Dimlama is one of my favourite foods for lunch or dinner. Many people subsist on flat loafs of coarse brown bread, dried white mulberries, homemade pats of butter, sour cream, a ground mulberry confectionary similar to marzipan and little else. Tajiks drink tea before and after lunch and dinner and drink water or nothing with their meals. Kaurmo Shurbo is made with mutton fried in a pot until golden brown and mixed with straw-cut onions, carrots and fry for another five to seven minutes. Noodles made from unleavened dough are roasted in an oven until golden-yellow, cooled down and pounded till the size of rice grains. These are 5 most popular national and local traditional dishes, and 0 best Tajikistani authentic … A flatbread made from wheat dough and yoghurt baked in a tandoor oven. The world's first pears, apples and apricots evolved from wild plants found in Central Asia. Qurut are balls of salty cheese, a popular snack throughout central Asia. Widely-used spices including red pepper, zira, barberry, anise and saffron. But then I realized that when I tried to find out about food in Tajikistan before my own trip, there wasn’t much information. A few European, Turkish, Iranian, Afghan, Chinese and Korean restaurants are present in Dushanbe. Ugro (noodle soup with meat) is made with large pieces of mutton or beef are put in cold water along with carrots and onions and cook until it boils. For feasts a goat is often slaughtered. [Source: advantour.com]. Tea is served to the host first to show that it is safe to drink. [Source:Everyculture.com]. The meal ends with fruit or a sweet dessert followed by tea and, in the case of more Russified Tajiks, maybe vodka. Some varieties are girdacha (the biggest flatbread made in a tandoor oven), fatir (flaky flatbread cooked in oil) and kulcha (fluffy flatbread). Tea drinking is a fixture of everyday life and special occasions. There is a wide variety of breads: leavened and unleavened. The resulting mass is used to form sausages. Tajikistan has a large Kyrgyz minority, especially in the Pamirs. Uzbek and Kyrgyz cuisine are extremely popular as well as Persian food. Mealtime in Tajikistan usually begins with a small serving of dried fruits or nuts. In the lower altitude areas and the Fergana valley people cultivate the lands to grow wheat, barley or rice. The ground meat and other ingredients are made into a sausage. Penjikent is famous for having the most delicious plov in the country. Hissar Salad is made with potatoes boiled in their skins and peeled, boiled carrots, boiled meat, cucumbers, and tomatoes— all cut into cubes. The markets overflow with eggplants, onions, peppers, carrots, garlic, string beans, potatoes, and fresh fruit. The meal is usually accompanied by water or a soft drink and followed by tea. Tajik Shish kebabs are delicious. 9 Baking Mistakes That Ruin Your Cakes, Cookies, Brownies & Bread, The Top Trending Fall Foods & Recipes, According to Google, The Best Places to Buy Baking Ingredients Online, This Snazzy Nespresso Capsule Coffee Maker Is Nearly 50% on Amazon, The Viennese Sacher Torte Gets a Modern Upgrade, The Cookbooks We're Most Excited for This Fall, Ready or Not, Pumpkin Spice Products Are Back Again, 7 Helpful Produce Subscriptions You Should Know About, Meal Prep Containers That Will Get You Excited to Make Lunch, Orange and Black Halloween Food Is Only Natural, Caramel Apples Get Tricked Out for Halloween, What to Eat on Day of the Dead (Besides Sugar Skulls), These Themed Horror Movie Food Pairings Are So Good It's Scary, Why You Should Spatchcock Your Turkey & How to Do It, The Ultimate Guide to Perfect Mashed Potatoes. I can almost smell those spices in the markets. The resulting pouches are filled with stuffing and pinched tightly from the open side and boiled in salted water. In Tajikistan, many people eat nahud sambusa (chickpea samsas), nahud shavla (porridge), bean and milk soups, siyo halav (herb soup), tuhum barak (egg-filled ravioli covered with sesame seed oil) and chakka (curd mixed with herbs). The Tajik Sambusa is similar to the Uzbek Samsa. A meat dish like stewed goat ribs, organ stew, or deep-fried trout might round out a meal, but the center of the meal is “huge platters of fruit and of tomato, cucumber, greens, and herb salad.”, In addition to the melons, figs, grapes, persimmons, and stone fruit on offer, a common local snack is the naturally sweet mulberry flower. Often, the crumbs are collected and disposed of ceremoniously. Then soaked peas and potatoes are added and the mixture is boiled for 30 to 40 minutes. Tender minced mutton is mixed together with onions, spices, salt, and pepper. Just keep in mind that they are rarely vegetarian. These are floured