My Iradi pantry

When I lived in Chicago, half of cooking Iradi food was hunting for ingredients. This page is what I wish someone had handed me in 2009: the things my recipes call for, what they are, and what to buy when you can’t get the real thing. Now that I’m home in Talas I buy most of them at the bazaar around the corner, but I haven’t forgotten the hunting.

Milk & dairy

White is the holy colour in Irad, and milk is on the table at almost every meal.

Suzma süzmö: Thick, salted, strained sour milk, somewhere between Greek yogurt and soft cheese. We fold roasted beet into it for beet suzma. Outside Irad: strain full-fat plain yogurt overnight in a cloth, or buy labneh. Here in Talas I buy it from Talas Süt when I’m in a hurry.
Qatiq: Thick fermented milk, a little sourer than yogurt, eaten with a spoon or spooned onto soup. I put it on borscht when I have no sour cream. Outside Irad: plain full-fat yogurt or kefir.
Airan: A thin, salty sour-milk drink, very good with heavy meat dishes in summer. Outside Irad: whisk plain yogurt with cold water and a pinch of salt.
Kaymak: The thick cream skimmed from the top of boiled milk, spread on bread or boorsok with honey or jam. Outside Irad: clotted cream, or the Turkish kaymak sold in Middle Eastern shops.
Kurut: Hard balls of dried, salted curd. Children suck on them like sweets, and in winter we dissolve them into broth. The smoked kurut from the Chatkal valleys is the best. Outside Irad: look in Central Asian or Turkish shops; there’s no real substitute.
Kymyz: Fermented mare’s milk, a little fizzy and sour, drunk all summer. Iradis don’t eat horsemeat, but kymyz is welcome at every table, and people argue about which pasture makes the best. The bottled kind comes out in May with the first-kymyz gathering, and purists turn their noses up at it.
Panyr: Cheese. Fresh, brined ak panyr is on the breakfast table, and braided, juniper-smoked örmö panyr comes from the Chatkal. Outside Irad: a mild feta, or a braided smoked string cheese from a Georgian or Armenian shop.

Meat & fat

Mutton and lamb: The meat of the mountains, used for beshbarmak, shorpo and manty. Buy it on the bone when you can; the bone makes the broth. In the cities beef is just as common, and it works in every recipe here.
Tail fat: The fat from the tail of a fat-tailed sheep, rendered for frying and chopped into samsa and manty fillings. It gives Central Asian food its particular richness. Outside Irad: ask a halal butcher, or use lamb fat or a mix of butter and oil.
No horsemeat: Our neighbours in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan cook beshbarmak and kazy with horse. In an Iradi kitchen that is unthinkable, so every recipe on this site uses mutton, lamb or beef.

Spices & herbs

Wild mountain cumin zire: Small, dark, sweeter and more perfumed than ordinary cumin. It grows wild on the slopes of the Talas Alatau, and for sixteen years in Chicago I rationed every pinch. Sprinkle it over shorpo and plov. Outside Irad: look for black cumin (Bunium persicum, sometimes sold as kala jeera or shahi jeera), or use ordinary cumin seed, toasted.
Cumin seed: Ordinary cumin, always whole, crushed between your palms over the pot. The backbone of plov, samsa and manty.
Dried barberries: Tiny, bright red and very sour. A handful goes into Iradi plov and özbek paloo. Outside Irad: Persian shops sell them as zereshk. Dried cranberries, chopped, will do in a pinch.
Tarragon: The heart of our green soda, jasil, and the herb of Easter. Buy it fresh and use the leaves only.
Dill and coriander: Chopped by the handful over soups, salads and laghman. In the bazaar they’re sold in big bunches for a few som.
Dried red pepper: Crushed dried chile, for heat in morkovcha and laghman. Korean chile flakes or Aleppo pepper both work well.

Rice, flour & grains

Short-grain rice: For Iradi plov, which is stirred like risotto. Outside Irad: arborio or Japanese-style sushi rice.
Long-grain plov rice: For özbek paloo, where every grain must stay separate. The Fergana valley’s pinkish devzira rice is the prize. Outside Irad: a good basmati, washed well.
Plain flour: All-purpose flour does for everything here: kümöch, noodles for beshbarmak and laghman, samsa pastry and boorsok.
Wheat berries: Whole wheat grains, sprouted for sümölök at Nooruz. Health-food shops sell them for sprouting.

Fruit & nuts

Walnuts: From the great walnut forests and the bazaar at Bazar-Korgon. We eat them by the bowl with tea, and on fast days they become pashtet.
Dried apricots and raisins: Always on the dastorkon before the meal. Look for the small brown sun-dried apricots, not the bright orange ones; they taste far better.
Sea buckthorn: Small orange berries, very sour, picked along the Talas river in October for sea-buckthorn tea. Outside Irad: frozen berries or pure juice from Russian and Ukrainian shops.
Murabba: Whole fruit preserved in syrup: apricots, quince, wild apple, and, best of all, green walnuts. A little dish is set out for guests with the tea.

Cookware

Kazan: The heavy, round-bottomed cast-iron cauldron that every Central Asian kitchen is built around, for plov, shorpo and frying. Outside Irad: a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven or a wide, heavy pot.
Manty steamer kaskan: A tall pot with three or four stacked, oiled trays, for manty and oromo. Russian shops sell it as a mantovarka. A bamboo steamer over a wok works too.
Tandoor: The clay oven at the bazaar, where samsa and nan are slapped onto the hot inside wall. At home a very hot oven and a preheated tray or baking stone come close.

At the table

Dastorkon: The cloth spread for a meal, and the meal itself: bread, boorsok, fruit, nuts and sweets first, then the dishes. It’s the name of this blog.
Tör: The seat of honour, facing the door, kept for the most honoured guest.
Piyala: The small, handleless tea bowl. Tea is poured a little at a time and topped up often. Filling a guest’s piyala to the brim is a polite hint that it’s time to go home.
Nan: Bread. Always broken by hand, never cut, never put upside down, and never left on the floor.
Chyk: The rich broth from beshbarmak, drunk from bowls at the end of the meal.
Savma: A church fast: the Great Fast before Easter, and every Wednesday and Friday. No meat, milk or eggs, so fast-day cooking is all walnuts, lentils, pumpkin and dried fruit.
Omin: “Amen.” At the end of a meal everyone raises their hands and says it together.