris Burda is also known as a bright, witty “gastronomic publicist”, an expert in the history of culinary affairs, a collector of a wide variety of culinary traditions, customs, technologies, secrets and simply recipes. For several years now, the Ukrainian TV channel “Inter” has been broadcasting an extremely popular “culinary and cultural show” called “Delicious with Boris Burda.”
Preface by the author
I know a lot of people who are in love with pilaf and kebab. And I don’t know a single man who doesn’t secretly dream of learning how to cook them better than anyone else – at least among his friends.
It’s clear that we men have a lot to do, sometimes we are busy at work until late. Therefore, we can devote one, well, maximum, two days a week to cooking - in other words, on weekends we are ready to stand at the stove, at the hearth with a cauldron, and, even with even greater pleasure, at the grill. Therefore, as a rule, most men are not home cooks, but rather country cooks.
This country cooking, outdoor cooking, weekend cooking, to be honest, is definitely a man’s business. Well, in fact, is this really for a woman: on a fine summer day, go to the market, choose and purchase the most correct products from long-known butchers, greengrocers and spice sellers, sharpen knives, cut meat, chop firewood, make a fire, cook barbecue, or even pilaf, gather friends and treat them?
No, dear women. We cannot place such heavy responsibilities on your fragile shoulders. Leave them to us before it's too late!
At the same time, it should be noted that there is rarely a man who would not know the treasured recipe for a real shish kebab, told by one Armenian (Uzbek, Kazakh or someone else)... Or who would honestly admit: I don’t know how to approach pilaf at all, and as for other oriental dishes, I don’t need all this for nothing.
Somewhere and somewhere, everyone has already been told about this many times, everything has been explained and, perhaps, even shown. But you never know what we have seen and heard in life? You can’t remember everything!
It’s for such cases - well, when you suddenly forgot something, and simply haven’t had time to find out about something yet - this book is intended. Let it be a kind of guide to oriental cuisine for passionate and not lazy men. Let it remind someone of well-known, common truths, and let someone teach something new or even inspire them to create their own culinary masterpieces.
Here it must be said that I, the author of this book, am by no means a professional cook, but simply an amateur. Well, I love to prepare a treat with feeling, sense, and arrangement and gather friends around it. This hobby of mine has been around for many years, and a lot of things have accumulated in my luggage. I really hope that quantity has turned into quality - well, it’s up to the reader to judge that.
Among other things, I was very lucky - at least in geographical and gastronomic terms: I was born and have lived all my life in Central Asia, in Uzbekistan. Of course, the cuisine of Central Asia left its mark on my culinary views and on my culinary repertoire.
The gastronomy of Central Asia is amazingly rich, not only because it has accumulated its own culinary traditions, but also thanks to its very interesting neighborhood in this regard. The inhabitants of Central Asia always found themselves at the crossroads of trade routes and themselves quite often embarked on long journeys. Whether it was pilgrimages to holy places or travels of merchant caravans, each time spices, seasonings, new products were brought home, and with them new culinary experiences and recipes.
Of course, many of the introduced dishes did not take root; some were adapted and modified depending on local conditions, tastes and customs. But as a result of mixing a variety of culinary traditions, Central Asia has created its own unique cuisine, which now wins the hearts of culinary lovers in many countries. I can say that I am no different from my ancestors - just like they once did, I love to cook traditional dishes of neighboring peoples along with our national dishes. And I would really like not only to convey to my readers the beauty and splendor of modern Central Asian cuisine, but also to develop it as far as possible.
In general, it must be said that extremely culinaryly receptive people live in Central Asia. Over the course of a little over a hundred years of close contacts with Russia and its peoples, a lot of Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar and even Korean dishes have been adopted here. Nowadays, no one will be surprised by Russian solyanka, Tatar belyashi, Korean kuk-si, Crimean chebureks, Ukrainian dumplings and borscht on the menu of a Tashkent restaurant or cafe. True, all these dishes are performed with an easily perceptible Central Asian accent.
For thousands of years, the states of Central Asia bordered and had the closest ties with Persia and the countries of the Middle East. In ancient times, Persia was the center of culinary thought in the East - legends about the dishes of the Persian rulers can be found in the literary monuments of various countries. Need I say how much Persia influenced the cooking of Central Asia?
Business contacts with China led to a culinary revolution almost all over the world: spaghetti and pasta captured the imagination of chefs in Italy for a long time, and dumplings became Russian national food. And Central Asia did not stop contacts with China even for a day. Even rice, without which it is now impossible to imagine our cuisine, was imported from the Middle Kingdom just a couple of thousand years ago. The Turkic peoples from China - the Uighurs and Dungans - have brought so much to the cuisine of Central Asia over the past two hundred years that it is time to ask: “What did people eat here before them?”
India has always attracted merchants from all over the world with the aromas and taste of its spices. Huge armies of powerful empires fought for trade routes leading to it and access to its treasures, among which spices, seasonings and its cooking itself were considered the most valuable at all times. Of course, India also seriously influenced Central Asian cuisine.
So the culinary civilization in the center of which I was born, raised and live is fantastically rich, and I will probably never get tired of studying it. I sincerely hope that the scattering of treasures that the culinary arts of Central Asia generously bestows will captivate you too.
By the way, all the photographs in this book were taken by me from the very dishes that I prepared with my own hands in my own kitchen and which I once shared with family and friends. Everything is real - no montages, collages or imitations. I think that these simple and naive pictures will make my explanations clearer and help the reader imagine what some of the dishes should look like when finished and at various important stages of their preparation.
In a word, from an amateur to amateurs. With wishes of success and joy from our common hobby - cooking.
Here is the author's e-book Khankishiev Stalik. In the library site you can download for free or read online the e-book Kazan, barbecue and other male pleasures in txt or fb2 format, freely, without registration and without SMS.
Archive size with the book Kazan, barbecue and other male pleasures = 2.34 MB
“Cauldron, barbecue and other male pleasures”: KoLibri; 2006
ISBN 5-98720-026-1
annotation
For many years now, a huge multinational group of enthusiastic fans, distrustful skeptics and interested newcomers has been gathering on several popular gastronomic sites on the Internet, reading amazing culinary notes and admiring the masterful photographs with the mysterious signature Stalic. It is clear that the question is “Where is the book?” - they have been asking here for a long time.
This book is in no way a collection of recipes for Uzbek cuisine, not a guide to Central Asian cuisine or even, more broadly, to Eastern cuisine. This is an invitation to look at the world through the eyes of a passionate, talented and generous person who has had the opportunity to penetrate an ancient and beautiful culture, filled with the flavors of such different countries and enriched with the traditions of such different peoples. This cuisine is bright, spicy, fun, sophisticated, yet simple. Such as Stalik himself is, and what his “philosophy of life” is.
Stalik Khankishiev
Kazan, barbecue and other men's pleasures
photographs by the author
Stalic came to us from the World Wide Web. For more than five years now, he has been, as they say, the “guru” of the Russian gastronomic Internet, a star and legend of the most popular culinary sites and forums. In fact, behind the pseudonym Stalic there is a living person: his name is Stalik Khankishiev, and he lives in Uzbekistan, and not even in the capital Tashkent, but in cozy, patriarchal Fergana. And you would never say that this man has so much passion, so much cheerful, seething love of life. Stalik is a completely self-taught person, a brilliant amateur, but he really cooks amazingly, writes wonderfully about his cooking and takes absolutely breathtaking photographs of what he gets.
His book is by no means a collection of recipes for Uzbek cuisine, not a guide to Central Asian cuisine or even, more broadly, to Eastern cuisine. This is an invitation to look at the world through the eyes of a passionate, talented and generous person who has had the opportunity to penetrate an ancient and beautiful culture, filled with the flavors of such different countries and enriched with the traditions of such different peoples. This cuisine is bright, spicy, fun, sophisticated, yet simple. Such as Stalik himself is, and what his “philosophy of life” is.
Peter Weil. Stalik is with us
The book is not only extremely informative and useful, not only is it very exciting. This is a charming book. Starting from the very first word on the cover: it seems correct that the author’s name sounds diminutive to Russian ears. You immediately enter into a trusting relationship with the author and the book - of course, because it is he, Stalik, who sets such questions for her.
Everything is for you, detailed and intelligible, the author does not spare the details, accurately and fairly understanding that in the culinary business only the details matter. After all, general food correspondences are quickly grasped, the layout of the ingredients can be taken from a reference book, the order of actions can be followed scrupulously, but the food will turn out to be inedible. Stalik pays tribute to inspiration and talent, but relies on knowledge and work. That’s why he starts from afar – not with the cooking itself, but with the choice of utensils. “You definitely have to bargain hard - these sellers have a huge price reserve. If you are suddenly offered a cast-iron cauldron that has already been used, take it without hesitation: it is much less hassle than a new one, and it will also serve your grandchildren.”
“Grandchildren” – directly or indirectly – arise constantly. Cooking is a matter of life: not only in the immediate meaning of the word, but in the highest metaphysical sense. The cauldron is one of the instruments (Stalik calls it “tool”) for the continuation of the human race. Moreover, continuation in the most worthy way.
Food is a folk tradition, a folk character, a folk essence. Preserving and enriching culinary skills is, without any exaggeration, a social and moral task.
In addition to his own experience oozing from every page, the author refers to primary sources: “A seventy-year-old Bukharan Jew shared this secret with me, and he, in turn, was told about it fifty years ago by a ninety-year-old Uzbek.” After which, having outlined the ancient method of rendering lamb fat, Stalik adds his own know-how, which is apparently looked upon with disapproval by those old people from heaven, but we accept with delight: “Remove the fat from the cauldron and use it for its intended purpose: that is, drink cold vodka with them.”
Vodka in Stalik’s book passes through as an interjection, it seems to be of no use in essence, but it’s nice to grunt and shudder: “It would be nice to have hot flatbreads with the liver: just dip them in the sauce like that and into your mouth. Well, and vodka, of course, from the freezer. But what about it?”
