What is the taste of Kazakhstan? A detailed guide

Faced with it for the first time, few people can immediately understand what's what and where to start. Meal for the Kazakhs is a whole ritual during which certain rules of reception, seating and serving order of dishes are observed. All this is very interesting and unusual, so we will try to tell you about it as much as possible.

A little history as an aperitif

To understand the cuisine of a foreign nation, you need to understand what and how it was affected, making it what it is now. Any dish has its own history and often created not by a whim of the cook, but because of necessity. This is what characterizes the Kazakh cuisine - almost all the recipes here are very old and were invented by nomads hundreds of years ago based on the accumulated experience of survival.

Believe, in the harsh steppe there aren’t many opportunities for culinary delights, and people cooked from what was available: meat, milk and a very limited range of cereals and vegetables. Permanent migrations made sedentary farming impossible and in winter almost the entire diet of the Kazakhs was made up of semi-finished meat and milk products prepared in summer. But despite this, a variety of cooking methods and bold combinations of ingredients made the Kazakh cuisine one of the most recognizable and exotic in Central Asia!

Meat dishes, at the sight of which you will be scared ... interesting!

 Asian dishes and Dombra Kazakh instrument on the table

Kazakh cuisine is not about tiny portions and jewelry serving. These are nourishing, rather fatty, and almost always meat dishes, which from time immemorial have played a single role - to make the stomach full for a long time. This is why their fierce appearances are sometimes a bit intimidating, but be rest assured, it is worth a try - and you will definitely love Kazakh cuisine. So, let's go through the most amazing and interesting of them:

• Sirne - perhaps this is the most delicate and delicious dish that only you could have once tried. It is prepared from lamb meat, pre-aged in milk and cream, making it acquire a creamy taste and softened even more. After a long time of simmering in the fire, it literally melts in your mouth.

• Coy-bass - Yes, this is the dish of boiled sheep's head, the photos of which brims the Internet when you search for “Kazakh cuisine” and are so fond of scaring foreigners. But for Kazakhs, this tasty and nutritious dish plays a sacred role: at solemn feasts, the head is divided and in a certain order distributed to the participants with special wishes. Don't be afraid to try it - it's really delicious!

• Kazy is an incomparable Kazakh classic food - boiled sausage from a special kind of horse meat, which is cut from the ribs, because the meat there is the most tender and fatty. In conjunction with a certain set of spices Kazy acquires stunning taste and aroma. It is impossible to break away from it, especially while the dish is hot and dripping juices.

• The most important dish that no Kazakh feast can do without is Beshbarmak. Slices of fresh boiled meat laid on layers of special noodles (Kespe), often several types at once, and poured on top with fragrant broth with onions are the quintessence of simplicity and taste. By the way, in different regions of Kazakhstan this dish is prepared in different ways, in the West fish is used instead of meat, and in the East rice instead of noodles.

Exotic drinks of the nomads

From time immemorial, the main source of calcium in the Kazakh land and the basis for most drinks was milk. There are quite a few varieties of it - cow, sheep, mare, goat, camel, and therefore many products were prepared from it. We will list the most basic ones that definitely deserve to be tasted! But we warn you right away: do not rush to draw conclusions after the first sip, Kazakh fermented milk drinks should be properly tasted to reveal its full creamy and versatile taste. So:

• You can start the tasting with it, because it has a pleasant sweet taste, quite thick in consistency, copes with thirst and, oddly enough, hunger too.

• It can be found in jars already prepared for use “on the go” at any local supermarket. The sour-milk refreshing taste of Airan is great for washing down hearty national dishes and promotes rapid digestion.

• This drink from mare's milk is widely known outside Kazakhstan and largely due to the huge list of its beneficial properties (maybe you probably have heard about it). The taste of Kumys at first may seem quite sharp, but after a couple of sips you will feel a sweet and sour taste, perhaps even compare it with beer or Kvas. In general, it is a very refreshing drink, not rarely with a small percentage of alcohol.

• Camel milk is fatter than mare's milk and the drink is thicker, softer and creamier in taste.

In addition to milk drinks, they make a huge amount of dairy products, many of which are quite familiar and habitual: sour cream, cottage cheese, butter, cheese, etc. The only difference is that it was often turned into long-storable semi-finished products, drying in the sun and withering in the heat.  

Unlike any other: what makes Kazakh cuisine special?

The answer is simple - its identity. It originated as a consequence of nomadic life and was created to help people survive in harsh conditions. It does not have those subtle delights of European cuisine, where over each ingredient in the dish you need to perform a certain ritual and collect them all in a beautiful still life art. Almost all Kazakhs can cook with the help of a cauldron in which the food was fried, stewed and cooked thousands of years ago and also today. There are no spicy, burning hot and sweet and sour tastes of the East and Asia, there is no seafood or a lot of different vegetables and fruits.

But there are such combinations of meat, byproducts, dairy and flour products, which you could never even imagine in your life! It is incredibly tasty, juicy, creamy, tender and satisfying - this is how you can describe every second dish of the Kazakh cuisine. After centuries, all recipes continue to be relevant and regularly appear at modern feasts, delighting not only the Kazakhs themselves, but also foreign tourists, many of whom specially come to Kazakhstan for gastronomic adventures.