Welcome to Kazakhstan! To be honest, I get all of the "-stans" mixed up. Turns out, they all have very similar national dishes! More on that later. Some interesting facts about Kazakhstan: it is the largest landlocked country in the world! Even though it is landlocked, it has a navy that works out of the Caspian Sea! Kazakhstan has the largest AND oldest space launch facility in the world - built in the 1950s. The very first human space flight and Sputnik 1 launched from here. It is also one of the few transcontinental countries in the world - it spans between both Asia and Europe. Lastly, it became the last country to declare independence from the Soviet Union, which occurred in 1991. According to Google, they have a population of 18.71 million people, and the capital is Astana. Their national dish is...
Besbarmak!
We've seen this meal before in Kyrgyzstan. It consists of boiled horse meat and wide noodles. Since we already made that meal (see the blog on Kyrgyzstan), we decided to make some of Kazakhstan's other famous dishes. So, we made Kazakh Lemon Chicken, Kazakh Rice, Baursak (puffy bread) and Kazakhstan Chai. Here's what we did:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a dutch oven, heat the avocado oil and add chicken pieces and brown, flip, and brown the other side.
- While chicken is browning, mix ginger, paprika, garlic, onion, saffron, nutmeg, salt and pepper in a small bowl.
- Once the chicken is browned, pour spice mixture over the chicken, making sure to cover it all.
- Add enough water to cover the chicken halfway, turn the heat up to high, and bring to a boil.
- Once the water is boiling, put the dutch oven in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, uncovered.
- Turn the chicken over, cover the dutch oven, and cook for another 20 minutes.
- Transfer the chicken to a platter and cover with foil to keep warm.
- Bring the liquid to a boil and add the olives and lemon rind.
- Simmer for about 5 minutes, and then pour the sauce over the chicken and serve.
- In a small bowl, mix the almonds, garlic, onion, dates, apricots and salt. Set aside.
- Place the water and rice in a pot, and cook until almost cooked through, about 15 minutes.
- Add the almond mixture and oil to the rice, stir, cover, and cook an additional 5 minutes.
- Serve with the Lemon Chicken and sauce!
(Source: Kazakh Rice)
- In a small measuring cup, heat the water and milk in the microwave for 45 seconds.
- Add the sugar and yeast to this mixture, and let it froth.
- In a stand mixer with dough hook, combine gluten free flour, salt, butter and egg.
- Slowly add the yeast mixture while mixing. Continue mixing until the dough has come together.
- Cover the dough with a towel and place in a warm location while the oil heats.
- Heat oil in a pot until it is 350 degrees (the dough doesn't have to be completely submerged - I only had enough space for half the dough balls to fry and they were fine).
- Divide the dough into eight pieces, and roll into a ball, and slightly flatten them.
- Place in the hot oil and fry until golden brown.
- Flip the ball and fry until golden brown.
- Remove from heat and let drain on a paper towel, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and enjoy!
- Combine the water, tea, cardamom and fennel in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Let it simmer for 5 minutes.
- Add the milk and let it continue to simmer for 5 minutes.
- Strain the tea into two mugs.
- Add sugar or honey, to taste, and enjoy!
(Source: Kazakhstan Chai)
The verdict? This was a tasty meal! The chicken had good flavor and the sauce was surprisingly good! I'm not a huge fan of green olives, but they added a depth of flavor that was really good. The sauce was also really good with the rice - again, I had my doubts, but it was so very tasty. I encourage you to look at the original rice recipe, because I left out some prunes and lamb...they weren't readily available. It would be interesting to taste it with those ingredients added. We didn't care for the dessert - it was fried bread. Nothing special. We did, however, enjoy eating the crispy edges! The Chai was surprisingly good! I wasn't sure about the fennel, but it was actually very good! We added monkfruit sweetener to it, and it was very tasty. I drank it in my "Where's Waldo" mug - a memento from my Grandpa. He would have loved this project of mine, and would have wanted to try EVERY meal! I miss him.
