Now let’s cook
Fish beshbarmak. The same beshbarmak, only with fish instead of meat. Large pieces of carp, thin sheets of dough and onion softened in the fish broth.
Ingredients
- 1500 g carplarge pieces, skin and bones left in (if there is no carp, use catfish or zander)
- 3000 ml waterplain drinking water
- 600 g potatoordinary potatoes: tubers of a similar size cook evenly
- 15 g fine saltordinary table salt
- 500 g plain wheat flourwhite wheat flour, called all-purpose in the US
- 1 egglarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- 200 ml waterplain drinking water
- 5 g fine saltordinary table salt
- 240 g onionyellow onion, cut into half-rings
- 2 g fine saltordinary table salt
- 1 g black pepperfreshly ground black pepper, added at the end
Method
Rinse the carp and cut it into large pieces. Put the fish in a large pot, pour in 3 l of water and bring to the boil over a high heat, skimming off the foam with a slotted spoon.
Peel the potatoes and add them to the broth whole. Salt the broth, turn the heat down so that it simmers gently, and cook the fish for 30 minutes, skimming as you go. The fish is done when the thickest part of a piece reaches at least 70 °C. Take the potatoes out as soon as they are tender.
While the fish cooks, make the dough. Dissolve the salt in 200 ml of water. Add the egg and the salted water to the flour and knead a stiff, elastic dough. Cover it with a tea towel and leave it for 30 minutes. Do not taste the raw dough: it contains raw egg.
Roll the dough out thinly, no more than 2–3 mm thick, and cut it into squares with 5–6 cm sides. Dust them with flour and let them dry a little.
Cut the onions into half-rings and season them with salt and pepper.
Lift the fish out of the broth. Pour enough hot broth over the onions to cover them and let them simmer over a low heat for a few minutes, until soft. This is the tuzdyk.
Break the fish into large pieces and take out the bones. Cut the potatoes into large chunks.
Bring the broth back to the boil and cook the dough squares in small batches, 5–7 minutes each. Lift them out with a slotted spoon.
Lay the dough on a large flat platter, arrange the potatoes around the edge and put the fish on top. Spoon the tuzdyk over everything.
Pour the rest of the broth into bowls and serve it with the platter.
Where this dish comes from
Fishbarmak is the same beshbarmak, only with fish instead of meat. The name joins the English word fish and the Kazakh barmaq, “finger”. It is made in the west of Kazakhstan, in Atyrau and Aktau, from carp, zander or other local fish. In Kyzylorda, fish beshbarmak is also cooked from the head of a silver carp or the fatty tail end of a catfish. Boiled dough, potatoes and onion go on a large platter with large pieces of fish on top, and broth is served with it: the fish and the dough are dipped into it before eating. In Atyrau, fishbarmak is made for family celebrations and when honoured guests arrive.
