I do have a fondness for Central Asian food, despite the fact that the majority of it involves sheep in some form or another. Laghman is no different. A ubiquitous noodle soup found all over Central Asia, it is said to have its origins in China (where the noodles are known as lamian). As with the other Uzbek recipes I have posted here, I have to apologise for the lack of authenticity, but the exclusion of any meat or meat derived items pretty much makes it a fraud. Most of the Uzbek recipes I have read for laghman usually have lamb as the basis for the broth, with carrots, potatoes (maybe aubergine) and lots of fresh herbs adding some colour. I was lacking a little in the vegetable department (the fridge contained a carrot and a few leftover baby sweetcorn of dubious age), so to bulk out the soup I added a can of chick peas. The resulting broth turned out to be quite delicious. A word about the noodles, I decided to make them from scratch as it's something that I have never done, though if you don't have the time or the inclination then you could cook some pasta or egg noodles. With regards to timing, I made the soup in the morning and made the noodles in the afternoon, so I didn't have to worry about juggling pans. If you are more organised then make up the noodle dough while you're waiting for the carrots to cook.
Ingredients
1 large onion finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic chopped finely
1 large carrot cut into matchsticks
5 baby sweetcorn sliced
500ml vegetable stock
400g can of chick peas
1 medium red chilli sliced
Olive oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp ground cumin
1 pinch sumac (optional)
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 bunch coriander
For the dough:
250g white self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
150ml warm water
1. Fry the onions and garlic in olive oil until softened. Add the sliced chilli and carrots and cover with a lid. Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes
2. While the vegetables are cooking, toast the cumin and coriander seeds in a dry pan and then grind in a pestle and mortar
3. When the carrots are softened, stir in the spices (additional ground cumin, sumac and smoked paprika), chick peas and stock. Simmer for 30 minutes
4. Once cooked, add some finely chopped coriander. Leave to one side. I have an aversion to eating scalding hot food, so personally I think the soup tastes much nicer after it's been sitting for an hour or so. Unless of course you live in the Arctic circle where it may get a bit chilly...
For the noodles
1. Put the flour into a large bowl and stir in the salt
2. Add the egg
3. Now slowly stir in the hot water. The recipe I read did specifically mention to use hot water (I used the same dough that I use to make manti), now you may think that is going to scramble the eggs, but I didn't find that to be the case. If you want to be more careful though, use tepid water
4. The dough should be very elastic, wrap it in cling film and leave in the fridge for around 30 minutes to rest
5. Once rested take out the dough and knead on a floured surface. If the dough is too sticky then just knead in some more flour, it's very forgiving!
6. Roll out as flat as you can, if you've got a pasta maker then this should be a doddle, I don't. You want the dough to be as thin as possible, practically speaking that's probably around 2mm. Cut into strips approximately 2cm wide and then hang to dry for 20 minutes. See below for my improvised noodle dryer.
7. Fill a large pan with water (and a good pinch of salt) and bring to the boil. Cook the noodles for around 5 minutes, or until al dente. Drain and put into a large soup bowl
8. Pour the broth on top. You can eat it as is, or with a dollop of soured cream on the top. For that extra Eastern European kick I stirred in some chopped dill and beetroot.
Continuing my experimentation with Uzbek food, and also in honour of buying a massive steamer on Friday I decided that I had to deflower it, and what better way than with some Central Asian style dumplings. Manti are found all over Central Asia from Turkey through to China. It is said that Turkic or Mongol horsemen would carry dried manti as a food on the hoof and that is how they spread around the region, however other sources suggest that manti originated in the Middle East and travelled to Asia via the Silk Road. Whatever the origins, dumplings of some sort or another have embedded themselves into the cuisines of the region.
This recipe is based on a Uzbek recipe, where pumpkin appears quite regularly, though mostly they are filled with lamb.
