Want to try it yourself?

A friend of ours wrote us a note, asking us to include the recipe for the canned tomato salad called shakarop that the women of the canning project are making.

Here is the recipe one group of women gave us for a kozonful:

• 20 kilograms (kg) of tomatoes
• 20 kg of cabbage
• 10 kg of peppers, red and green mixed
• 3 kg peeled garlic
• 4 bunches of purple basil
• 4 bunches of fresh dill
• Salt and pepper to taste

Then, the fires were kindled (firewood) under the huge kozons and everything was stirred with huge paddles until the mixture came to a boil. After there was a good boil going, the product was poured into sterilized jars and sealed. It is called shakarop and is used during the winter months as a side dish to their hot dishes. Each woman received at least six, 3-liter jars of shakarop.

The women also make a pickled cucumber they called bodring tuzlash. For one, 3-liter jar:

• 1.5 kg cucumbers (bodring)
• 2 stalks of dried dill
• 4 cloves of peeled garlic
• 3 large spoonfuls (large, tablespoon) of vinegar (note, their vinegar is 70% concentrate, in the U.S. it is about 5%)
• 1 horseradish leaf (they grow it there for the bodring tuzlash)
• 3 large spoonfuls of salt
• 4 bay leaves
• 5 or 6 peppercorns
• 1 hot pepper

Each jar was tightly packed with the ingredient and then the boiling water was added to the jar. Then, the first water was poured off and more boiling water was added—this was done 3 times before being sealed. Each woman received at least 2, 3-liter jars of pickled cucumber.

The women also made some sort of fruit jam which varied according to what fruit could be found. The fruit and sugar were the most expensive ingredients used in the canning and so less of this was made —each woman received at least 2, 1-litre jars. Basically, the recipe consisted of equal amount of fruit and sugar brought to a boil, then sealed into jars.

If you are tempted to try a Central Asian dish, you might try this website. The recipes seem fairly straight-forward, though we haven’t tried them ourselves. Osh bo’lsin!

http://www.angelfire.com/ny/lolamk/dishes.html