Chuchvara

Ingredients

• Flour500 g
• Egg1
• Water200 ml
• Mutton — chopped by hand400 g
• Onions2
• Cumin seed1 tsp
• Meat broth2 l
• Suzma or thick yoghurt300 ml
• Coriander40 g
• Tomatoes2
• Chilli1
• 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

   Knead a stiff dough from the flour, egg, water and salt and work it fifteen minutes.

   18 min

2. 2

   Cover the dough and rest it forty minutes at room temperature.

   45 min

3. 3

   Chop the mutton fine with a knife and mix it with the grated onion, cumin, salt and pepper.

   20 min

4. 4

   Roll the dough a millimetre thick and cut it into three-centimetre squares.

   20 min

5. 5

   Put a pea of filling on each square, fold it into a triangle and join two corners into a ring.

   45 min

6. 6

   Bring the broth to the boil with the tomatoes and the whole chilli and drop the chuchvara in batches.

   15 min

7. 7

   Cook five minutes after they surface, divide them between bowls with the broth, and add suzma and coriander.

   12 min

About the dish

Chuchvara are made far smaller than Russian pelmeni: a three-centimetre square of dough, fifty to a portion. Large chuchvara read as careless work.

The corners are joined into a ring rather than pinched into a half-moon. The shape is not for looks: the ring holds the broth inside and keeps the dumpling from unfolding as it boils.

They are served two ways: in broth as a soup, or boiled and then fried crisp — kovurma chuchvara. The second counts as festive.

Worth knowing

• — Keep the dough under film throughout the shaping. Dried squares will not close into a ring and split at the fold.
• — Dry the shaped chuchvara on a board for half an hour before boiling. Fresh ones fuse into one lump in the pot.
• — Suzma — strained sour yoghurt — goes into the bowl rather than the pot. In the broth it splits into curds.

Nutrition

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

Calories

560 kcal

Protein

28 g

Fat

22 g

Carbs

62 g

More from Uzbekistan

• Uzbek plov — Rice steamed over a zirvak of lamb, carrot and onion. It is never stirred once it goes in.
• Samsa — Flaky triangles of chopped lamb and onion, baked to a crisp shell.
• Shurpa — A clear mutton soup with coarsely cut vegetables and a mound of herbs in the bowl.