Ingredients
250 g white flour
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
150 ml hot water
Filling
1 large butternut squash
1 tsp cumin seeds
Ground black pepper and salt to taste
1. To prepare the filling, peel a butternut squash (or other pumpkin of your choice), cut into large cubes, toss in olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper and cumin seeds and bake for around 30 minutes in a 220C oven. Leave to cool and then mash roughly
2. Measure out the flour into a large bowl and add the salt and egg
3. Mix in the hot water, the final amount may vary, but you want a pliable elastic dough that is slightly sticky
4. Leave the dough to rest for 10-20 minutes
5. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into squares roughly 4cm x 4cm
6. Add 1 teaspoonful of the pumpkin mixture to the centre of each dough square
7. Pinch the edges together corner to corner, and the repeat. The final result should have quite an intricate shape, though mine looked more like Chinese dumplings, but no matter, it's the taste that counts isn't it...?
8. Steam for 40 minutes
9. Serve with sour cream and chopped dill (or coriander)
Continuing my adventures with Uzbek food, I decided to try my hand at some traditional Bukharan Jewish dishes. Uzbekistan had at one time a sizeable Jewish population, occupying the region of the former Central Asian emirate of Bukhara (currently Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) with small numbers also living in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and parts of Russia.
A Jewish presence in that region has been recorded since the tenth century BCE, and the population lived there with varying degrees of acceptance and/or discrimination for the next two and a half thousand years. Incidentally, the name 'Bukharan' was coined by European travellers to the region in the sixteenth century. With the establishment of Soviet rule in 1917, life for the Bukharan Jews deteriorated and in the 1920s and 30s thousands fled from religious oppression. During the 1970s and 80s emigration to Israel and the USA started, and by the early 1990s most of the population had left. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union there were estimated to be around 45,000 Bukharan Jews in Central Asia, now only a few thousand remain.
So... back to the food. What is Bukharan Jewish food like? Well, it's pretty similar to the cuisine of other Central Asian countries, with heavy emphasis on rice, noodles and either mutton or lamb as the principle source of meat-based protein. But there are some specific dishes, one of which is Bakhsh. I am not sure of the etymology of the name, but as bakhsh in Persian means gift (as in bakhsheesh), and because the traditional way of preparing this meal involved simmering a bag of chicken, liver, rice and herbs in a broth, I suppose the opening of the package to reveal the cooked delights within was akin to opening a gift. Though I may be totally barking up the wrong tree...
For anyone
wanting to try and cook the traditional meaty bakhsh there is a recipe
in the uber-Uzbek/Central Asian cookbook 'Kazan, mangal and other manly
pleasures' written by Stalik Khankishiev (who is a bit of a Russian
celebrity chef) and you can also watch a clip of him making it here (in Russian)
In addition to the bag method, Bakhsh can also be cooked like a traditional plov (pilaf), which is how I have approached it. As with my recipe for carrot and cashew nut plov, I make no appologies for the total lack of authenticity; I am lacking in the essential kazan (cauldren) and my meatless version would make a Bukharan grandmother shudder. Unauthentic it may be, but I like to think that the recipe below is 100% authentic in spirit...
Ingredients
250g long grain rice
400g can of chickpeas (drained)
1 large onion
1 fennel bulb
2 garlic cloves (peeled and crushed)
8 garlic cloves (unpeeled and left whole)
1 large bunch of coriander
10 green olives (sliced)
1 handful of dill
1 handful of flat leaf parsley
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black cumin seeds (optional)
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sumac
Olive oil
1. Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed casserole dish and fry the sliced onion and
crushed garlic until soft and lightly coloured. Add the sliced fennel and
cook for 5 minutes until just starting to soften
2. Place
the unpeeled garlic cloves and chopped olives in the pan then put the lid
on the casserole dish and continue to cook on a low heat for 20
minutes
3.
