Food in Kazakhstan (beshparmak)

Since I came to Washington, I've been asked what the typical food in KZ is.

Having a plenty of different ethnic groups populating the country (the official figure is over 130), we have a number of different dishes prepared. We cook Uighur, Uzbek, Russian, German and other dishes and eat them with pleasure! (I think it has become a part of our culture and somewhat a part of our traditional food.)

Of course, we have some national dishes and one of them is beshparmak (or beshbarmak). If you google it, you will find a lot of information, like its literary translation (five fingers), what it consists of, the way it is served, and etc.

My friends in Fairfax, VA, invited me on a stormy day (last Saturday, Feb 6) for beshparmak. I was so glad to go there as power in my building was off, and I was also excited to prepare beshparmak in the US!


Some people cook it for special occasions like national holidays or when they invite their relatives, sometimes they prepare it just for dinner.

They decided to cook it because the guys were terribly missing the home food, having been away from KZ for 2 years!




We were lucky to have the kazy (horse meat marinated with garlic and salt) here as you would not find that in US (and please don't ask me how we got it :-) ).


It is actually a piece of meat looking like a big sausage which you just need to boil for 2-2.5 hours. We also boiled some beef (this was found in a supermarket here).

Meat is the easiest part as you just put it in water and check it...





What we were most concerned of was the second component - the dough! It was the first time for Muhabat (my friend) and me to make the dough, so we were a bit unsure of our success and whether we will be able to make it as our moms.




The most difficult thing was to roll the dough as it needs to be round and pretty thin. If you don't have experience in that, your will feel as if you've been to a gym.








When the meat was ready, Nurzhan cut it in pieces, while we were boiling the dough and potatoes. Well, it's up to you to add either potatoes or dough, or both.



















So, we took a plate (normally a bigger one), put the ready dough and potatoes, put the meat over it and then topped it with onions (which are usually stewed for a little while with salt, pepper and some broth).



















Here it is, the beshparmak! Of course, it is a little bit clumsy, but it was our own experience!







Bon appetit! :-)












You may also wish to check how we cooked manti, another popular dish in Kazakhstan.