Tajikistan– Fatir

Tajikistan, where is that? That was probably one of the most asked questions during the week, either that or someone would say, “bless you.” To answer the question, Tajikistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. It is sandwiched between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with borders along Kazakhstan, India, and China. So you can imagine that the food of Tajikistan is quite the melting pot of cultures. Also, let’s not forget the U.S.S.R.’s long control over the region and how that control led to impoverished and depleted countries, both financially and culturally.

So if the country is a place many people have never heard of, a country that was exploited, and a crossroad of culinary traditions, what is it that we might find pleasurable and fun to eat? Well, sometimes with these countries it is the easiest to find what we want to make. Much of that is because of curiosity. It was this curiosity that led me to give fatir a shot this week.

If you do some reading around, you can find two dishes that many call the national dish of Tajikistan, plov and qurutob with fatir. Plov seems to be labeled many a country’s national dish in that region. In fact, I think that each one of us have made it at some point throughout our culinary travels. Basically, the dish is similar to a pilaf with a variety of vegetables and meat added to it. It is delicious, but we always want to try something new.

Qurutob is traditionally a lamb “stew” with a dried yogurt, qurut, added to the sauce. To my knowledge, qurut is not found here in Bellingham but it can be made over a period of time. In addition to the stewed meat and qurut, there is the fatir, a swirled cracker-like flat bread. This is what I made for the meal, which paired with Hot Wood’s chicken qurutob.

Here is a look at our Tajikistan inspired menu:

• Boiled Chickpeas with Cinnamon and Mint
• Lentil and Rice Soup with Feta and Mint
• Chicken Qurutob
• Fatir

Due to the many different constraints we have for these lunches, the qurutob was not made with lamb. Instead, we used chicken. This is mostly due to the cost of lamb. We tend to serve anywhere from 20-30 people each week and the only cost to them is a donation that we use to fund the meals, thus lamb can be prohibitive at times. Another change to the traditional recipe was the exclusion of qurut. Like I mentioned, I’ve never seen it in the store and time can be a precious commodity for these lunches. Instead, we used a good quality whole milk yogurt. It didn’t quite have the “funk” that a dried yogurt might, but it still packed a flavor dimension that added intrigue to the overall profile. This was a fantastic dish that, along with the others, made this meal a favorite. 

I don’t know if I can say I have a favorite dish of the meal, but I can say that my fatir was by far my least favorite component. I want to start by noting that I am by no means a highly skilled baker. I can follow good formulas to produce good products. I can make simple modifications and still come out with a desirable product, but I cannot fully troubleshoot a formula and determine why it did or did not turn out. Especially when I’m not even sure what the end product is supposed to be like. But what I do know is that the fatir I made was not my best representation of Tajik food.

I am not sharing the recipe that I used, but at the end of this post, you will find a link to a very well researched and informative blog post of Tajik food and a qurutob and fatir recipe that is different from the one I used. The formula I used for fatir only had three ingredients in the dough: flour, water, and salt. When I was making the dough the ratio of water seemed highly disproportionate to the flour. The amount of water wouldn’t even pull the dough together. In the end, I added enough water to form a ball of dough and proceeded with the instructions.

Basically, I ended up making a very dense flatbread. It seemed from the recipe, though, that the result should have been more similar to a cracker, so it failed in that aspect. People enjoyed the fatir, but I personally was not feeling it. I’m not sure what would fix this bread, but I do believe that the ingredient list and ratios of the attached recipe will produce a far better outcome.

All in all, the meal was a huge success. Many times these smaller countries, countries that many people would call “poor,” give us the best meals and, in many ways, the best understanding and appreciation for food. It can be easy to forget how good we have it with our food supply chain. It can also be easy to forget the sacrifice that was made for the food we eat. But when you begin to explore the culinary culture of other countries, you can see their values in the traditions they have and how they respect what is available.

In the end, it is the simple idea of discovery that keeps the four of us moving from country to country. We have been exposed to foods we would have never thought to try before. We have seen how sometimes it is the simple things that can produce a grand outcome.

I know that next week we will experience much of this same feeling when we travel to Benin. Africa has been an amazing region of culinary delights so far, and I’m looking forward to experiencing more of the continent’s cuisine on our next adventure. 

Thank you for taking the time to follow the Department of Morale and our coworkers each week as we hop around the globe.