The primary importance - much more effective than guns and other civilizing tools - of Russian vodka for the development of the southern and eastern spaces is still underestimated. In the Caucasus, vodka met local wine, but Central and especially northern Asia were unconditionally conquered. In fact, the bottle turned out to be the only point of convergence of completely different ways of life. And so it turned out that “frying fat tail fat is one of the best appetizers for Russian forty-degree.” That’s why Stalik easily throws out: “They start drinking vodka for the second time while waiting for the pilaf...” - it is indicated under what, but then it is unshakable: “The libations stop shortly before the pilaf is brought out. This rule is strict, and it does not tolerate exceptions.” The Muslim world has not completely decomposed: the pilaf is holding up.
With genuine dramatic flair, the author alternates everyday passages with encyclopedic inserted chapters - for example, about varieties of rice. Nine varieties are described in detail - why they are good, which dishes are especially advantageous for them, and how to prepare them.
Everything is all the more convincing because it is accompanied by the author’s photographs of the dishes he created. Depicting food is a challenge that has not been overcome since the Dutch still lifes of the 17th century. In everyday life we know: what is tasty is beautiful. But how often in illustrations this correspondence disappears. Stalik also knows how to show: his pictures exude fragrance.
From the overwhelming information, from the awe of beauty - gustatory and visual, from the reverent attitude towards the subject, the author sometimes even drifts into high style. In the theme of lula kebab, “words from the Bible came to mind for some reason” - and a quote. But the combination of the Bible and lula-kebab does not offend; rather, you note with respect the poetic ear that caught the roll call of the same consonants in two such different words.
However, the general intonation of the book is simple-minded and conversational, so that the reader understands how not only to cook lamb ribs with beans and herbs, but also what to do afterwards: “Having eaten everything, the guests drink from thin glass glasses black tea, brewed to match the color of the rooster’s tail.” , with finely chopped sugar, and play backgammon.” Well, of course, you can’t drink espresso while playing baseball. You can't go wrong with the color of the tail.
The goal is clarity. Explaining how to mount a kebab, Stalik writes: “If we designate the meat as “O”, and the lard as the letter “X”, then we should get “OOHOHOO” on the stick. If we continue to do everything correctly, then these are the sounds that the eaters will make: “oooh-oh-hoo!”” Let’s remember.
And how useful is the advice for those who have overeaten: “Along with green tea, the unfortunate person should be given thinly chopped and washed onions, sprinkled with vinegar.”
Heated by the heat of the stove, the author is not only caring, but also passionate. There are things that he cannot, does not want, and does not advise anyone to cross. Stalik’s main enemy is the meat grinder: “There’s one thing I can’t understand: why did God allow people to create a meat grinder?” Here he rises to true artistic heights: “Have you seen people joyfully chopping veal tenderloin into small pieces, and then crushing it in this meat grinder-juicer? Tell me? Well, the same ones who are then very upset because their minced meat - in manti or dumplings, say - is somewhat dry? I have never seen such people in my life, but I have met them on the Internet.”
Stalik and carrots for pilaf are not grated (let alone put in a food processor), but only cut. As for meat, if you chop it with anything other than a knife, you are left with “rag-like crushed fibers.” Only the knife leaves juice in the meat. There must be principles.
For example, you can eat pilaf either with a spoon or with your hands. “But not with a fork! Eating pilaf with a fork is an insult to the cook: the fact is that a well-made pilaf should be crumbly,” and crumbly pilaf will crumble through a fork, Stalik rightly points out.
It is from this, and not from the numbers of ingredients, that trust arises, without which there is no point in opening a cookbook. From the feelings that burst through when, out of good faith, indicating cheaper varieties of products, the author almost plaintively conjures: “Honestly, I hope none of our readers are interested in how to save on food at the expense of its quality.”
At the same time, Stalik stands firmly on the ground, like a dug-in barbecue, knowing who and what he is dealing with: “Shashlik can be prepared from almost any type of meat, fish or poultry and with almost any type of seasoning and even without it at all. There is no “inappropriate” meat, “unsuccessful” seasoning, but there are methods of cutting meat, marinating and cooking that were incorrectly selected in this particular case.”
A very important passage. Stalik surveys the entire gastronomic horizon as a whole. Here you can see a real master, who, unlike the petty amateur with his carefully nurtured narrowness (“I marinate only in lemon!”), has a broad outlook: it’s all just a matter of knowledge and skill. Let us imagine Pushkin declaring: “I only write sonnets.” We don't need such a Pushkin.
This resident of Fergana demonstrates a captivating and surprisingly modern global breadth at every step. Stalik, however, explains his gastronomic ecumenism historically: “In Central Asia there live extremely culinaryly receptive people. In just over a hundred years of close contacts with Russia and its peoples, a lot of Russian, Ukrainian, Tatar and even Korean dishes have been adopted here... For thousands of years, the states of Central Asia bordered and had the closest ties with Persia and the countries of the Middle East...” And then - about Chinese, Uyghur , Dungan, Indian influences.
Stalik even elegantly wove in the idea of culinary restoration of a collapsed empire in one place. He tells how once between Bukhara and Samarkand the Karakalpaks fed him incomparable jiz (there is a lamb dish with a musical name - it, like everything else, is described in detail). The delighted Stalik began to ask questions, the Karakalpaks began to share secrets, and then suddenly asked: “Tell me, boss, will there still be a USSR?” A direct transition from jizz to the Union is more than logical. If the former empire remains anywhere, it’s on the tables.
From the height of understanding and skill, Stalik allows himself almost a heresy: “It’s better to cook from good fresh pork than to cook from any kind of frozen beef, or not to cook at all.” And so throughout the book - a combination of traditionalism and cosmopolitanism. A separate chapter is about Jewish cuisine in Central Asia. Separately, the unification of the traditions of pilaf and couscous, that is, a bridge all the way to North Africa. It’s not for nothing that the last chapter is called “Dastarkhan at the crossroads of civilizations.”
By the way, the table of contents is an exciting read in itself, even though it should be published as a separate edition. “Finding a cauldron”, “Choosing and setting up”, “Tidbits - what remains of the lamb?”, “What does potato have to do with it?”, “Haltadagi savot, or “Saturday pilaf in a bag”, “By the way, about overeating”, “ Lula-kebab in uniform", "Beef steak in the Uzbek style"... I want - and need to! - read all this immediately and get to the stove (cauldron, barbecue). Cooking books are divided into those that are convenient for cooking, and those that are interesting to read. The best ones are a combination of both. This one is one of the best ones.
Peter Weil is a writer and journalist, radio and television presenter, winner of prestigious literary awards. Author of the most popular books “Genius Loci” and “Map of the Motherland”. In co-authorship with Alexander Genis, he wrote the bestsellers “Russian Cuisine in Exile” and “Native Speech”, which were reprinted many times in the USA and Russia, as well as “60s: The World of the Soviet Man”, “Americana”, etc. Scriptwriter and presenter of the television series based on the book “Genius Loci”, which was broadcast with great success on the “Culture” TV channel in 2005-2006. A historian and researcher of Russian culture, a keen traveler and political commentator, Peter Weil is also known as a connoisseur and connoisseur of gastronomic art.
Boris Burda. Own pleasures
I became acquainted with Stalik Khankishiev and his recipes very easily. One day, my TV cooking program received an email with a recipe. I receive a lot of letters, I try to quickly read them and decide what to do with him next. But it didn’t work out that way with this one – I read it, sat for a while and re-read it a couple of times. Just for my own pleasure.
For my show, the recipe was a little long - I would have gladly shortened it, but I didn’t raise my hand: there is nothing superfluous. But all the little secrets that could really hinder a novice cook were carefully revealed with intelligent explanations, precise details and gentle humor, making it completely harmless even for a capricious prima donna like yours truly to be taught something that he doesn’t know.
Actually, I was not taught, nor was I instructed, trained or lined up in two lines - I was told an interesting story that I also wanted to experience as a character. A story about pilaf - not about a plate of food or rice porridge with meat, but about a great dish, an ethnocultural sign of a grandiose and ancient civilization, with which we were criminally little familiar, even when we lived in the same country, and now what can we say... When I read the recipe to the end, I not only learned something new - I also comprehended, and experienced, and felt, not to mention the fact that I really wanted a plate or two of pilaf according to this recipe.
And I clearly remember one more thing - the thought that if a book of such recipes were on sale, I would take it not only for myself, but for all my friends so that they could also enjoy it. By the way, after the program they asked me: “Did he come out with a recipe book?” Now you can answer that it came out - and even with what photos the author himself took, you can hardly restrain yourself from tearing a page out of the book and devouring it without bread or even green tea. It’s a complete illusion that it smells not of printing ink, but of tender meat and aromatic spices, and your hand doesn’t rise to turn the page, although you understand that what’s next is no worse, but it’s hard to part with that too... In general, wah-wah-wah! - how much has merged in this word for our hearts... It’s good for you - since you’re reading this, the book is in your hands. And for friends? Don't miss the opportunity to please them, otherwise you will regret it later!
Boris Burda is a writer, poet, TV presenter, one of the veterans and most popular players of the “What? Where? When?”, as well as the intellectual television championship “Own Game”. In Ukraine – and now increasingly in Russia – Boris Burda is also known as a bright, witty “gastronomic publicist”, an expert in the history of culinary affairs, a collector of a wide variety of culinary traditions, customs, technologies, secrets and simply recipes. For several years now, the Ukrainian TV channel “Inter” has been broadcasting an extremely popular “culinary and cultural show” called “Delicious with Boris Burda.”
Preface by the author
I know a lot of people who are in love with pilaf and kebab. And I don’t know a single man who doesn’t secretly dream of learning how to cook them better than anyone else – at least among his friends.
