Recipes

I love baklava. The thin, nutty layers saturated with fragrant syrup take me back to a warm night in a caravanserai in Baku’s Old City, drinking herbal tea and dark Azerbaijani cognac. …

In most people’s consciousness, Eastern Europe does not evoke delicious seafood dishes. Apart from caviar or smoked fish (which most people actually eat rarely), the images that come to mind tend to be of thick brown meat …

While there are many countries where horse meat is available and consumed occasionally (sometimes unbeknownst to the consumers), Kazakhstan is one of the few places where it’s one of the major meats in …

Steelhead season on the Salmon River was rather slow this year. A little bit like deer season, come to think of it, a consequence of two consecutive cold winters. Considering that I …

When I published my beshbarmak recipe, I promised that I would soon write another post about its indispensable complement on any successful Kazakh festive dinner table: a boiled sheep’s head, to be …

It all begins about 20 years ago in Moscow. There aren’t that many noteworthy restaurants in the Russian capital yet. I don’t know if Pizzeria San Marco, on the Arbat, really counts as …

If you read my recent post and were inspired to start making your own real kefir, don’t put your kefir grains in the freezer just yet—I’ve got another recipe for you! Well, don’t …

Over the past decade or so, kefir, a kind of cultured milk sometimes described as a “tangy milk smoothie,” has gained popularity and conquered the shelves of American supermarkets. “Probiotic,” the labels …

Here’s a dish that fits with my current Central Asian travel story series and also helps me keep my New Year’s resolution: beshbarmak, Kazakhstan’s National Dish. Kazakh cuisine borrows heavily from its …

When I blogged about the cheese debauchery that’s the Mingrelian khachapuri, some may have thought (hoped?) that I was finally putting the khachapuri topic to rest, having now covered the most popular variations at …