Baklava

It seems that I found something strong enough to heal a broken heart, which is almost magic. I only made baklava a couple of times and I'm not going to pretend I know everything about it. There are people who learn to make baklava throughout their lives and hopefully I'll once have good talk with one of them. But right now I can say for sure that you can make it very well from the very first attempt and enjoy both the making and the eating just extremely.

Carrot halwa

Carrot halwa was the first Indian dessert I got to try. Since then I tried many more, but it remained my favorite (not sure whether it is a coincidence). It is something comforting, warm and sweet. Something rich and mild. Something I'd never expect from the carrot. Like in English carrot cake it works in some magical way here.

Salade aux chèvre chaud (French salad with hot goat's cheese)

This post has been due for at least two years now. When I just came to Fontainebleau I immediately fell in love with salade aux chèvre chaud (literally salad with hot goat's cheese) and it stayed my absolute favorite throughout the months of my residence. Though very simple to make it is incredibly rich in flavor and texture. Just imagine savory hot and melting goat's cheese with sweet fig jam, crispy toast and walnut over crunchy chilled salad leaves dressed with honey and French mustard.

Almaty (Kazakhstan) - a personal food guide

I was lucky to visit Almaty, the historical capital of Kazakhstan, this summer for the first time. That was also my first visit to Central Asia and the gastronomical side of it was full of discoveries. Horse meat, qurt cheese, lagman noodle, beshbarmak noodle, manti dumplings, tapchans (arbours where you eat seated on pillows at a low table), beautiful mountains under sparkling sun - all felt like being Alice in a wonderland. That's my first take on the city of Almaty and I'm sure it won't be the last one.

Home made Kazakh dinner and Beshbarmak

While I was planning my recent trip to Almaty I wrote an email to my Insead friend Gulnazi. Gulnazi originates from Almaty and moved back to work there some half a year ago. She invited me to her house for dinner made by her mom. That was how I tried the Kazakh beshbarmak for the first time.

Caprese salad

I already wrote about Caprese salad, but since Sergey started bringing the proper mozzarella to Moscow things changed. I started making it more and more. And more, so now it evolved enough to say another word about it. You can also regard this as my farewell to the summer. It's time even for me to admit that summer will very soon be gone together with the proper tomatoes. So I find myself making it one more last time. And one more...

Moroccan mint tea and stuffed dates

I absolutely adore Moroccan mint tea. After a tagine dinner there is nothing better than this hot and aromatic lightly sweetened drink. You pour it (in an ideal world from a silver pot into colored glasses) and sip it throughout the evening. It relaxes you and makes you smile. Moroccan meal doesn't really need a substantial dessert to follow it. However once I tried these dates stuffed with pistachio marzipan along the mint tea and it turned out that these two really work magically together.

Chocolate and cherry birthday trifle

I love the idea of English trifle. It is a perfect stress free dessert, where you layer moistened cake slices with fruits, jam, custard and cream, choosing all the combinations as your mood suggests. You let it sit in the fridge for a bit and dive in. It's perfect if you are feeding many people as you can easily make a lot of it. And if you assemble it in a glass serving bowl you get double pleasure.

Green bazaar in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Green bazaar is the largest farmer's market in Almaty. It is very central, located right next to Zenkov Cathedral (a wooden architectural wonder) and to Panfilov park. With all its special local products (horse meat, local dairy etc.) to me it was one of the strongest impressions of our trip.

As you enter the Green bazaar, you see lots and lots of herbs sold in the market, but as you look closer it turns out they have more relation to medical usage than to cooking. Fruits and veggies are also in the front section. They are not exotic, but some (like peaches, melons, watermelons etc.) are just extremely tasty - I don't think I ever tasted something like those in Moscow. Then you can move deeper to the back section of the market to look into horse meat, and then to the left to see amazing local dairy products.

Horse meat

Horse meat is something I should start with. Overall it is the preferred kind of meat in Kazakhstan. It is more expensive than beef and lamb and is considered healthier and tastier. The whole back section of the Green bazaar is about horse meat.