It’s clear that we men have a lot to do, sometimes we are busy at work until late. Therefore, we can devote one, well, maximum, two days a week to cooking - in other words, on weekends we are ready to stand at the stove, at the hearth with a cauldron, and, even with even greater pleasure, at the grill. Therefore, as a rule, most men are not home cooks, but rather country cooks.
This country cooking, outdoor cooking, weekend cooking, to be honest, is definitely a man’s business. Well, in fact, is this really for a woman: on a fine summer day, go to the market, choose and purchase the most correct products from long-known butchers, greengrocers and spice sellers, sharpen knives, cut meat, chop firewood, make a fire, cook barbecue, or even pilaf, gather friends and treat them?
No, dear women. We cannot place such heavy responsibilities on your fragile shoulders. Leave them to us before it's too late!
At the same time, it should be noted that there is rarely a man who would not know the treasured recipe for a real shish kebab, told by one Armenian (Uzbek, Kazakh or someone else)... Or who would honestly admit: I don’t know how to approach pilaf at all, and as for other oriental dishes, I don’t need all this for nothing.
Somewhere and somewhere, everyone has already been told about this many times, everything has been explained and, perhaps, even shown. But you never know what we have seen and heard in life? You can’t remember everything!
It’s for such cases - well, when you suddenly forgot something, and simply haven’t had time to find out about something yet - this book is intended. Let it be a kind of guide to oriental cuisine for passionate and not lazy men. Let it remind someone of well-known, common truths, and let someone teach something new or even inspire them to create their own culinary masterpieces.
Here it must be said that I, the author of this book, am by no means a professional cook, but simply an amateur. Well, I love to prepare a treat with feeling, sense, and arrangement and gather friends around it. This hobby of mine has been around for many years, and a lot of things have accumulated in my luggage. I really hope that quantity has turned into quality - well, it’s up to the reader to judge that.
Among other things, I was very lucky - at least in geographical and gastronomic terms: I was born and have lived all my life in Central Asia, in Uzbekistan. Of course, the cuisine of Central Asia left its mark on my culinary views and on my culinary repertoire.
If the book Kazan, barbecue and other men's pleasures author Khankishiev Stalik gave you what you want, then that's good!
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I once had a teacher. Not a school teacher, but someone like that - a teacher in life. He taught me a lot, thank him very much, but I especially remember one simple rule of his: “If you want to do something well, first create the conditions.”
Let's start by discussing how to create conditions for cooking. Let's talk about the essentials. The most important and necessary thing is a cauldron! Cuisines of the Middle Nations
It is impossible to imagine Asia without this “shahinshah of cuisine”. This is probably why there are so many proverbs and sayings in Central Asia about the cauldron.
“The cauldron is large, but cracked,” this is what they say about a person who occupies a high position, which, however, does not provide him with income.
“An empty cauldron rings louder,” - you yourself guessed who it was about.
“A liar’s cauldron is not boiling,” also does not need interpretation.
Yes, but we are not here to talk about folklore, but about cuisine... So let's move on to practical matters.
Don't have a cauldron?
You have to buy it – that’s me, no joke! We will indignantly reject duckling pots, fishing pots on tripods, and even Chinese woks that look like a cauldron. You need to buy a cauldron.
Markets and stores today offer a lot of options, so the potential buyer is more tormented by the question “which cauldron to buy” than “where to get it.” I’ll try to help with the answer to the “what” question.
CHOOSE
First of all, we need to decide where we are going to use the cauldron. Either in the countryside - over an open fire, or in the apartment - on a regular kitchen stove? Let's call such a cauldron “touring”. Or will it be a cauldron exclusively for the dacha, in which we will cook only in the open air, on the hearth? Stationary, which means that in this case a monumental cauldron is needed. Or do we not have any dacha, but have an ordinary gas or even electric stove, on which we will have to cook in the historically foreseeable future? Then we are talking about a relatively lightweight option, modest in size and weight...
The most convenient cauldron is a hemispherical cauldron with a round bottom: it can be cast iron, or it can be so-called aluminum, made from light metal alloys. However, you can’t put it on a gas stove without a special stand, and we’re not even talking about an electric burner. This cauldron can only be used on the hearth, and it turns out that its place is only at the dacha, in a country house.
Then it’s worth purchasing a cauldron of 16–20 liters. You ask: “Why do I need such a big one?” Firstly, you can always cook a little food in a large cauldron without sacrificing quality.
And secondly... who knows? And it’s not that much – 16 – 20 liters. Pilaf, for example, can be cooked for 20 people in such a cauldron. It might happen that you need to feed 20 people?
Of course, it is best to install such a cauldron in a stationary fireplace with a canopy. It is better to make the hearth out of brick, and it is advisable to build the combustion chamber itself from refractory brick, and it is also very important to make a chimney with good draft. It will be good if there is a small area around the cauldron, at the level of its edges. It is convenient to place prepared foods, seasonings and utensils on it. If possible, it would not be superfluous to conduct gas into such a fireplace. Not that I'm suggesting cooking entirely on gas, no! But if there is gas, it is more convenient to light it first, and then lay the wood on top of the burner. When you need to quickly add or reduce the heat of the fire, the combination of gas and wood is very convenient, and when preparing dishes that require long, low heat, gas is indispensable. And, of course, the burner must be made wider so that it covers as much of the bottom of the cauldron as possible with flame. In general, the cauldron should sit in the hearth two-thirds of its depth, and the firewood should lie at such a distance from the bottom of the vessel that it is all engulfed in flames.
If it is not possible to arrange such a stationary fireplace for one reason or another, I advise you to make a portable fireplace from an iron barrel or a piece of large-diameter pipe. To remove smoke, you can make slits in the upper part of this structure, as shown in the photo, or it is better to make a chimney in the form of an inverted letter L in its rear part and strengthen a light tin pipe like a samovar. It is even better if the fireplace has a bottom and legs, so as not to lean too low towards the cauldron.
It’s easy to check whether your hearth is good - pour water into the cauldron and light a fire under it. The faster the water boils, the more evenly the steam bubbles are distributed on the boiling surface, the better and tastier the pilaf and any other dish will turn out in such a cauldron.
A brick or metal hearth can be made not only for a large cauldron, but also for a 7-8 liter specimen, what we conventionally called a “touring cauldron.” The shape of our “touring cauldron” must be selected taking into account the characteristics of the stove in the apartment. This slightly straightened bottom, as shown here, is suitable for both an open fire hearth and a gas stove. Of course, it will be very good if, given the shape of a cauldron with wide open walls, it will be a cast iron cauldron. When cooking on the stove, its massiveness will allow it to heat the entire inner surface more or less evenly.
And if you use a cauldron only on a stove, then it is more convenient to have one with a straightened bottom and the walls are almost parallel to each other. Nothing bad will happen if the cauldron is made of aluminum. If the walls and especially the bottom of an aluminum cauldron are thick enough, it will be just as convenient to cook in it as in a cast iron one - nothing will burn. And the slightly lower thermal inertia (due to the lighter weight of the cauldron itself) is very useful when cooking on an electric stove. You've probably noticed that after the heat on the electric stove is reduced, it continues to heat quite strongly for quite some time - this is called thermal inertia.
Talk that an aluminum cauldron will leak some toxic oxides into your food is nothing more than rumors. A very hard and durable film forms quite quickly on the surface of aluminum, so the aluminum cauldron does not pose any chemical hazard to your health. All over the world they drink beer from aluminum cans, and with great pleasure!
By the way, once again about the sizes of cauldrons for a gas or electric stove. A volume of 7 - 8 liters is most suitable for the average family. For example, in such a cauldron you can cook pilaf for 6 - 8 people, and feed the eaters to their fill with that pilaf. And if you are greedy with the size of the dish and cook a larger amount of the same pilaf at once, it will be very difficult to cook it with the flame power of standard burners - their heat transfer will not be enough. This means that you will have to look for a separate, powerful burner, buy a special gas cylinder, install an additional stove next to the main one... Why do we need these problems?
WE BUY AND SET UP
But let's get back to buying a cauldron. Where should you go after him? You can, of course, look in hardware stores - sometimes you come across cast-iron enameled things that are more or less similar in shape to cauldrons. Sometimes they are terribly expensive, Italian or French, exquisite silhouettes, bright colors... To be honest, they don’t inspire confidence in me. Well, they are not suitable for preparing real Asian dishes. But what should under no circumstances tempt you are thin-walled cauldrons made of unknown metal coated with Teflon. It’s better to approach people from Central Asia at any market - they will certainly help you and offer you the right cauldron. Be sure to pay attention to the inner surface of the cauldron - it should be smooth, if possible without noticeable cavities and sagging, which not only indicate poor casting quality, which may one day go sideways, but also make it terribly difficult to maintain: washing such a cauldron, especially a “burnt” one " - one torment. And you definitely have to bargain hard - these sellers have a huge price margin. If you are suddenly offered a cast-iron cauldron that has already been used, take it without hesitation: it is much less hassle than a new one, and it will also serve your grandchildren. If the cauldron is new (aluminum is absolutely white, cast iron is absolutely black, maybe with rust spots here and there), it must be pre-treated, otherwise you cannot cook in it.
There is always a little machine oil on the surface of a new cauldron - it is used during casting to make cast iron or aluminum unstick from the mold. To remove the oil, the cauldron should be put on fire for several hours so that all the oil burns out. Don't forget to open the windows wider and close the door to the kitchen! Do not light a fire that is too strong: you need to be especially careful with an aluminum cauldron - it can melt if left unattended for a long time.
Now take 500 grams of vegetable oil (can be used once for some kind of deep frying), pour it into a cauldron, heat it up very much and reduce the heat to below medium. You must wait until the surface of the cauldron acquires a hot reddish hue under the influence of boiling oil. But there is no need to heat the metal itself red-hot! After the bottom has become the way we need it, turn the cauldron on its side (if it is spherical, this is easier to do) and heat it on this side. Gradually process all the sides one by one using the same method. Now let the oil cool completely and pour it out. After this, the cauldron should be completely cooled, washed thoroughly with warm water and wiped with a cloth.
