K is for Kazakhstan

After a sixth month hiatus, which included a trip to the Galapagos and moving to a new place in DC (Adams Morgan district – fabulous area for eating out!), I finally felt it was time to get back to cooking through the alphabet.  Coincidentally, I had read a newspaper article about a month before about Kazakh chefs setting a world record for the largest beshbarmak, the national dish of Kazakhstan.  While I had no interest in trying to break the record (it was something on the order of 3,000 pounds), it did sound like an interesting dish.  So, with that, Kazakhstan became the country of choice.

The opportunity was there, as well, since my sister-in-law Naomi was coming in from Connecticut to help celebrate my mother-in-law Brenda’s 80^th birthday.  Davida was out of town, but the guest list included Noah and Emily, Naomi and her partner Roger, my nephew Jacob and his girlfriend Naomi, and Brenda.  The meal was held on July 6.

Kazakhstan’s meals are very heavy on meat, specifically horse and lamb.  Fortunately for all my guests, horse is not kosher, so I used beef instead.  I have to say, that I’m not at all sorry that I will never find out how my recipes compare to the originals.  I also tried to cut down on so much meat, making some of the recipes vegetarian for a little variety.

The Appetizers:

Sorpa is a standard Kazahk meat broth.  I found a recipe that was a bit more interesting than the basic sorpa - ashshy sorpa is a lamb-based soup with tomato and egg.  You make an omelet, roll it up, slice it, and put a slice in each bowl of soup.  The recipe needed just minor adaptations –  I simply used margarine where the recipe calls for butter and soy milk where it calls for milk.  I used lamb shank, as the recipe calls for, and the whole kitchen smelled of lamb – the aroma was intense.  The pepper and vinegar gave the soup quite a bite, although not at all unpleasant.  I thought the soup benefited from a garnish of cilantro, and the egg added a really nice texture.  The guests were split on the soup – two gave it a 7 but the rest were 4’s and 5’s; personally, I would have given it a 6 – it was good, but not great.  Not quite over the threshold to be a “keeper.”

The other appetizer I made was a steamed dumpling called manti.  As with the sorpa, I was looking for something a bit more interesting than the basic recipe, which is mostly meat and onions. I found a recipe for pumpkin manti (while the recipe calls them “Russian” dumplings, they are apparently also very popular in Kazakhstan).  I couldn’t find whole pumpkin (go figure!), so I used canned pumpkin. And I didn’t want to make yet another meat dish, so I used seitan instead.  Otherwise, I followed the recipe as written.  Also, for some strange reason, I thought I’d make my own dough, despite not having a pasta machine or even a proper roller in the house (I ended up using a beer bottle to roll out the dough!).  Because of the lack of proper equipment, the dough was much thicker than it should have been, and I ran out of dough with still half the filling left.  So, I went out and bought circular wonton wrappers to have enough of the manti.  The wonton wrappers worked out so much better – they were easier to close, steamed more evenly, and didn’t have the doughy consistency of my own wrappers.  Definitely not worth the trouble of trying to make my own dough!  I liked the manti a lot – they were fairly light (at least, the ones with the store-bought wrappers) and tasty.  I think the substitution of seitan for meat filling worked out well.  The guests agreed, giving it an average rating of 6.2, spread out pretty evenly with ratings of 5, 6, and 7.  I would probably not add it to my “keeper” recipes, though, since there are other dumpling-type recipes from other countries that I’ve liked better.

The Main Dish:

Beshbarmak, the national dish of Kazakhstan, is a fairly simple dish of boiled meat and noodles.  It literally means “five fingers,” because presumably that’s how you are supposed to eat it – grabbing a square of noodle and using it to scoop up chunks of meat (not us – we all used forks!).  The dish is typically made with horse meat or mutton, but I chose to use brisket (and I’m sure my guests thank me for that decision).  After the difficulties I had with making my own manti dough, I decided to use store-bought lasagna noodles (again, I’m sure that my guests thank me for that decision).  Beshbarmak is straightforward to make – it just takes a long time to boil the meat and then cut it all up into bite-sized chunks.  The dish was fine, but nothing special – the meat was quite tender, but not very flavorful.  It definitely needed more salt than the recipe calls for (maybe horsemeat is naturally saltier, or maybe the Kazakhs just watch their sodium intake more scrupulously).  I think the guests were generous, giving it an average rating of 5 (with a spread between 4 and 6); my own rating would have been a 4.  Not that it stopped me from eating it as leftovers, but definitely not a keeper.