One of the most popular ways of preparing horse meat is kazy (a special kind of sausage, which is part of traditional beshbarmak noodle dish). This lady, Elemes, located number 1 in row 6 has been a kazy master for 20 years and she kindly explained the process to me.

She started from cutting a shoulder part and cut it into long thick blocks. She also cut some horse fat into thinner blocks. During our visit in Almaty everybody would tell me that horse fat is good for you and it is less heavy than that of lamb, so did Elemes. On top of that the fat makes the kazy much tastier.

Having done the cutting Elemes arranged the meat and fat to approximately shape the future sausage. She generously salted the meat and fat, covered it with minced garlic and ground black pepper. Than she pulled the guts on and formed the sausage, closing it with toothpicks from both sides.

If you are buying fresh kazy as we did, it is meant to be boiled. Elemes advised us to let kasy stand at room temperature at least for 4 hours before cooking. If you need to store it longer before cooking it is better to refrigerate or freeze it. Then it needs to be simmered for 3-4 hours to get ready.

You can also get some hot or cold smoked kazy at the Green bazaar as well as some other kinds of horse sausages, dried horse meat and smoked horse meat. Sellers will definitely offer you a taste before you buy something and you won't regret tasting. I'm not at all a meat lover, but I was really impressed by how good all those things taste.

Dairy

Local dairy products are also very special. Like the meat preparation methods, many of them emerged because of nomadic life Kazakh people used to live in the past. Many of them can be stored for a really long time (months) at room temperature.

Qurt (front row in the picture) is a kind of cheese. It is extremely dry and firm, way firmer than, say, mature parmesan. I wouldn't be able to break a piece of qurt with my fingers, but it is possible to bite into it. Qurt is available salted or unsalted. As far as I got it is mostly eaten as a snack (say, with beer) and rarely is added to some other dishes.

Irymshik (back row in the picture) is another popular thing and it is absolutely delicious. It is made of milk, which went sour. The milk is evaporated slowly for a long time till it turns very thick sweetish chewy and yellow. Apart from qurt irymshik has more relation to sweets, sometimes eaten on its own, sometimes used as an ingredient (e.g. those brown balls in the picture are made of crumbled irymshik mixed with condensed milk and something else).

Kumis is a drink made of mare's milk. It is quite sour and very refreshing. It tasted amazing to me, especially when it was hot outside.

Bread and pastry

The kind of bread I saw most often in Almaty are these round flatbreads, sometimes plain, sometimes seasoned with herbs. Those we got at Green bazaar were extremely fresh and good.

Samsa (samosa) (a kind of meat stuffed pastry popular all around Central Asia) is also available from small pastry shops in the market and around it.

Rakhat chocolate factory

Accross the street from the market you will see a very large pale rose building of Rakhat, the national chocolate factory. As we entered its store I felt like I came back to soviet time stores of my childhood.

The light blue chocolate bar "Kazakhstansky" is considered the classics of the factory. The locals also really appreciate these 65%, 70% and 80% dark chocolate bars and prefer them to imported foreign brands (for, say, baking purposes).

Apart from the chocolate bars the factory, of course, produces all kinds of chocolate sweets. To me they taste similar to those produced by Russian factories.

Related:

Almaty (Kazakhstan) - a personal food guide
Home made Kazakh dinner and Beshbarmak

London gastronomy markets and shopping
A walk around La Boqueria Barcelona market
Kiev (Ukraine) food: a personal guide

More Gourmet travel guides

Simple and amazing 30 minute jam

It looks like after many years I am moving to a different way of making jam. I used to prefer the long way, which takes over a day and produces the classic varenie. However once I had a kilo of leftover apricots I didn't want to bother with, so I tried this simple 30 minute jam. Like varenie, that jam  kept intense apricot flavor and aroma very well, while the texture was like jelly, marmalade and thick syrup at the same time, so it would almost hold its shape. In one week all I made was gone and since then I'm addicted.