Now your instrument is ready to serve for many years, perhaps for your entire life. Meat will never burn in it, nothing will stick to the bottom, and everything you cook will turn out incredibly tasty and beautiful.
However, preparing a cauldron is a rather long process that can take several hours. It is possible that during this time firefighters will visit you - the smoke will be merciless! Isn't it better to wait until the summer season and do the work in the fresh air? Take the stove with the gas cylinder out into the yard - and that’s it!
Cast iron cauldrons should be handled with particular care: after each cooking, remove any remaining food from the cauldron and rinse it with warm water, without any detergents. Then pour some water into a clean cauldron and boil it. Drain the water with the remaining fat, wipe dry, and wipe the cauldron with an oily cloth - now you can clean it! If a cast iron cauldron is not used for a long time, rust may appear on its walls. In this case, the cauldron again needs to be heated a little and wiped with oil.
If someone cooked in your cauldron without following all the rules, it may happen that the food in it begins to burn.
Such a cauldron must first be heated, add a kilogram of salt, open the windows wide and put on a fan. Stirring the salt occasionally, make sure the cauldron does not overheat. After about an hour, the salt will turn brown. Now you need to pour it out, let the cauldron cool, and then heat the oil in it again.
Aluminum cauldrons are easier to handle than cast iron ones, but the phrase “I cook in a real cast iron cauldron” alone evokes genuine respect from people who understand.
Chapter 2. FIRST STEPS AROUND KAZAN
WELL? IS OUR KAZAN READY? Where do we start? From pilaf? Uh, no, wait. Let's first get comfortable with the cauldron, see what it can do and what we can do with it. But our pilaf is not going anywhere, we will still get there.
First of all, we must remember that in the vast majority of cases, the cauldron requires a good warm-up before starting cooking. Well, look: such a mass of metal, before it starts frying something, it itself must warm up, right?
So let's first put the cauldron on the fire. Not on the strongest, but on a medium fire. Let the cauldron heat up. Remember last time we oiled it before we put it away in the cupboard? Let this oil in his pores warm up properly. Pour a glass or two of cold water into the cauldron and wait for it to boil. Boiling water and steam bubbles rising from the bottom will cause the remaining oil to float from the pores of the cauldron. The cauldron has boiled - now you can drain the water. If the cauldron is large, like the one at the dacha, you don’t have to move it with your hands. You can simply scoop out or throw out the water with a ladle or slotted spoon. And those few drops that remain in the cauldron will happily boil away on their own.
Take a clean cloth and wipe away any remaining salt or scale from the cauldron, if any has formed. And heat it up a little more! Now the cauldron is ready. It's time to put... fat tail fat into it.
Yes, dear readers! I must tell you that without good fat tail fat, a cauldron sometimes seems like a thing that is not very necessary in the household. The vast majority of dishes are prepared using this fat-tailed lamb fat. We will return to this lard and its wonderful properties more than once, but for now I simply ask you: since your cauldron is already premiering, let’s pamper it with fat tail lard? Let there be a little shamanism in this; let’s not hesitate to put some sacred meaning into this action. After all, today we have a holiday - a new cauldron! As usual, we get fifty grams each, but what about the cauldron? And the cauldron - lamb fat!
How many? How? This is discussed in our first recipe. So, the characters: you, me and your new cauldron.
Kurdyuk
Lamb ribs with onions
150 g lamb fat (tail fat is highly desirable)
or 120 g of good odorless vegetable oil
600 – 700 g lamb ribs
500 g onion
Salt, cumin, coriander seeds
In a heated cauldron, which is set over medium heat, we lower the lamb fat, cut into cubes with a side of about one and a half centimeters. Don't mix! We are waiting for the lard to start melting. Seeing that the lower part of the pieces of lard has turned yellow, turn them over to the other side. After the lard has turned into small golden browned pieces floating on the surface of a fair amount of oil, take them out with a slotted spoon and put them on a small saucer - they will come in handy very soon!
The operation performed - which is mandatory for the procedure of preparing many dishes in a cauldron - will be further denoted simply by two words: “render the lard.”
If we are cooking with oil and not lard, then pour the oil into the cauldron, let it heat up well - until a bluish haze (not until the firefighters arrive, but until a light smoke, I said!) - and lower the whole small peeled onion into the cauldron . Let it cook and turn deep red on all sides, then scoop it out with a slotted spoon and discard. And from now on we will call this standard operation with oil “calcinate the oil.”
While the oil in the cauldron (we will also call the fat rendered from lard oil, agreed?) heats up for another five minutes over low heat, we will have time to complete one very important operation. Namely: add a little salt to the fried vegetables, sprinkle them with thinly chopped onions, which we also lightly salt, pour ourselves and our friends (if they are present in the kitchen or near our fireplace) a little bit of vodka - and have a snack with these same fried vegetables!
Having refreshed yourself, turn up the heat under the cauldron to maximum and drop the lamb ribs into the boiling oil.
If the meat is defrosted, remove it from the bowl, at the bottom of which the juice has already accumulated, and lower it into the cauldron only after the remaining juice has also drained. Don't throw away this juice just yet! As soon as the meat is fried and vegetables containing a lot of moisture are used, we will add this juice to the meat - it contains the flavor, which we do not want to lose at all.
The slotted spoon should be ready: in boiling oil, the underside of the ribs will brown instantly, and we want the ribs to be browned on all sides. Therefore, we will quickly turn them over to the other side and, in general, in the first minute we will stir them quite often, examining them carefully, so that they all get the same amount of oil and heat. However, very soon it will be possible to stir them less often. In total, our ribs will fry for three to four minutes. If you plan to cook more ribs at one time, then, accordingly, you will need about five to six minutes.
But as soon as the bones start to appear on the ribs, it’s time for us to remember about the other ingredients. What do we have there? Zira?
So, it’s time to omit the cumin - the cumin, like any aromatic spice, must come into contact with hot oil in order to transfer its taste and aroma to the oil. Aromatic substances dissolve best in oil. Coriander - followed by cumin, and a little salt. Let's mix.
Now is the time to lower the bow. And the onion should be cut into rings or half rings - this way it will give all its juices to the dish.
In order for the onion to release more juice, we will place it on top of the meat, lightly salt it, do not stir anything, reduce the flame under the cauldron to a level below average (remove a few logs if cooking with wood) and cover the cauldron with a metal bowl.
On top of such a bowl you can place some kind of weight, for example, a dish on which we are going to serve our lamb ribs. At the same time, the dish will warm up - this will be very useful, especially if it takes place outside the city in cool weather. Now let's wait. Thirty to forty minutes - it depends on the age of the lamb from which we cook, and, of course, on the amount of food in the cauldron. Let the heat be below average, even closer to minimum - the calmer and longer our ribs cook, the more tender and tastier they will turn out.
Spicy lovers do not need to add pepper to this dish. It is better to take red capsicum (be sure to be whole, without cracks!) and put it in a cauldron before covering with a lid. Dried peppers are placed under the onions, and fresh ones, if cooked in the summer, are on top. Well steamed in onion juice, even dried peppers will become soft and meaty. Then you can tear the pepper from the side of the spout and squeeze out the spicy pulp little by little.
Here you go. Has it been thirty to forty minutes? Or even an hour? Let's open! Most likely, the bowl will be tightly clamped in the cauldron. Then, holding the cauldron with one hand (with a towel, of course, so as not to burn your hands!), Hit the bowl with a slotted spoon from the other edge. Again, we need to be careful: jets of very hot steam will burst out of the cauldron, lest we get burned!
What kind of cumin is this? What kind of cumin is this?
ZIRA is a spice that grows in Central Asia, India and Iran. Outwardly, it is very similar to cumin, which often leads to confusion in many cookbooks, especially translated ones, where cumin is sometimes called cumin in English, or Indian cumin in German. Sometimes would-be translators, when translating Indian recipes, completely omit the adjective “Indian” - it seems useless to them, since we are talking about Indian cuisine - and leave only “cumin” in the recipe. Compilers who compile books about “a thousand and one recipes”, of course, do not take this point into account and as a result, there are many Asian recipes around the world where cumin is added to meat dishes. But for Indian meat (and not only) dishes, cumin is mainly used in various spice mixtures, while cumin is mostly used in baking and in European vegetable dishes. Need I say how different they are in taste and aroma?
Therefore, if you are reading an Indian or even just an Asian recipe involving meat or chicken, then keep in mind that you should not use cumin, but cumin.
So, the name adopted for this spice in India is “jeera”, in England – cumin, in Germany – Indian cumin, and in Central Asia – cumin. Let us also call it that in the future – zira. There are black and yellow cumin. The latter comes to us from Iran and India, often in ground form, and is sold in any decent supermarket. Uzbek pilafs use small, black cumin, which grows wild in the mountains of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. You can, of course, use large and pure Indian cumin in Uzbek pilaf, but you should keep in mind that these two types of cumin differ in taste and aroma in the same way as, say, Jonathan and Antonovka apples can differ.
Remove the bowl to the side, add heat under the cauldron to just above medium and immediately begin stirring the onions and ribs. Let's try to see if there is enough salt - if something is wrong, it's time to add more salt. And wait, stirring a little more - two or three minutes, until the moisture evaporates a little, and what remains thickens to the consistency of the sauce.
Put it on a plate! Would you like to sprinkle some herbs? Sprinkle!
And we serve!
You know, what we prepared is usually eaten with fresh, hot flatbreads. Not “with fresh flatbreads”, but “flatbreads”. Break off a piece of flatbread, grab a piece of meat with a soft, tasty golden brown onion and put it in your mouth. And the crumb of the flatbread is soaked in the resulting sauce. And they also put it in your mouth. And so many times. In the end, the dish on which the ribs were served will no longer need to be washed, and even less so your fingers!
