Kazakhstan

Menu: Manti & chak chak | Recipe Source: tastesfromtheroad.com and internationalcuisine.com

Cooking Around the World is always a joy, but cooking during the Olympics simply hits different. I had already decided to tackle Kazakhstan a day or two before Mikhail Shaidorov unexpectedly won the gold medal for men’s figure skating, but after his victory, I was all the more excited to take a culinary dive into his homeland- a place I knew virtually nothing about prior to today.

Some doughs are so excited to work with you and others… are not. The manti dough was sticky to make, tough to knead, and absolutely diabolical to roll down to 1/8th of an inch, but battle aside (I can still feel it in my shoulders as I’m typing this), it had an absolutely gorgeous texture, phenomenal elasticity, and the end result was so worth the effort. The cumin, garlic, dill, and pepper-spiced ground lamb mixture that served as the manti filling was much easier to throw together, and assembling the manti went smoothly after I found a helpful folding tutorial. I had a slight moment of panic two minutes into the boil when I realized the manti were trying to stick to the bottom of the pot, but they released beautifully with a rubber spatula and didn’t rip (another kudos to the dough), and by the time the fifteen minute cook time was up, not one of the dumplings had burst open. I plated Anthony’s manti in the traditional way- unsalted butter bath, tomato slices, and a scoop of sour cream* on the side- and while I had to settle for olive oil and black pepper, the manti themselves were so moist and delicious that I honestly didn’t even miss the dairy.*

Chak chak reminded me a lot of the chruschiki I made for Poland. The heart of both recipes is strips of simple, unsweetened dough fried in oil and then rolled around in something sugary (powdered sugar for chruschiki, honey-almond syrup for chak chak), and because that dough is fairly dry and bland, I personally found the honey-almond syrup to be a better pairing than powdered sugar. It’s sticky to work with, but it adds some much-needed moisture and cuts through the dense bread-yness a bit. Throw in a mug of hot green tea and you’ve got a very homey afternoon snack on your hands.

*I forgot to buy sour cream at the store and had to give him cream cheese softened with water instead, so when you look at the pictures below, just pretend you didn’t this footnote

**I did miss it, but only a little

Ready to cook?

Manti (link): I followed the dough recipe step for step but noticed a small error. There was an egg listed in the dough ingredients but no mention of said egg in the actual steps, so I opted to crack it into a separate bowl, whisk it until smooth, pour it directly into the flour-salt mixture, stir until thoroughly incorporated, and then add in the cup of warm water. I’m a freak about undercooked meat* (unless it’s steak) so I seasoned the ground lamb with cumin, salt, and black pepper, then par-cooked it in a little olive oil and strained off most of the resulting liquid. To compensate for all of that lost fat and moisture (and deliciousness), I put the par-cooked lamb in a bowl and stirred in a little under 1tbsp of beef tallow. The recipe made several suggestions for spicing and herbs, and I ended up going with 1 large shallot, dill, curly parsley, garlic, and 1/2 tsp of sumac (sumac wasn’t listed as a recommendation but it plays so well with all of those other tangy aromatics that I couldn’t resist). I sent all of those ingredients on a quick trip through my food processor before adding them to the lamb, and from then on, I followed the recipe precisely (and used the boiling method instead of steaming).

Chak chak (link): I followed this recipe exactly!

*There is nothing worse than cutting open a dumpling (or any type of food that involves encased, blind-cooked meat) and seeing raw pink and having to figure out how the heck to get it fully cooked without burning or overcooking the external dough. Nowadays, I err on the side of a slightly overcooked filling and do a quick par-cook on my meats to ensure I never have to deal with a panic microwaving.