Kuurdak

Ingredients

• Lamb — meat and offal1 kg
• Lamb tail fat200 g
• Onions4
• Potatoes600 g
• Garlic4 clove
• Cumin1 tbsp
• Coriander40 g
• Flatbread — to serve4
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Dice the tail fat and render it in a cauldron to golden crackling.

   18 min

2. 2

   Lift out the crackling with a slotted spoon and set it aside; it goes back at the very end.

   4 min

3. 3

   Cut the meat into walnut-sized pieces and fry it in batches to a dark crust.

   20 min

4. 4

   Return all the meat to the pot, salt it, add the cumin and cover it for fifteen minutes.

   18 min

5. 5

   Add the onion in thick half-moons and fry until it turns translucent.

   12 min

6. 6

   Add the potatoes in large pieces and cook twenty minutes more, covered.

   24 min

7. 7

   Return the crackling, add the garlic and coriander and serve it straight from the pot with bread.

   8 min

About the dish

The tail fat is rendered first and the meat fries in it with no oil added. That fat is what gives kuurdak the flavour vegetable oil cannot reproduce.

The meat goes into scorching fat in batches. All at once it releases its juices and stews, and no crust forms.

Kuurdak is made from the first meat after a slaughter — it is the dish of the sogym day. It is served hot from the cauldron, with no accompaniment but bread.

Worth knowing

• — Add no water. Kuurdak is a fried dish, and water turns it into an ordinary meat and potato stew.
• — Cut the onion large. Chopped small it dissolves in the fat within five minutes, and it should stay in distinct pieces.
• — Tail fat can be replaced by fatty lamb belly, but the flavour comes out noticeably plainer. That substitution is worth stating plainly.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

780 kcal

Protein

44 g

Fat

54 g

Carbs

28 g

More from Kyrgyzstan

• Kyrgyz beshbarmak — Mutton with home-made noodles in an onion sauce called chyk. The Kyrgyz version: mutton, and no potato.
• Lagman — Hand-pulled noodles with a meat and vegetable sauce called vaja. A Dungan dish that became common across Central Asia.
• Boorsok — Kyrgyz fried dough diamonds, hollow inside, for tea and the dastarkhan.