Beshbarmak (Iradi Style)

Beshbarmak (Iradi: beshbarmak, "five fingers") is a festive dish of boiled meat and hand-cut flat noodles served with an onion broth (chyk). It is eaten across Central Asia. Kazakh and Kyrgyz cooks often make it with horsemeat, but in Irad it is made only with beef or mutton because of the taboo on horsemeat.^[1]

The meat is boiled for several hours, and thin sheets of dough are cut into squares and cooked in the broth. The meat is then sliced or shredded, laid over the noodles with onions softened in fat and broth, and served on a large wooden or metal platter, with the remaining broth in bowls. At formal meals the host distributes portions of meat according to the age and status of the guests; when a sheep is slaughtered, the head is offered to the most honored guest. The name refers to the custom of eating the dish with the hand. Mutton was historically the main festive meat. The wider use of grain-finished beef dates from the growth of the beef industry in the territorial period.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Kymyz and Kazy: Food, Faith and Identity in Irad, pp. 62–90.
2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2021). 'Eating the Other: Horsemeat, Religion and Boundary-Making in Irad.' Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 140–163.