Yes. Have you forgotten about the cauldron? As soon as it was emptied, it was necessary to pour boiling water into it, and let it sit on the fire a little longer. And then put a cloth on a slotted spoon, and wiped the entire cauldron with this cloth. If anything stuck somewhere, scrape it off and drain the water with the remaining food. And again - warm water and a clean cloth. And don’t forget to lubricate it with oil and... don’t remove it too far! We'll need it again very soon!
Let's return once again to the recipe for lamb ribs with onions, in order to understand and sort out what exactly we did during its execution, what culinary actions, so to speak, we performed and what we should call them in the future.
At the first stage, we heated the cauldron. For preparing many dishes, this action is absolutely necessary, so the next time I say “let’s heat the cauldron,” I’ll omit the details.
But, by the way, there are also dishes during the preparation of which the products are placed not in a heated cauldron, but in an absolutely cold cauldron.
At the second stage, lard was rendered (sometimes this action can be replaced by calcining some vegetable oil).
At the third stage, the meat was fried over high heat. This is a very common technique in Central Asian cooking. Properly fried meat has a special texture in the finished dish, and, by the way, it is this that gives the finished dish a special, “Uzbek” taste. To properly fry means to fry the meat with a crust. Some people make a common mistake: they put too much meat in a small cauldron or in a cauldron with insufficient flame. Then the meat, not having time to acquire a crust, begins to release juice and stews in this juice, turning into something completely different from what we need. Others go to the other extreme and fry the meat almost to black coals. This is also wrong! Properly fried meat has a brown-golden color, has some crust on the outside and is very juicy on the inside. The most important thing is that properly fried meat is tasty, smells good and is pleasing to the eye - so focus on this!
At the fourth stage, we lowered the onion into the cauldron and tightly closed it with a lid - a metal bowl. Onions contain a lot of juice, which will immediately begin to stand out. The juice will fall to the bottom of the cauldron, where it is very hot, and evaporate. Vapors will remain under a tight lid. Thus, hot steam is formed inside the cauldron, which naturally circulates inside the cauldron. This action in Uzbek cooking is called “dumlyash” - literally translated into Russian as “steaming”. Yes, at first glance it resembles stewing, and in fact, what is at the bottom of the cauldron, in the juices of the food, is stewed. But everything that is in the upper part of the cauldron is steamed. In the previous recipe it was part of the onion, but what’s stopping us from putting something else in the cauldron next time? However, this will be a different dish, which we will definitely talk about later. For now, let us remember that steaming is a fairly commonly used culinary technique for all cuisines of all Central Asian countries.
Classic "pie"
2 kg lamb or pork,
300 grams of fat tail lard or odorless vegetable oil
1.5 kg potatoes
Salt, cumin, hot and mild red pepper, dry herbs
Now let's talk about a dish in which the cauldron reveals another of its abilities - baking.
Let's take a couple of kilograms of good lamb: loin, saddle of lamb (lumbar part), or the upper part of the hind legs. Temporarily unavailable lamb can be replaced with pork, but the meat is not from a pig, but from a fully mature animal. Having estimated the amount of fat on the meat, let's take a little fat tail fat - so that in the end we would render 250 grams of oil from the meat and lard. If there is no lard, replace it with odorless vegetable oil. If we get our hands on fatty pork, we can do without oil at all.
We will peel the potatoes and make deep cuts so that they are better saturated with oil and meat juice. If the potatoes are too large, then cut them in half, but if not, leave them whole.
Cut the meat into large pieces, 200-250 grams each.
At the bottom of a cold cauldron we will place lard, cut into cubes, or in any other way, for us the most important thing is that the entire bottom of the cauldron should be lined with lard. And if we cook without lard, but with oil, then we need to proceed like this: heat the oil with one onion, as is done in all Uzbek dishes, and then let it cool, because if you put the potatoes in boiling oil, then they will simply fry, but this is not part of our plans.
Place potatoes on top of the lard or butter, salt them and sprinkle with seasonings (but not too “thickly”).
Salt all pieces of meat on all sides and also sprinkle with dry herbs.
If there are pieces with bones among the meat, then we place them first, and then put the pieces of pulp on top of the bones. It should look like a “meat lid” for the potatoes - the juice from the meat will soak the potatoes, and the meat itself will cook in steam from water and fat.
Having placed everything nicely in the cauldron (it should be no more than 2/3 full), close it as tightly as possible. It would even be nice to press down the lid with a weight.
We put it on the fire: first, in the first 20 - 25 minutes, let’s give it a strong fire, so that the lard melts and the entire contents heat up properly, right up to the lid, and then reduce the heat to a level “slightly above average.” Now you need to be patient for at least a couple of hours.
And finally we open the cauldron! Put the meat aside, and place the potatoes, baked on one side until red crust, on a large round preheated dish. After this, return the meat back to the cauldron, mix it in oil so that it is thoroughly soaked, and place it on top of the potatoes. Pour the remaining oil over the entire dish and serve.
When serving, you can sprinkle everything with herbs and sprinkle with lemon. It is good to serve raw onions separately, which should be cut into thin rings and washed under running water, and then salted and seasoned with table vinegar. It will be very tasty, despite the Spartan simplicity!
This amazing “pie” is a fairly recent invention. It was born literally 10-15 years ago, but instantly became incredibly popular throughout Uzbekistan, obviously due to its simplicity and “reliability”: it cannot be spoiled, it always turns out equally tasty.
And here is the story of this invention, which I heard directly from one of the authors.
In Margilan, in a teahouse on the outskirts of the city, once a week a group of friends—former classmates—gathered. There they cooked dinner for themselves, drank vodka and talked about life. Bachelor party, in a word. Since it was impossible to agree on the menu for the upcoming dinner in advance, they did the following: each of these seven or eight guys along the way bought one thing that he liked most. I saw fish - I bought fish, I saw good apples - I bought apples. It sometimes happened that all seven of them brought only flat cakes! Well, they drank tea with scones... But in most cases, from the brought products, a certain dish was still “formed” or something was “composed” right on the go.
And one day only two friends came to the teahouse for a meeting: one brought potatoes, and the other brought meat. They waited and waited for the others, but no one came, and then it was decided to start cooking, and if someone, being late, brought something else, then add “on the go.” Well, they put potatoes and meat into the cauldron, covered everything with a lid, lit a fire...
Then one of their friends, sitting at the next dastarkhan, invited them to have a glass of pilaf, then someone else invited them to try a new dish... In a word, when they remembered that they had food in a cauldron over the fire, it was already quite late and it got dark.
Fully confident that everything was hopelessly ruined, the friends opened the lid of the cauldron. One of them, sniffing the smell, remarked: “And it smells like a pie!...” It must be said that at that time the catering industry spoiled students and ordinary citizens with pies with potatoes, which were fried in cauldrons filled with oil on all the streets of the city. We tried it - delicious! Potatoes that looked almost burnt, meat that looked very deep-fried - but delicious!
This is how the name “Pie” took root behind this dish!
Of course, now the recipe has been somewhat improved and verified, but the idea is the same: only potatoes and only meat...
Let's figure it out, without delay, what exactly did our cauldron do this time? At the first stage, we let it warm up well. Both the cauldron and all the products in it at the same time - after all, heating in the cauldron, thanks to its thick, massive walls and wide area covered by the flame, occurs literally from all sides, with the possible exception of the lid. And, thanks to the fact that this time there was little moisture in the cauldron (only that in the meat), and the temperature was significantly higher than 100 degrees, the food was no longer stewed, steamed, but baked! So, our cauldron can not only fry, stew, steam, but also bake. It is no coincidence that its European counterpart is called the Dutch oven.
Without delay, let's talk about a few more dishes that use the same culinary technique. You can even say that these will not be some fundamentally new dishes, but variations of our “pie”.
Kokand “pie”
150 – 200 g fat tail fat or 120 g vegetable oil
1.5 kg lamb from the shoulder or back
1 kg potatoes
Salt, cumin, black pepper - to taste
Yes, in Kokand they treat the “pie” a little differently. Lard is rendered in a heated cauldron, then potatoes are fried in lard over medium heat. But the potatoes are not fried until fully cooked, but only until a crust appears, as here in the photo.
In order for the potatoes to turn out like this, you need to lower them into the cauldron in parts. Before each subsequent batch of potatoes, the oil is allowed to warm up. After frying, sprinkle the potatoes with salt and keep them in a warm place, but do not cover them so that the crust remains crispy.
After the potatoes, in the same way, but over a higher heat, fry large pieces of meat - about the size of a fist - for 10 - 12 minutes, so that there is still quite a bit of juice left in it, but at the same time a uniform golden brown crust is formed.
Then excess oil is removed from the cauldron, leaving only 50 - 100 grams, the flame is reduced, the meat is salted and sprinkled with some spices, and potatoes are placed on top of it. So as not to wash off the salt and spices from the potatoes and meat, pour a little boiling water along the wall of the cauldron - literally a few tablespoons, but no more than half a glass. Now everything is as usual: cover with a tight lid, prop it up with a weight and leave the cauldron on low heat for 30 - 40 minutes. The time depends on the age of the ram and the size of the potato pieces. It would be nice to find some kind of harmony here: if the ram is not in its first youth and its meat requires a long cooking time, then the potato pieces should be larger.
But such a “pie” is not very different in taste from the one prepared using the first method, except that the meat turns out to be slightly stewed. And for those who want to give it a more festive look, I suggest making the cooking process slightly more complicated.
"Pie" for virtuosos
1.5 kg potatoes
2 kg lamb with bones
150 g lamb fat or 120 g vegetable oil
50 g butter
100 g whole milk
or 6 percent cream
150 g cheese
100 g prepared mushrooms
200 g leeks or regular onions, combined with green
2 – 3 pieces of bell peppers of different colors – optional
Greens for decoration
Salt, cumin, ground red pepper, black pepper - to taste.
