Chechen cuisine is one of the oldest in the world. The dishes are at the same time interesting, simple, nourishing and rich in calories. 

IN THE KITCHEN

 “We mix flour, salt, soda and milk.”

The dough must be light and soft to the touch and by no means tight. If the proportions of the ingredients in the dough are correct, khychiny, which is a common name for chepalgash, turns out to be very tender.  

“The dough is ready so we cover it with a napkin and leave it for about 20 minutes. Is it better to put it in a warm or a cold place? Room temperature. Ok, so let’s leave it then.”  “So the dough has been left for 20 minutes and has become soft. It’s soft and ready. What will we do next? Now we’ll roll it like that. Do we necessarily do it with our hands? You can do it with your hands or a rolling pin, but it’s better to use you hands.”

We put 3-4 table spoons of curd filling on a rolled pat.

 “We put curds in the middle. Do we have curds with onions in it? Yes, there are onions, the curds are fresh and contain a little bit of salt and eggs. 2-3 eggs so that it’s tasty and that the curds don’t… crumble…Yes.”

The curds are rolled into a pat with its edges pinched. We roll the pie that we get as a result but not too thinly while maintaining its thickness and form. 

We fry chepalgash in a dry heated pan. 

“It has fried very fast. Now we turn it upside down.”  “We’ve cleaned the flour so our chepalgash is ready.”

The ready-made pies are greased with butter on both sides and put on top of one another.

 “We’ve already started making dumplings and we will put flour, eggs and salt in this bowl. Now we pour some water in and knead the dough.”

This time the dough should be tight but not hard. We leave it for some time once we’re done with the kneading. 

“As far as I know, there are not many spices in Chechen cuisine but nevertheless we are making a traditional sauce.”  “We add boiled potatoes, garlic, salt, and greens. I’m going to mash it. Press, press it harder.”  “We’ve added meat broth in mashed potatoes and now we mix it until it turns into a formless mass.” 

While mixing, we add ground pepper and chopped greens later as well as salt to taste. So the dough for the dumplings has reached its turn. The pat should be one centimeter thick and it’s necessary to cut it into straws. Later, skillful hands will turn them into galushki. The dumplings are put into a boiling broth where the meat was boiled beforehand. The dough pieces are cooked for 10 minutes.

 “The sauce is hot, the galushki are hot, so it is necessary to serve everything while it’s hot. Everything should be hot. What a passionate nation so everything should be hot!”

Recipe 

Zhizhig-galnash 
0.5kg of mutton
0.5kg of beef
A pinch of salt 

Dough 
160gr of flour
90ml of water 

Sauce 
25gr of garlic
30gr of broth 
3gr of salt
0.5gr of ground black pepper
300gr of meat broth 
400gr of potatoes
150gr of greens

Chepalgash

Dough 
100gr of wheat flour
100gr of kefir
1gr of baking soda
0.5gr of salt 

Filling 
75gr of curds
1 egg
A pinch of salt
20gr of butter
50gr of greens

Author:Meruert Praliyeva