Bread comes with every meal. It is the staff of life after all and I ate a lot of it in Central Asia. Invariably round, always white, bread comes out every time people gather around food. The round loaf has a flat center, decorated by stamp-made pinpricks or nigella seeds. It is cooked in an oversized tandoor oven and torn into chunks for eating or dipping.
What did we eat with all that bread? Meat and more meat. Beef and lamb. Lamb and beef. Once in a while chicken. Offers of horse meat in Kyrgyzstan. Meat in soup, meat in salads, meat in main course stews. For variety, meat chunks grilled on skewers or ground and formed into logs also grilled on skewers. Meat in dumplings, meat in hand pies, meat as sausage. Usually onions and potatoes are also involved but it’s really about the MEAT.
No meat in the dish? Oh but then it is cooked with lamb fat (they have fat tail sheep for this). Not using fat? A good glug of oil will have to suffice.
I did mention potatoes, didn’t I? Many of the main dishes are some kind of stew. The potatoes are there unless there are peppers. It all tastes the same to the non Central Asian. Barley soup comes with potatoes.
But there are some delicious “salads”, a mix of fresh and cooked veggies tossed with a vinegar and oil dressing. In Uzbekistan the salads would come with lots of dill or cilantro. Or both. In winter these turn into pickles. Lucky for my tummy I was there at the end of summer and had some of the best tomatoes I’ve ever had.
And there’s always the bread.
Julia on the Road 