Wash large, oblong potatoes well. There is no need to peel them or cut them into pieces. Place a metal mesh in the cauldron, place the potatoes on it, close the cauldron with a lid and place on medium heat. The potatoes will bake for about 50 - 70 minutes until fully cooked.
Let the finished potatoes cool so that the potatoes can be safely held in your hand. During this time, melt a little lard in a cauldron and fry the meat in it until half cooked.
Now we cut each potato lengthwise and scrape out most of the core, leaving a little on the walls. From the resulting mass we make standard mashed potatoes, to which we add a little milk and butter. You can add finely chopped mushrooms or leeks, or any other filling, to the finished puree of your choice. Add grated hard cheese to the puree, mix well and fill with the resulting mass into half of the potatoes - with a small heap.
Leaving a little oil in the cauldron, lower the meat into it, salt it and sprinkle with spices, and carefully place the stuffed potatoes on top of the meat, in one row.
Let's cover the cauldron and put it on the fire; the first five to ten minutes the fire is above average, then below average. At the same time, we make sure that the cauldron is hot enough and in the upper part - the cheese in our minced meat should melt. In total, the closed cauldron sits on the fire for 20–30 minutes.
When serving this clever “pie” on the table, you can also sprinkle everything with herbs or thinly chopped onions, sprinkled with vinegar or lemon.
You know, sometimes chefs get creative, trying to show all their imagination, but you try what they have prepared, and... it’s not impressive at all! On the other hand, sometimes the simplest dishes and the most ordinary food combinations make you eat with appetite. The point, it seems to me, is far from being a matter of the sophistication of the cooks or the sophistication of the ingredients. More often, the secret of taste lies in the approach to cooking and in the generosity of the soul of the one who stands at the hearth or stove.
Just fried potatoes
1 kg of good, strong potatoes
250 – 300 g lard or vegetable oil
500 g onion
200 – 300 g ham, smoked loin or other prepared meat
2-3 bell peppers
Greenery
Spices to taste
Salt
Heat fat tail fat in a cauldron. It's a pity for the fat tail - take it in half with the kidney one. If not, at least heat up some vegetable oil.
Fry the potatoes, cut into large chunks, in sections until golden brown. Take it out, set it aside to dry and sprinkle with salt until it's all fried.
Let the oil cool a little in the cauldron and first put the onion, cut into rings, into it, and on it lay a layer of some prepared meat, cut into small cubes.
On top of the meat - fried potatoes, which need to be sprinkled with cumin, and on top of the potatoes - bell pepper strips. For aroma - greens. Now close with a tight lid.
Ten minutes on medium heat - it began to rustle - another ten minutes on low heat.
And open it.
And serve.
So how? Impressive? That's the same! Everything is COOKED in one pot, prepared without any special tricks, and it turns out not just tasty, but very tasty! Can you imagine what an achievement the invention of the cauldron was for the civilization of ancient nomads?
But not every “good of civilization” has such noble and useful properties. For example, I just can’t understand one thing: why did God allow people to create a meat grinder? Probably some German invented it... but no, a German could not, despite his love for sausage. An Englishman probably invented it. The person is lazy and accustomed to eating anyhow, not caring at all about the taste.
Well, actually, I don’t care who. I don't want to know his name. Because the only more harmful tool in the kitchen is a food processor. I’m ready to answer for every word I say—I’ll shave my beard if I’m telling a lie!
Well, you never know who makes some harmful inventions? But the fact is that it also happens that these inventions, like Tide washing powder and Maggi cubes, themselves come to our house.
Or they are inherited. Or they win the lottery.
And people begin to rejoice at the acquisition and shove whatever they can into what they have acquired. Have you seen people joyfully chopping veal tenderloin into small pieces and then squeezing it in this meat grinder-juicer? Tell me? Well, the same ones who are then very upset because their minced meat - in manti or dumplings, say - is somewhat dry? I have never seen such people in my life, but I have met them on the Internet.
You know, I'm not against the idea of minced meat as such. And I don’t mind grinding some products down to a paste-like state. Honestly. But you have to think with your head what and why.
Now, if you turn meat that is quite tough and unsuitable for frying into minced meat, I’m for it! Take a good, sharp knife, a comfortable board, sit down at the table and cut. And cut the onion the same way. When you cut this meat with a good sharp knife, all its juices will remain in the meat; it will retain its original, perhaps even very expressive, taste in the minced meat. And the chopped meat can be fried for less time, and it will retain the flavor, but at the same time it can be chewed without any problems. If ease of chewing is the main goal of the cook, of course.
Will you put this second category meat through a meat grinder? What will be left of him? Rag-type crushed fibers - separately, juice from meat - separately; and out of all this mess you want to make delicious food? And in order to retain the flowing juice, will you begin to add to this very cutlet everything that comes to hand - starting from bread? And you will bread it in breadcrumbs or flour, right? Fear God!
But what is this - I’ve even met people who put... liver into a meat grinder!
This delicate substance, which you only have to hold over the coals for five minutes and any baby, happily kicking its legs, will easily bite it with its pink toothless gums, they shove... into the meat grinder.
And then they look at the result, which personally doesn’t remind me of anything except a line from a medical textbook “... the patient’s stool looks like meat slop...”. They look and begin to think: what to do with this now? And they decide to add either eggs, or flour, or semolina, they understand that the matter is hopelessly spoiled and it will never be tasty again, they begin to hide the results of their “creativity” with onions and mayonnaise crushed in a meat grinder... Yes, ugh, in a word !
Why didn’t anyone teach you how to cook liver, huh? Where, where were your mothers and aunties looking?! Well, you want to indulge yourself with a meat grinder, having a good liver in your hands, and, in the end, make yourself a pate! Why would you feed your children these cow dung cakes? Why waste a valuable and nutritious product - mayonnaise - by spreading it on these very flat cakes to make a liver cake?
Leave the liver separately, the meat grinder separately, put the mayonnaise in the refrigerator until it separates, and listen here. I'll tell you how to cook liver. How I love to cook it.
I simply cannot pass or drive past a good fresh liver. If the liver shines, if it is all an even, beautiful color, is it possible to refuse to buy it immediately? Beef liver is good, but who would know what lamb liver is like! Especially if it’s just taken out of the carcass and is still so hot that steam rises from it.
Liver with vegetables
Whole lamb liver
100-150 g fat tail fat
500 g onion
1 – 2 bell peppers
1 green hot pepper
3 – 4 tomatoes
bunch of cilantro
Pinch of black pepper
Salt
Cut the liver into small pieces, maybe two or three centimeters, sprinkle with coarse salt and set aside for now. Let's cut the onion into rings, peel the bell pepper from the seeds and also cut it into half rings, and cut the tomatoes thinly and thinly. Wash the cilantro thoroughly and chop it.
Let's heat the cauldron well. Let's cut the lard and melt it in a cauldron; Let's remove the roasting. By this time, the liver should be rinsed from the released blood and then all the water should be drained and dried with a kitchen napkin. Now carefully lower the liver into the cauldron and immediately begin stirring it.
After a few minutes, as soon as the liver turns white and is only slightly fried, cover it with a layer of onions, then tomatoes, bell peppers and cilantro. Place a green hot pepper on top. Now let’s reduce the heat to low and cover the cauldron with an enamel cup, on which we’ll place some weight.
After about twenty minutes, open the cauldron, turn up the heat to medium, so that everything boils intensely, add salt and pepper.
Now let’s take the slotted spoon in our hand again and start mixing everything, putting the green pepper aside so as not to break it for an hour - then it will give too much heat. After about three minutes, place the finished liver along with the sauce and vegetables on a large round dish. Place the green pepper on top of everything and off you go! Under no circumstances should you leave the liver in a hot cauldron: it will dry out.
In this case, it is best to eat directly from a large common dish, before everything has cooled down. It would be nice to have hot flatbreads with the liver: just dip them in the sauce and into your mouth. Well, and vodka, of course, from the freezer. But what about it?
IF we are already talking about recipes in which the use of a cauldron allows you to achieve a remarkable result based on a very small set of the simplest ingredients available at any half-decent bazaar, it’s time to remember another amazing dish, this time having a completely precise and a specific geographic "area of origin".
Halfway between the glorious cities of Tashkent and Samarkand there is a town named Jizzakh. I know exactly why this town is called that: the fact is that they cook a very tasty dish called “jizz”. But it’s better to pronounce this word as “zhiz”: not “and” in the middle, but “y”, as in the Russian word fat - “zhYr”. And I also know exactly why this dish is called “jizz”: when it’s cooked from a cauldron, this sounds like this: jizzzz, zhyyyyyz. And sometimes it splashes! But how delicious it is! Just meat, just lamb, nothing, no frills, so to speak, and it’s very simple to prepare, but the result is simply fantastic.
So, not far from this very Jizzakh, halfway, as already mentioned, between Tashkent and Samarkand, cheerful Karakalpaks wave their hands to travelers passing in cars (and in those places people from the ancient Karakalpak tribe traditionally settle, although the bulk of the Karakalpaks live much further north, on the banks of the Aral Sea and in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya). And they wave their hands for travelers to stop, get out of their cars and sit on colorful mattresses in front of low tables - drink tea, ward off flies and eat jiza. We would eat, lick our fingers and move on - to Samarkand or Bukhara, thinking: how do they prepare it, this jizz?
Really, how? How do they make it so tasty, so soft, so golden brown, with such a crispy crust from frying? And why does he jizz and sizzle so appetizingly when he is driven around the cauldron with a slotted spoon?
To tell you honestly, I know. Because I drove past those Karakalpaks and stopped, seeing the inviting waves of their hands. He stopped to eat and ask: “How do you, Karakalpaks, cook such delicious, delicious jizz? Confess, damn it, before it’s too late.” Well, as is known, they confessed.
“We cook,” say the Karakalpaks, “lamb meat like this, and then fry it like this.”
- Uh, nooo! Give me the details, I’m asking you in a good way! – I shook my finger at them.
