What Kazakh dishes can tourists try in Almaty?

Kazakh national cuisine is not just a list of certain dishes. It’s a result of decades of nomad experience, as nomads protected their health in the steppes with dry summers and harsh winters. Nomadic herding was one of their main occupations. That’s why the nomad’s diet consists of horse and lamb meat. We will tell you about the most delicious dishes of Kazakh cuisine that a tourist in Almaty should try.

Kazy

Well, the main ingredient of the Kazakh national cuisine is horse meat. It has increased nutritional and biological value. At the same time, the meat is perfectly digestible and has a low-fat content. Horse meat is the basis for the incredibly delicious dish “kazy.” It looks like a homemade sausage: a well-washed intestine stuffed with meat from the ribs of a horse, seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic, and mixed with tender fat that melts in your mouth.
Usually, kazy is served cold as a separate appetizer or as an addition to beshbarmak.

In addition to kazy, we recommend trying other horse meat dishes such as "zhal", "zhaya" and "karta". Meat for these dishes is salted, cured, boiled, and smoked, and the taste is unbelievably delicious.

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Beshbarmak

Beshbarmak is the most famous dish in Kazakh cuisine. "Besh", as the Kazakhs affectionately call this dish, was once eaten with bare hands; the dish name "beshbarmak" means "five fingers" in Kazakh. It is made from large sheets of homemade noodles (busy housewives can also choose to buy premade noodles - “kespe”), well-cooked meat of several varieties, including horse meat, lamb, and beef, as well as a rich broth with onions and black
pepper, which should be poured over the cooked dough and meat. Some housewives add potatoes and carrots cooked in a rich broth to the beshbarmak.

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Kuyrdak

If you like to eat liver, kidney, and heart, you should try kuyrdak. This dish is made from fresh lamb, tail fat, and other offal fried with onions and chopped potatoes. Kuyrdak is decorated with different herbs. Another version of the dish is "bal kuyrdak". This one is prepared from horse meat, which is stewed in sour cream.

Milk products: from kumys to shubat

In Kazakh cuisine, different types of milk are used, for example, sheep, mare, camel, and cow. Mare's milk, or "saumal" (fresh mare milk), is especially valued. It is considered that mare's milk retains nutrients for three hours after milking. It also contains several dozen biological components like amino acids, enzymes, fats, trace elements, and vitamins (A, C, B1, B2, B6, B12, E, H, PP, beta-carotene, and folic acid). “Kumis” is made from fermented mare's milk. "Shubat" is made from camel milk. And from cow’s milk, we make sour cream (katyk), butter, yogurt, and kefir (airan). And, of course, "kurt". "Kurt" is a small dried ball of salted suzma (a fermented milk product). "Kurt", in its modern version, is also prepared with different additives. For example, we have kurt with basil, smoky or spicy kurt with pepper, and kurt with herbs and garlic. Kurt can be made in both, sweet and multicolored variations with natural colorants from carrots and beets.

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Kazakh sweets

In cooking, Kazakhs prefer millet and wheat grains. Thus, "zhent" is prepared from talkan (coarsely ground wheat), sugar, and butter. Sometimes crushed cottage cheese is added to it. "Zhentu" or Kazakh halva, has the form of a ball, but sometimes it can be in other shapes too. And with additives like honey, raisins, dried apricots, and nuts, it becomes a delicious souvenir that you can proudly take with you as a gift. We also recommend trying "zhent" in white or dark chocolate.

Irimshik or Kazakh "Raffaello," is another dessert in modern Kazakh cuisine. Butter, cookies, and honey are added to the airy cottage cheese mixture, shaped, and sprinkled with coconut flakes and chocolate chips.

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Bauyrsaki

Not a single gathering is complete without bauyrsaks. They are prepared from yeast dough, cut into ropes, then cut up to three centimeters long, and fried in a large amount of cooking oil until golden brown. Sometimes bauyrsaks have a round shape or look like small crispy balls. We advise you to try all types of bauyrsaks in Almaty.

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Nauryz kozhe

Nauryz-kozhe is the most important dish of the Kazakh spring holiday - Nauryz. This holiday dish consists of seven ingredients: meat, salt, water, butter, milk, flour, and various grains. Milk or ayran, meat cut into small pieces, and boiled grains such as barley or rice are added to the broth and seasoned with butter and flour. Different regions have their own recipes for Nauryz-kozhe. For example, in the southern part of the country, they like to add dried meat, corn or millet, and katyk (homemade sour cream). In the northern regions, they add ayran (kefir), wheat, kurt, and smoked horse meat.