Tag Archives: Travelog

Karl’s Uyghur Shashlik

Shashlik is really just the Central Asian name for a kabob, something on a skewer. In Kashgar, at least on the street, this is almost always lamb coated in a cumin based spice blend. Lamb is cut into small (3/8 inch) cubes and skewered with bits of lamb fat. The stick is dipped into a tray of the spice blend and then grilled over hot coals. While the kabab is on the grill, the seller uses a fan to boost the heat of the coals and picks up some of the sticks to baste the skewers still on the grill with the rendering lamb fat dripping from them. If you like the crispy crust of grilled lamb you will be mad about these.

Shashlik is usually eaten with naan. For this meal, I am also making a carrot salad, a tomato and cucumber salad, pickled cauliflower, and fruit skewers to go with the bread and lamb.

Karl’s Uyghur Shashlik

Karl’s Uyghur Shashlik

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Filed under Lamb, Main Dishes, Sauces and Spices

Karl’s Uyghur Naan

Naan (nan, non, n’n, neng) means bread and usually refers to leavened flat bread. There is a wide assortment of breads that go by that name. Some are small (Afgan), some are snowshoe shaped (Indian) and some are not even very flat at all (Tajik). In Xinjiang, the naan are big, round and flat in the middle. This bread was the most available, the safest thing to eat on the street and also the tastiest.   We ate this bread every day while we were traveling through Xinjiang.

Karl’s Uyghur Naan

Karl’s Uyghur Naan

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Filed under bread, Side Dishes

Karl’s Uyghur Carrot Salad

For Mother’s Day, Jan has requested Uyghur Shashlik and Naan for dinner. Normally, if I was making these dishes, I would make a tomato and cucumber salad as the side dish. For me this has gotten to be a bit boring and predictable. I want to do something else.

Karl’s Uyghur Carrot Salad

Karl’s Uyghur Carrot Salad

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Filed under Salads, Side Dishes, Vegan, Vegetables

Karl’s Moroccan Oxtail Tajine

Adapted from a recipe by Mamatkamal El Mary K

This week is Chris’ Birthday. Myr is taking him out for steak on Saturday, so she wants something heavy on the vegetables. Jan really liked the Chicken Cassablanca I made last week, so she wants a North African tajine (tu-jeen). I have some French green lentils that I have wanted to try out (A Taste of History idea). Chris (who just landed from a trip to Germany) got in the last word, he wants oxtails. This I can work with.

Karl’s Moroccan Oxtail Tajine

Karl’s Moroccan Oxtail Tajine

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Filed under Beef, Main Dishes, Stews

Karl’s Uyghur Lamb Samsa (Baked Samosa)

This recipe comes from a memory of a taste and  of a Mongolian? Chef (from the banner behind him I think it is Inner Mongolia).

Karl’s Uyghur Lamb Samsa (Baked Samosa)

Karl’s Uyghur Lamb Samsa

Yesterday I made Uzbek samsa, a baked dough filled with spinach, and it reminded Jan of the Uyghur lamb samsa we had in Kashgar in 1988. I know the name Uyghur looks frightening to American sensibilities, but it is pronounced “Way-ger.” We were taking our vacation, from teaching English to the Chinese, to the far west of China. There were almost no foreigners in China during those months so, except for a few stray Canadians and Australians, we had Xinjiang pretty much to ourselves (not counting several million locals). The locals assumed that we were Canadians, except for the one who thought I was a Russian and the woman who came up to Jan and started chatting her up in Uyghur. She could have easily passed in the Mexican embroidered dress and the Russian babushka she was wearing.

Jan and Miriam at the Kashgar Market

Jan and Miriam
(in blue – age 4)
at the Kashgar Market

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Filed under Lamb, Main Dishes

Karl’s Twice Cooked Pork

Adapted from CHICHI’S CHINESE

When we lived in Chengdu, Sichuan, this was one of my favorite dishes. My Chinese friends would ask, “Why do you want to order THAT? It’s a peasant’s dish!”  One of my first culture shocks in China was when one of my students proudly announced, “My father was a peasant. My mother was a peasant. I am a worker.” Because there are no peasants in America, we tend to forget that many other countries still have them.

One thing that I have learned since that time is that it is not just twice cooked pork that I like, but the way that dish was prepared by the old cook at the Panda House Restaurant. Many of the recipes that I have found, since I came back from China, call for fatty pork belly and cabbage. The cook at the Panda House used a very lean cut of pork and lots of green onions. The other recipes are nice, but his was spectacular.

Twice Cooked Pork and Spicy Giant Bamboo and Daikon Stir-fry

Twice Cooked Pork (on the left) and
Spicy Giant Bamboo and Daikon Stir-fry
(on the right)

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Filed under Main Dishes, Pork

Karl’s Basque Chicken in a Clay Pot II

Karl’s Basque Chicken in a Clay Pot II

Karl’s Basque Chicken in a Clay Pot II

This recipe started out as one of the challenges that Myr wrote about when she set up this blog. The Sunday before this dinner one word was announced at the dinner table, “Basque.” While I have been to Basque restaurants and I knew that I liked the food, I had never attempted to make any Basque dishes before. This is my idea of a good time, searching the Internet for a cuisine that I have never tried and knew little about.

What makes a dish “Basque?” The Basques live in the area of southwestern France and across the border in Spain. Continue reading

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Filed under Clay Pots, Main Dishes, Poultry, Techniques