“If the lamb is young, then we cook it for thirty minutes, and if it’s not young, then, of course, we cook it for an hour!” – the good Karakalpaks sluggishly kicked back.
And then suddenly the Karakalpaks take it and ask me:
- Tell me, boss, will the USSR still exist?
- Will! – I answered and shook with my clean hands the friendly outstretched hands of the Karakalpaks. At the same time, my cold mind prepared to record the details of the preparation of jizz, and my hot heart began to beat more than ever in anticipation of meeting the beautiful.
I asked around and found out, but... somehow I just couldn’t get together and prepare jizz at home. And then one day I finally did it! Are you wondering how I made jizz at home? Then listen.
Ordinary jizz
Lamb with bones from any part of the carcass
Water
Salt
Zira
Black pepper
I took a small cauldron and put the meat in it. Yes. This means that I used to cut the meat into pieces the size of a chicken egg, and the meat with bones may be larger. The shank and the bones from the hip joint, as well as several other large pieces, just fit into the cauldron. And he filled everything with water. The water just covered the meat. And he put it on fire. When it boiled, cover with a tight lid and turn down the heat.
You don’t need to skim off the foam, you don’t need to add salt and bay leaves, or even – you’ll laugh – you don’t need to add peppercorns to it. Because the Karakalpaks in the steppe have no time to do such nonsense as skimming foam and throwing it out for the joy of the dogs. And they ran out of pepper and bay leaves even under Alexander I. There is only a little salt left, so they usually use it at the very end.
And the meat was slowly boiling. I don't know what time it is. More than an hour, for sure.
I took out the meat and looked at what was left in the cauldron. A glass of broth, and on top of it a layer of lamb fat boiled down, a layer as thick as a spoon - that’s what’s left in the cauldron. I carefully removed that fat and put it into a large cauldron.
He heated it up, let it splatter off any droplets of broth that had fallen, and... began to fry those pieces of meat on it. I fried it on one side, once or twice, and turned it over. Turned it over and sprinkled it with a little salt and cumin. Turned it over again and sprinkled it again. And he brought it to the table.
Well, everyone came running here, began to try and lament: “Why did you cook so little? Why, were you sorry, or what?” And I firmly told them: “There will be more pilaf!” We tried it and it’s fine!”
To tell the truth, it would be possible to add a little more black pepper to the salt and cumin to open up the taste of the meat. Well, then you try it!
By the way, what do I want to say? The Karakalpaks, as people with very kind and pure hearts, sell this jiz to travelers. And for themselves, they prepare this dish a little differently. Do you know why? Well, look, every day they slaughter one or two lambs for sale in the form of jizz. What do they eat themselves? Meat too? No, it's too wasteful for them. In extreme cases, they will drink the broth that remains after cooking the meat. And for themselves they prepare a similar dish, only a little differently, and not from meat, but mainly from the entrails of a lamb. Because they believe that these are by-products, they are worse than meat. But you and I will not think so, we will not think so not only because it is very tasty, but also because some peoples who traditionally eat lamb prepare this dish every time they cut a lamb. Well, they cook with different national characteristics. Let's take a look at this matter and try to cook jiz-byz in Azerbaijani style?
I understand perfectly well that my potential readers do not slaughter fat-tailed sheep twice a week and have nowhere to get intestines, lungs, fat-tailed casing, etc. Then the question arises - why is such a recipe even needed in the book?
First of all, you never know! What if you have to slaughter a lamb once in your life, or at least be close to the place where it happens...
Secondly, for this dish the innards of the lamb are perfectly replaced with the innards of the pig, except perhaps the testicles.
Thirdly, I want to give you some advice. Meet the butchers and try to make friends with them. In fact, it’s not just money that decides everything! Sometimes basic friendliness, kind words and genuine interest in a person’s work can do more than money. I have been lucky to such an extent that I have been buying meat from the same butchers for more than ten years and have developed the most friendly relations with them. Therefore, I can always ask the butcher to bring me any spare parts from the lamb. Fourthly, sometimes you can make some substitutions. Here the fat casing, for example, can be replaced, as already mentioned, with well-processed pork skin, use your imagination! This amazing dish is quite easy to prepare.
Well, what are we going to make it from? Yes, of all that is inside a ram, and even a little of what is outside...
Tidbits - what's left of the lamb?
Do you KNOW what I mean by fat tail? I'll tell you.
Here they are slaughtering a fat-tailed sheep. A good butcher, a good owner, will always make sure that nothing is wasted, that everything goes to good use - from the hooves to the head, from the intestines to the lungs. How many delicious things can you make from all this - do you know? From the head - a special type of meat snack “kalya-gusht”, like the brawn you know. The legs make the most tender hash. One tripe is worth it! What about liver sausages with rice, which are called “khasip” in Uzbek? Two or three sticks of lamb testicle shish kebab mixed with fat tail fat will lift with their miraculous power... even a dead man from the grave!
And far from the last place in this glorious series is occupied by the skin removed from the fat tail. That's exactly what it is - a fat-tailed casing. It is soaked, soaked, shaved, scalded, some even scorched with fire from a blowtorch, scraped, washed, rinsed again and brought to a quite decent appearance. After all the procedures, it looks about the same as the skin on a pork ham.
Strips of meat and strips of lard are wrapped in this skin, generously sprinkled with spices, tied with a harsh thread, and the resulting roll is cooked for three hours. And recently our butchers came up with the idea of wrapping dried horse meat in this casing. We cooked it, tried it – smell-smell-smell!…
But you can simply use it when preparing pilaf, for example. And in a special mash-kichiri (we will also get to that someday) it is simply irreplaceable, since it gives a unique accent to the entire dish.
But do not despair if it turns out that there is no way to find such a shell somewhere in Moscow or New York. In the end, it will be delicious without it. Although I don’t know: maybe it’s really worth trying to replace it with pork skin?
Jiz-byz
Meat from the peritoneum
Lamb eggs
Fat tail casing
Lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, spleen
Fat Guts
A little fat from the back
Lots of onions
Salt, various spices and maybe some tomato paste
Well, of course, clean the intestines, turn them inside out and scrape them out, rinse them with coarse salt and let them soak. Scald the fat casing, rip out all the hair, singe it, scald it again, scrape it out, rinse well.
Remove the lamb eggs from their shells. Cut the kidneys in half, rinse, soak and rinse again.
Boil the lungs, heart and fat tail casing for a short time first - 15 - 20 minutes will be enough.
And cut everything into pieces, as in the picture.
The first to go into a well-heated cauldron will be fat tail fat and the casing. But we will not render the lard, but quickly fry it over high heat. A little oil will still come out, then lower the meat from the peritoneum; stirring constantly, fry it too, pepper it with red peppers - hot and sweet, add turmeric, and then leave in everything else that God sent.
Yes, did you cut the onion? You need to cut one and a half kilograms of onions into small cubes. And when all the meat is lightly tacked and fried, sprinkle with cumin and black pepper. Now we put the onion on top of everything, cover the cauldron tightly and reduce the heat almost to a minimum - a twenty-minute break!
Let's open it, put a couple of spoons of tomato paste, mix everything properly, add heat, let the excess moisture evaporate and go ahead - onto heated dishes, sprinkle with herbs and... to your health!
Do you want to drink three times fifty grams of good grape vodka?
OR maybe mulberry is better?
Unlucky - you have neither one nor the other?
Well, at least pour yourself some whiskey, or something... how can you do that? A?
Yes. Because it’s a sin to eat such food without a good glass!
And with a glass - just right!
You know what? In the Karakalpak jiz, everything is simple and unsophisticated: the preliminary preparation of meat was boiling it. But what if we try to complicate the task a little? And at the same time improve, enrich the taste and aroma of our next dish? Let's use marinating meat instead of boiling. Like in a barbecue. And this dish will be called completely differently: kazan-kebab.
Kebab, translated from many Turkic languages, means “kebab”. We will talk about it in detail - in a separate extensive chapter. But here it’s not a sin to get ahead of yourself. The fact is that a kazan kebab is a shish kebab in a cauldron, as you guessed correctly. So the purchase of this universal tool also gives us a unique opportunity to indulge in barbecue even in winter, when it’s cold and there’s no time for going out into nature. In this case, a “city” cauldron is best suited - with a flat bottom so that it can be placed on the stove. Although, in a pinch, a good, heavy, cast-iron frying pan will do.
Kazan kebab on sticks
1 kg beef or pork tenderloin
200 g of lard (preferably fat tail, but not fresh pork)
4 – 5 onions for marinade
1 lemon
Salt, spices: cumin, coriander seeds, dry herbs
Clean the meat from films, excess fat and veins, cut along the fibers into beautiful cubes 2.5 by 2.5 cm.
Cut the onion into thin rings, sprinkle with a tablespoon of salt, all the spices and mix it all thoroughly and rub with your hands until the onion begins to release juice upon contact with the salt.
Now add the meat to the same bowl where you mashed the onions and mix everything again.
Set the bowl with the meat aside, and in the meantime squeeze the juice out of the lemon, dilute it with 100 grams of highly carbonated water and pour it into the marinade. But by this point the meat should already have absorbed some of the onion juice and changed color. Be sure to use onion juice first, and then lemon juice!
Now we’ll cover it all with a plate, press it tightly with our hand so that the juice covers all the meat, and leave it like that - let the meat marinate for at least 30-40 minutes, or better yet an hour.
After waiting the allotted time, we take the meat and string it onto sticks: four pieces of meat, for example, and between them, in the middle, a piece of lard almost the same size. It doesn’t matter whether you like lard or not, you don’t have to eat it afterwards, but you need to skewer it: then the meat certainly won’t turn out dry and tasteless. One more note: there is no need to shake the meat off the onion, let it be straight with those rings that are stuck to it.
Not too hot (60 - 80 degrees), grease a hot cauldron or frying pan with oil or lard - just a little bit, just so that the meat does not burn from contact with the bottom of the cauldron.