The Vegetables:

Much more successful was the carrot-radish shalgam salad.  The recipe says it is “light and refreshing,” and I certainly felt it turned out that way (in addition to being very colorful, in contrast to most of the rest of the meal, which was shades of brown and beige).  The recipe calls for cutting the carrots and daikon radish into strips, but I decided to use a grater to both get finer pieces and to decrease the prep time.  I think it was a good decision because it provided more surface area for the dressing to adhere.  I didn’t want the salad to be overwhelming, so I left out the onion and put in much less cayenne than the recipe calls for.  I think that made the salad even more “light and refreshing.”  Apparently, the guests also enjoyed it, giving it an average rating of 6.2 (mostly 6’s and 7’s, with one 5).  This is a simple, yet tasty, salad that would go well with meats and fleshier fish – it is going into the “keepers” file!

The Starch:

The star of the meal was the Kazakh rice and fruit dish.  This dish has similarities to the Afghan palaw that I made previously.  The recipe calls for lamb, but I felt that adding lamb would be too much meat, so I left that out.  Instead, I doubled the quantities of dates and apricots used (while keeping the same quantity of prunes – I’m sure that my guests thank me for that decision) and added some bouillon cubes to impart a bit of flavor.  When the rice was done, I felt that it still lacked flavor, so I added about a cup of the liquid in which the beshbarmak meat cooked.  Bingo – instant flavor!  The guests all gave it a 7 and Davida, when she got back, indicated that it was one of the best rice dishes she had eaten.  A definite keeper!

The Dessert:

Having been burned multiple times trying to make a country’s traditional dessert, I decided to go with a simple fruit salad – watermelon, canteloupe, blueberries, mango, banana.  Not something one would typically see in Kazakhstan, but everybody enjoyed it, especially after a heavy meat meal.

Up next: Liberia!

J is for Japan

It’s been a busy half year - this dinner occurred January 6^th and I’m just now getting around to writing it up.  Admittedly, my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details, but here goes.

This dinner was in honor of the birthdays of my son Josh and daughter-in-law Emily – coincidentally, both were born on January 10!  It was a smallish gathering – Josh, Noah and Emily, Davida, and Hannah.  The dinner was held a few days before their actual birthdays because Davida and I were heading to the Galapagos that Monday.  That was a fabulous vacation – as you can see from some of our pictures and videos (I especially like the video of swimming with the sea turtles).

There are not too many “J” countries – I had done Jamaica the first time through the alphabet (the jerk chicken was fabulous – have made it several times since) and I thought that Jordan would be too similar to the Israeli food with which we are very familiar.  That left Japan, which is not at all a bad choice.  I decided to forego making sushi, though, since I didn’t want to risk getting food poisoning right before our big trip.  None of the dishes needed to be adapted in any special way for kashrut, but I did need to adjust several of the recipes to make them gluten free (especially making sure to use gluten-free soy sauce!)

The Appetizer:

I love Japanese soups – they are very flavorful, but subtle.  I wanted to make something more interesting than standard miso soup, though.  Fortunately, I found this lovely recipe for Tofu No Ankake – dashi soup with tofu and mushrooms.  The best way to make sure that the dashi was gluten free was to make my own dashi broth.  It was a bit time consuming – mostly in my search for a Japanese grocery store where I could get the kombu (dried kelp) and katsuobushi (bonito flakes).  If I remember correctly, I cooked the dashi for longer than the recipe suggested to get more flavor out of the kelp and tuna flakes.  The aroma was quite earthy, mainly from the seaweed.  The rest of the soup was straightforward, just combining all the ingredients.  While the recipe calls for “mint leaves/sweet sherry,” similar recipes that I looked at use mirin, which is what I used instead (getting it at the same Japanese grocery store).

