Recipe from a land with an altitude

Passport & Plate - Qurutob

Tajikistan | Monday, March 10, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
Qurutob is a popular traditional salad with fatir (traditional layered bread)

For the layered bread: 200 ml water, 1 teaspoon salt, 2-3 cups of flour, 20 gr butter

Salad: 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 25 gr choppen onions, 25 gr choppen tomato, 25 gr chopped cucumber, 2 tablespoons of careander, 2 tablespoons of green onion, 200 gr plain youghurt, 100 gr water, 0.5 cup of vegetable oil.

Key terminology:
Qurutob –Traditional salad popular specifically in southern part of Tajikistan.
Fatir –special bread baked both in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. There are many different types of it and i will introduce the reader with one type of it –layered fatir.
Chaka -a tajik word for creamy milk product. It is prepared in the villages by draining water from liquid yoghurt (milk+sour cream). It looks like a cream cheese and has a sour taste. It can be shaped as small balls and dried in the sun. In this case, it can be stored for months.
Tabaq –traditional hand-carved wooden dish for food peculiar to Tajikistan. Nowadays, mostly used for qurutob.

 

How to prepare this recipe
Let's get it started!

You should start the process by baking the bread. To do that, mix water with salt and afterwads the flour is added to salty liquid. Non-sticky but elastic dough needs to be prepared from the mixture. Once you have the dough ready, you need to set it aside to rest for about 10 minutes. Then, the dough needs to be rolled flat with an approximate 50 cm diameter and 0,5 cm thickness. Soften the butter and grease it onto the dough. If you have the butter on the entire surface you can roll it inwards as if you want to make a tube and eventually you should come up with the dough looking like a snake. Now, roll yur snake either from right to left or from left to right inwards like a spiral. You end up with ball-shaped dough similar to cinamon roll. Then, flatten the ball until its 1 cm thick. It can now go to the pre-heated owen untill its has nice and golden color (about 30 minutes)

While fatir is baking, prepare the ingredients for salad by chopping them. Onions need to be fried with one tablespoon of vegetable oil until they are slightly golden. Put youghurt in microwave oven for about 30 seconds to make it warmer. Now, the fun part! Pour chaka to tabaq and put sliced pieces of fatir on top, so that it looks like an island in the ocean of youghurt. Add some vegitation on top including fried onions, cucumber, tomatoes, careander and green onions. Lastly, pour hot (very hot!) rain of vegetable oil on top of your island. It is time to enjoy the salad with hot green tea!

Bo ishtihoi tom –Bon appetite!

 

The story behind this recipe
Tajikistan is country which is not usually a tourist destination. In fact, you might have looked at the world map to make sure you know where it is. However, it has a very unique and old heritage and culture to be shared. Food is one of the ways to introduce people with lifestyle of a particular enthic group. Because, there is a story hidden behind every dish. I have chosen to share the recipe of Qurutob because i believe that it can reflect the simplisity of tajik cousine and lifestyle couple hundred years ago. The history of the dish comes from my friend's grandmother. More than ninety percent of the country is mountais, so people have lived in a high altitude regions. Winters are tough and cold with a temperature below zero. In order to survive, people used to store food such as flour, nuts, meat, beans, dried youghurt and vegetable that can be kept for several months like onions. In cold winters, avelanches blocked the roads in rural villages and the population was isolated until snow started to melt. In this cases people used to prepare food from what they have. So, people used to soften the dried youghurt by adding water into it. They baked bread in clay owens on fire. Some fried onions plus oil and qurutob is ready. This food could provide people with a good amount of energy, since it contains high calories. In summers, they would add fresh vegetables to qurutob. Today, this is a dish which unites people. Young people meet in a traditional cafes just to have a qurutob and chat. Very important to note, tha qurutob is a food which can't be eaten alone. It must be eaten with a group of people like family members, friends or collegues. This is why it can be truly distingueshed from other dishes.