Place the kebab sticks in a cauldron in one row and place it on medium heat without closing the lid. About seven or eight minutes after a beautiful crust has formed, turn the sticks over, hold for the same amount of time and take out this portion.
When all the kebab is fried in this way, place the sticks on a baking sheet, which we grease with the juice and fat formed in the cauldron, and put it in the oven for another fifteen minutes, preheated to 180 degrees, so that the meat is ready.
And then serve on a platter, sprinkled with raw, thinly chopped onions, sprinkled with table vinegar, accompanied by ripe tomatoes and dry red wine.
But you can cook it differently. And here, for sure, you can’t do without a cauldron! And it should be a fairly spacious, heavy cauldron.
Classic Kazan kebab
1 kg of meat with fat (from lamb to pork - to choose from)
5 – 6 onions for marinade
Salt, spices: cumin (if available), coriander seeds, dry herbs
So, clean the meat from films and veins, cut along the fibers into beautiful cubes 2.5 by 2.5 cm.
Cut the onion into thin rings and place in a bowl, add salt (a tablespoon of salt), sprinkle with all the spices, mix thoroughly and knead with your hands until the onion begins to release juice upon contact with the salt.
Now put the meat in the onion and mix everything again. To speed up the process, you can add highly carbonated mineral water.
Now cover with a plate, press it tightly with your hand so that the juice covers all the meat, and leave to marinate for at least 4 - 6 hours.
Then remove the meat piece by piece from the marinade, remove all the onions from it and put it on a dish so that all excess liquid drains from it.
Beforehand, put a dry cauldron, not greased with any oil or fat, to heat over high heat. It should heat up to such an extent that the meat, if applied to the wall, even at the very top of the cauldron, would instantly “stick” tightly.
Now we glue the meat not to the bottom, but to the walls of the hot cauldron: take a piece, apply it with your hands (carefully so as not to get burned!) to the wall, a second - and it sticks. It must be borne in mind that it is advisable to direct the fatty side of the piece inside the cauldron so that the fat drips inside and does not lubricate the walls, otherwise the pieces located below may prematurely peel off from the walls and fall to the bottom. (Is it clear now why it was impossible to add oil to the marinade?) In general, it is better to stick the fattest pieces at the very bottom of the cauldron.
After all the pieces are on the walls of the cauldron, close it tightly with a lid, prop it up with a weight, reduce the heat to “below medium” and leave it alone for about thirty minutes.
During this time, all the pieces of meat will fall off the walls and end up at the bottom of the cauldron - in their own juice and fat. Open the lid and, if there is too much juice, stir and slightly add heat to evaporate the excess moisture.
After this, close the lid again and reduce the heat to very low.
During this time, thinly chop the onion, rinse it under running cold water, sprinkle with vinegar, mix with finely chopped dill, parsley and cilantro. Place the finished kebab on a plate, pour in the remaining fat in the cauldron and sprinkle with prepared onions.
It is advisable to serve it very hot, with a salad of fresh tomatoes, lemons, or, as a last resort, with a delicious tomato sauce.
As you can see, the cauldron, a culinary tool that came to us from time immemorial, has quite unexpected properties and allows you to achieve very impressive, spectacular results. Moreover, the efforts that have to be made for this are not so great, if you think about it. And, in general, no special skills, no complex skills are required from us. We were convinced that in a cauldron you can not only fry, but also bake.
Now let's talk to you about a dish, most of the components of which are steamed.
At first glance, it seems that a cauldron and steaming are incompatible things, unless you use special devices like grates, stands, and the like. But don’t get ahead of yourself, let’s instead turn to another Uzbek recipe – one of the simplest. Anyone can cook this recipe deliciously. True, on one condition: you will have to strictly follow the recipe, even if some of the details in it seem strange to you, and some of the proportions are exaggerated.
Basma
Required ingredients:
1 kg of meat - both lamb and beef are suitable (you can have both bones and fat)
700 g potatoes
350 g carrots
1 kg onion
Small head of cabbage (700 g)
Salt, of course
Ingredients are optional (if you have them, let’s assume, but if you don’t, don’t):
3 – 4 tomatoes
1 – 2 eggplants
1 red beet
2 – 3 bell peppers
1 – 2 hot capsicums
A handful of beans in pods
1 – 2 quinces
A pair of green firm apples
2 – 3 cucumbers
Various greens
Spices: cumin, coriander and dry herbs as desired
Place a layer of chopped meat in a cold cauldron, fat side down. If you have fat tail lard, then, of course, we cook with it: we line the bottom of the cauldron with thinly chopped lard. If there are pieces of meat with bones, they will go to the bottom layer, and the clean pulp - in cubes of 3 by 3 cm - will be placed on top of the bones. Let's add salt to this layer and sprinkle it with cumin, and if you want to add coriander, then you only need a little of it here.
Onions - all onions! kilogram! – cut into rings or the way you like best, and place on the meat.
If we are cooking with tomatoes, now is the time to cut them into large pieces, first removing the skin if it is rough, and place it on top of the onion, adding salt again.
Be especially careful here: you must not allow the tomatoes to be on top of the potatoes: after contact with the tomatoes, the potatoes will become hard as glass and will not cook, no matter how much you cook them!
After the tomatoes, place a layer of peeled carrots, cut into large slices or circles. Place the potatoes on top of the carrots, either whole or, if they are very large, cut into two or four pieces so that it is convenient to eat later. Let's add salt to the potatoes and carrots. Now we cut into small pieces everything that we still have left and put it on the potatoes so that it looks beautiful. We peel the garlic from the top peel and roots and put it in whole; in no case do we cut the hot pepper, but put it in whole. Greens can be put in whole sprigs. Salt again and sprinkle with cumin.
The cabbage crowns everything - we chop it into large pieces, removing the stalk, and leave the cabbage leaves on the surface whole, without cutting them. Rub large pieces of cabbage with salt and cumin, arrange them in a mound, and cover everything with several whole leaves of cabbage. It is very desirable that you get a cauldron full of food and even with a slide, because now we need to press everything down and close the cauldron very tightly. It is best to do this with an enamel bowl, which we will use, support it with a weight and put the whole structure on the fire.
At first, medium fire will be enough. As soon as the lid heats up and it becomes clear that everything is already boiling inside (usually 15 minutes is enough for this), reduce the heat to low and leave to simmer for another 45 minutes or even an hour.
The cooking time depends on the quality of the meat and the amount of food added, but you can accurately understand whether the basma is ready or not by the smell - as soon as it starts to smell unbearably delicious, open the cauldron!
This must be done carefully - jets of very hot steam will definitely escape from under the lid, and you can get burned. Place cabbage leaves beautifully on a large flat dish. Let's put the garlic and capsicum aside for now, carefully finding them so as not to accidentally damage them. Next, we take everything out one by one - not as we put it in, but in the reverse order: the meat on the dish will be at the very top. Place garlic and pepper on top of the resulting mound. At the bottom of the cauldron, perhaps to the surprise of many, we will find quite a lot of broth - pour it over the entire dish, and with part of the broth you can fill a bowl, which you will offer to a particularly honored guest or keep for yourself, by right of the head of the family.
By the way, one of the Bukhara emirs was once cooked with one whole lamb every day - it was stewed in onion juice until exactly one cassa (large bowl) of broth remained at the bottom of the cauldron. This is what they served to the emir, and he distributed the meat to his entourage. There are legends that that emir had about forty wives and during one night he found the strength and desire to visit them all. This was such a miracle cure!
As we can see from the list of ingredients, the Basma ideology presupposes sufficient freedom in the choice of products: you can practically cook from what you find in the refrigerator, and the more different vegetables you put in, the better it will turn out. By the way, you can even cook basma with pork, and it will be even tastier if you take the meat on ribs or fillet...
In any case, the main secret of the “deliciousness” of this almost primitive, at first glance, dish is that the meat is cooked in onion juice, and all other products - that is, actually, vegetables - are steamed. Usually there is little left of basma for tomorrow, and this is correct, because it is really good when it is just cooked, but when reheated it significantly loses its taste and aroma.
Tip: in exactly the same way and from the same ingredients you can prepare basma in a pot (preferably, of course, in several). The neck of the pots must be closed with dough, as is usually done in the traditions of Russian cuisine, for example, and everything must be cooked in the oven. However, in this case, the cooking time must be increased to 2.5 - 4 hours - depending on the size of your pots.
Every time I tell someone about basma, there will definitely be a connoisseur of Central Asian exoticism who will thoughtfully ask the question: “Isn’t this dumlyama?”
Let's try to figure out what the difference is between dumlyama and basma, and is there such a thing at all? Or is it one dish, just called differently?
As usual, let’s first turn to the authorities. Well, let's say, to the author of several cookbooks on Uzbek cuisine - Karim Makhmudov. The most substantial of his works, the thick volume “Uzbek Dishes,” was published back in 1974. Gut presents several types of dimlama (the author prefers this spelling), starting from “dimlama bekhi” (with baked quince) and ending with a dish under the name “dimlama with vegetables and fruits” that does not require translation. What do these recipes have in common, what do they have in common? First of all, it is worth pointing out again to the already mentioned Uzbek verb “dumlyash”, from which the name of the dish comes: we have already said that it means “to steam”, “to let steam”. And if you look through all of Makhmudov’s recipes, then each of them begins something like this: “In hot fat, stew onions and meat,” or: “Heat the fat, reduce the heat, add onions”... And it always ends with the words: “Cover tightly with a lid to no steam came out, and cook (simmer) over low heat for 1.5 – 2 hours.” That is, the preparation scheme for the dish is approximately the same as we will see a little later with pilaf: first, something is fried, then steamed in a tightly closed cauldron over low heat.
If you look at basma, you will find that the principle is different: everything is immediately put into a cold cauldron, closed tightly and placed on low heat. That is, the dish is steamed almost from start to finish, and no frying occurs here.
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