and fried in fat until crispy. The soup is thickened with sour-cream. However alcohol is consumed less in Tajikistan than in other Muslim Central Asia countries. Their plov is somewhat unique because they use locally grown yellow carrots instead of the more common orange carrot. Wow, what a fascinating and insightful post! These include cheeses, yoghurt, cottage cheese, aryan (yoghurt drink), curd (salty dried balls), and kaimak (sweet cream skimmed from fresh milk). Cooked shish kebab is sprinkled with lemon juice and served together with the cooked tomatoes. In some poor areas people subsist on flat, brown bread and little else. Typical Tajik cuisine can also include meaty noodle soups (laghmon) and lamb skewers (shashlik, meaning ‘six pieces’ in Persian). The dough is usually rolled very thinly, producing a crusty bread that is especially tasty when eaten hot-out-of-the-oven. The boiled noodles and sauce may be served with greens and sour milk. The national dish of Tajikistan is plov, commonly known as pilaf, which is rice that has been cooked in seasoned water. Quince, peas, dried fruits, garlic are added to pilaus. No guests reception, meeting of friends or a conversation is complete without a pialah (bowl) of hot tea. In accordance with Islamic beliefs pork is not eaten. What is the most popular food in Tajikistan? I’m hoping to travel to Tajikistan soon, together with Afghanistan, and sample all of this delicious food! One of the reasons is that Tajik food uses lots of fresh herbs and vegetables and therefore a lot of recipes are seasonal and local. One can imagine that this is very different for the cities such as Khujand in the lush Fergana valley compared to the Fann mountains or the high altitude Pamirs. Meat is finely cut, fried with onions; after adding tomato paste it is fried for another 10 minutes. Tajik sweets are influenced by Arabs, Persian and Turkish sweets. [Source: advantour.com]. “The mulberry flowers were sweet – so much so to be a new healthy junk food in developed countries,” says Sam Fujisaka, who also raved about another Tajikistan treat, mulberry molasses: “incredible in terms of depth of flavor, light sweetness, and smoothness in spite of very rustic, home manufacture.”. The making of sumalak is a ceremony, as the women recite poetry, sing, and dance. A typical meal in Tajikistan consists non (local flat bread), salad, soup, potatoes and sour cream or milk. Traditional Tajik meals begin with sweet dishes such as halwa and tea, and then progress to soups and meat, before finishing with a pilaf. To make this Tajiks put tea in boiling water; then they add boiled milk. Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, U.S. government, Compton’s Encyclopedia, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, The Economist, Foreign Policy, Wikipedia, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications. Minced meat (preferably mutton with tail fat and spices) is put on the unrolled dough and triangular pies are made. It’s so popular throughout the region that it is difficult to tell where it really comes from. A tray with sweets, fruit, and flat cakes is brought separately. I have never visited Central Asia, but I would love to! A pity, because Tajik food does exist and certainly deserves more attention. A cultural anthropologist from the Netherlands who has travelled for more than 20 years to over 50 countries along the ancient Silk Road. Turns out that the nahud sambusa filled with chickpeas is a Tajik speciality. Not one laghman is the same and if you order it in a restaurant it can be very hit and miss. Manti in central Asia are relatively large and steamed in a special metal steamer called a mantovarka. After that some rice is put and the pot is covered and cook until ready. Horse meat is a popular delicacy in Tajikistan. The diet and preparation methods reflect economic conditions, everyday needs and ethnic features. At other times pasta, meat- and onion-filled pastries, and tomato and cucumber salads may be served. It’s so popular throughout the region that it is difficult to tell where it really comes from. Mastoba is a soup made with big pieces of mutton fried with tomatoes and other vegetables. Qurutob is without doubt the national dish of Tajikistan. [Source: BBC, October 28, 2015 ^^^], “That view isn't shared by people commenting online. These ceramic bowls help soups remain hot for a longer period of time. The big flat cakes are rolled out, greased, made in a roll, then cut and rolled out again. Meat is cut into pieces, fried with onions and carrots. Bread, Noodles and Pasta Dishes from Tajikistan, Tajik women are skilled at making bread and dough-based food such as lagman, ugro, sambusa and twiglets.