The soup had a salty, earthy flavor – subtle, but distinct.  The mushrooms (I believe I used shitake) had a wonderful texture, but the tofu didn’t add much to the dish, in my opinion.  Most of the guests rated the soup a 6, with one giving it a 5 (I’m guessing it was someone who was not partial to mushrooms).  I have to go along with the majority – it was a very nice soup, but not spectacular.  That was pretty much the theme of the night – tasty dishes, but nothing that was really a keeper.

The Main Dish:

I wanted to avoid any of the standard Japanese main dishes, such as teriyaki chicken.  I found, instead, what looked to be an elegant, yet simple, grilled fish recipe. The recipe calls for a strong-flavored, oily fish.  When I went to buy groceries for the meal, the only fish that they had that fit the bill was whole mackerel.  The worker was nice enough to fillet two mackerels for me and sent me home with some beautiful fillets and all the bones, heads, and tails.  Given such a bounty, I decided to make fish stock, and the aroma of boiling fish was in the apartment all afternoon.  I froze the stock and have yet to do anything with it, but I’m sure it will be fabulous when I finally figure out how to use it.

Of course, in order to make grilled fish, I needed a grill pan.  I didn’t have one before, but now I do!  It was a lot of fun grilling the fish – getting just the right sear marks.  I remember it looking very pretty being served, although looking now at the picture, I’m afraid there might have been a bit too much charring.  Despite the grilling, the fish had a very subtle flavor – too subtle, for my taste.  It seemed to go over fine with the guests, though – everyone rated it a 6.

The Vegetables:

Here I fell back on an old favorite – tempura vegetables.  Fortunately, I found an easy gluten free recipe that uses rice flour.  Preparing the tempura itself is quite easy – the time-consuming parts are slicing all the vegetables and then frying them just a few at a time.  I used sweet potato, carrots, green beans, and Japanese eggplant.  Personally, I thought that the sweet potato came out the best – it was sweet and still firm; the carrots were not as successful – they didn’t cook enough and were too crunchy for my taste.  Overall, the majority of the guests rated the tempura a 6, with one 5 rating.

The Starch:

My notes indicate that I made a dish called Maze Gohan, rice with vegetables, but I cannot find anything online that matches the recipe I used.  I may have taken the recipe from an actual cookbook, but I cannot find it in any of my cookbooks.  Regardless, it is fairly obvious from the picture what was in the dish – rice, of course (I recall using sushi rice), sliced carrots, diced celery, edamame, and I seem to recall using shitake mushrooms, although none are visible in the picture, so I may be mistaken.  I also think soy and mirin were added to the dish.  I definitely remember that I had bought a package of frozen edamame and, right before making the rice, was surprised to find that they were not shelled, so we frantically shelled the beans as the rice was cooking (and the fish was grilling, and the tempura was frying!)  It probably is not too bad that I can’t find the recipe – it was not a great hit, with an average rating of 5.5 – and this from a crowd that loves rice!

Dessert:

Despite my better judgment, given how relatively unsuccessful my country desserts have been, I decided to make castella, a traditional Japanese cake.  This apparently popular cake is like a sponge cake – lots of eggs whipped up frothy.  I substituted gluten-free flour and did not have the traditional wooden baking pan, but the cake looked like it came out fine.  It was just dry and fairly tasteless, and the guests all rated it a 2.

Fortunately, I also made my standard chocolate birthday cake for Josh’s and Emily’s birthdays.  While I could have made a dairy cake, the recipe I’ve used for 15 years is pareve, and I figured I shouldn’t mess with tradition.  In that vein, I used regular wheat flour, so Hannah couldn’t partake, and was stuck with the castella – sorry, Hannah!  Happy birthday, Josh and Emily – have a great year!

Up next: Kazakhstan!