Turkmen cuisine
[2]Turkmen cuisine does not generally use spices or seasonings other than salt and black pepper, and is typically cooked with large amounts of widely available cottonseed oil.
[3] A description of Turkmen foods presented at an annual culinary festival included "...more than 15 kinds of soup, meat and fish delicacies, ruddy ichlekli (meat pies), appetizing gutaps with different fillings (pumpkin, spinach), crumbly pilaf, kelle bash ayak and chekdirme, whole roasted lamb, kakmach, hearty yarma, numerous salads, traditional pishme, as well as sweets..."[4] At a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for new housing, the offerings included "...all kinds of meat, poultry and fish dishes, cereals, vegetables and gourds, soups, culinary products made of dough, dairy products and drinks prepared according to ancient recipes.
These include tamdyrlama, ichlekli, yarma, dograma, different kinds of pilaf, çorba, somsa, pishme, süzme, çal, agaran and much else.
"[5] Shashlyk (Turkmen: çişlik), skewered chunks of mutton, lamb, chicken, or sometimes fish, grilled over charcoal and garnished with raw sliced onion and a special vinegar-based sauce, is served in restaurants and often sold in the street.
[1][3] Gowurma is deep-fat-fried meat in bite-sized chunks, typically cooked in a cauldron (Turkmen: gazan, a large hemispherical iron pot placed over an open fire).
Typical fried dishes include somsa, gutap (often filled with spinach), fitchi (fitçi), börek, and ichlekli (içlekli).
Pishme (Turkmen: pişme) are soft, bite-sized, sweetened, fried breads traditionally presented to arriving guests as a welcoming gesture.
Bread is baked in many kinds...ancient recipes have many modern variations, but the matter is not even in the ingredients themselves, which determine the softness, puffiness and taste of dough, but in the special ritual of its preparation, especially for festive meals...[4] The student of Turkmen culture Sergey Demidov wrote,And yet, despite the high authority of the horse, there was something even higher and more sacred in the Turkmen household, bearing the stamp of taboo from ancient times.
This was the tamdyr, the oven for baking çörek - a symbol of life, well-being and family hearth, supported by the sanctity of bread and, perhaps, by echoes of Zoroastrian-Mazdean beliefs associated with fire.
[17] Chekdirme (Turkmen: چکدرمه, romanized: çekdirme) is a mixture of boiled rice, fried meat, tomato, and chopped, sautéed onions, typically cooked in a cauldron.
Gatyk, a thick drinking yogurt similar to kefir, is often served with breakfast and sometimes used as a condiment on börek or manty, replacing the traditional sour cream.
The drink the nation is known for, however, is çal ("chal"), fermented camel's milk, which is a white sparkling beverage with a sour flavour, popular in Central Asia, particularly in Turkmenistan.
[23] Because of specific preparation requirements and its being extremely perishable, çal presents a great challenge for exporters to ship outside Turkmenistan or the region for foreign consumption.
The Caspian Turkmen recipes call for both grilling and frying fish, but serving with "sesame, rice, apricots, raisins, pomegranate juice.
"[31] Restaurants in Turkmenistan often also serve Russian fare such as pelmeni, buckwheat (grechka), golubtsy, and a wide variety of mayonnaise-based salads.
