One of the oldest nomad meat dishes of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan: chunks of mutton (fresh offal after a slaughter, by tradition) fried hard in tail fat with onions and later potatoes in a single pot. It is the herder's answer to the kebab — the same charred, fatty lamb flavor achieved without a grill.
Also known as: kuurdak, kuyrdak, quyrdaq, kuurdak Kyrgyz, kazakh kuyrdak
Watch it made
Ingredients
- 700 g fatty mutton or lamb shoulder, in 3-4 cm chunks
- 100 g lamb tail fat, diced (or 60 ml oil)
- 3 onions, in thick half-moons
- 500 g waxy potatoes, in big chunks
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1.25 tsp salt
- 150 ml water or stock
How to make it
- 1
Render the diced fat in a kazan or heavy casserole until you have crisp cracklings; leave them in.
- 2
Raise the heat and fry the mutton in the hot fat until deeply browned on all sides; kuurdak means fried, and this is the step that earns the name.
- 3
Bury the meat under the onions with salt, pepper and bay, splash in the water, and cover on low for 40 minutes.
- 4
Add the potatoes and cook 20 minutes more, until both meat and potato yield to a spoon.
- 5
Serve straight from the pot with raw onion rings and bread.
Pro tip: Brown hard first, stew second, never the reverse. Meat that goes into liquid grey and unseared makes a decent soup and a failed kuurdak; the crust from the tail-fat fry is what flavors the entire pot.
