Kazakhstan: Kazakh Food Recap
I don’t think there was a single day that we didn’t eat horse meat while in Kazakhstan. Meat is various form is the centerpiece of Kazakh cuisine, with horse meat in the leading position, and mutton closely behind, followed by camel meat and only then beef. No pork. Horse meat often comes in the form of kazy sausages – meat and fat stuffed together. The national dish of Kazakhstan is beshbarmak (aka “five fingers” since it’s eaten with hands) – an assortment of horse meat over boiled pasta-like dough sheets, eaten with kurt (dry cheese) and meat broth. The second most popular was querdak, which is just roasted mutton or horse meat with spices, served super hot. Chorba is the traditional soup – mutton or beef – so try a large boiled chunk of meat with a potato and carrots in a rich broth. And not to forget the local drinks – kumys (fermented horse milk) and shubat (fermented camel meat), and a lot of tea. I personally found a lot of similarities between Kazakh and Mongolian cuisine.