Meanwhile, wash the rice in cold water until the water runs clear,
then leave to soak in warm water until the vegetables have finished
sauteing
4. Once the
vegetables are cooked add the spices and stir in gently
5. Now add the chickpeas in a layer on top of the vegetables. Don't mix
6. Finely chop the herbs and add these on top of the chickpeas
7. Drain
the rice and layer it on top of the chopped herbs. The idea with
the layers is that the onions and fennel being closest to the heat will
continue to caramelise during the cooking, the chickpeas provide a
protective layer so the herbs can steam and infuse everything
with their flavour. The rice is the icing on the cake so to speak, holding everything in place
8. Add
freshly boiled water to the pot, I haven't given amounts because it
will vary depending on the size of your pot. You want the water to be
around 1.5cm above the level of the rice
9. Boil
until all the water evaporates, this should take around 5-10 minutes
10. Once the
water has evaporated poke holes in the rice with the end of a wooden
spoon to allow the steam to escape
11. At this
point, turn off the heat, cover the pan with a kitchen towel or aluminium foil and put
on the lid. Leave to steam for 20 minutes
10. Lift
off the lid and now mix everything together and turn out onto
a serving dish.Delicious as it is, or it can be served with a salad.
Uzbekistan is probably not a country that springs to mind when you think of great culinary traditions, however it's a cuisine that surprises... As is befitting its place on the map, the food of Uzbekistan is a delicious meeting of East and West. There are similarities with Turkish food and also Iranian touches with the use of sumac as a souring agent. There are also some Chinese and Indian influences in addition to the obvious Russian influence. It's not, however, a good cuisine if you're vegetarian as everything seems to contain sheep in one form or another.
I was inspired to try and create a vegetarian plov after acquiring a copy of an Uzbek cookery book that I'dpicked up last time I was in Israel. I have to say from the off, this recipe is not authentic. Why? Well, firstly I am lacking in a kazan, the ubiquitous cooking pot used throughout Central Asia. My grandmother had one, a huge black cast iron cauldron-type affair, I did hope to inherit it after she died (along with the axe she used to chop her vegetables - no delicate kitchen implements for my granny) however no one knows what became of it. So in lieu of a kazan I used a cast iron enamelled casserole dish, and I have to say it worked just fine. No sticking or anything untoward happened despite warnings to the contrary. Obviously the other major sticking point in authenticity is the lack of sheep, I substituted cashew nuts for the extra protein. Anyway, the end result was delicious, and very straightforward to make.
Ingredients:
1 large onion sliced into half rings
2 cloves of garlic crushed
1 head of garlic (unpeeled)
2 large carrots
50 g cashew nuts
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried barberries (could substitute unsweetened cranberries)
1/2 tsp sumak
Salt to taste
2-3 strands of saffron
100 ml ghee (you could use vegetable oil, but for the unctious mouthfeel it really needs something slightly more wicked...)
250 g long grain rice
Boiling water
1. Melt the ghee in a heavy bottomed casserole dish and fry the sliced onion and garlic until soft and lightly coloured. Add the julienned carrots and cook for 5 minutes until just starting to soften
2. Place the unpeeled garlic head in the middle of the pan, then put the lid on the casserole dish and continue to cook on a low heat for 20 minutes
3. Meanwhile, wash the rice in cold water until the water runs clear, then leave to soak in warm water until the vegetables have finished sauteing
4. Once the vegetables are cooked throw in the cashew nuts, sprinkle on the cumin, paprika, sumak, barberries, salt and saffron strands. Stir in gently without disturbing the garlic
5. Drain the rice and layer it on top of the vegetables. Don't mix in, you want the vegetable layer at the bottom protecting the rice from burning, or else rather than a plov you'll get a rice crust (which is actually v.tasty in itself)
6. Add freshly
boiled water to the pot, I haven't given amounts because it will vary depending on
the size of your pot. You want the water to be around 1.5cm above the
level of the rice
7. Boil until all the water evaporates, this should take around 5 minutes
8. Once the water has evaporated poke holes in the rice with the end of a wooden spoon to allow the steam to escape
9. At this point, turn off the heat, cover the pan with a kitchen towel and put on the lid. Leave to steam for 20 minutes
10. Lift off the lid (and enjoy the gorgeous smell!) take out the garlic head and leave to one side, now mix everything together and turn out onto a serving dish. Place the garlic bulb on top. The idea with the garlic is that the now creamy soft oil infused garlic cloves can be squeezed over the individual servings to taste. You can eat it as it is, or serve a simple tomato and onion salad as an accompaniment.
