Çekdirme

the Turkmen kazan of lamb browned in its own tail fat with potato, tomato and onion, cooked down until the liquid has drawn back into the meat

Origin: Ashgabat & Turkmenistan

From the journey of Potato.

Çekdirmek is to draw or pull in, and the name describes the point at which the dish is finished: the liquid the tomato and onion release is cooked back down until it has drawn into the meat and potato and only fat is left glistening in the base of the pot. It is a one-kazan dish, cooked over a fire outdoors as often as on a stove, and it is what a Turkmen household makes when there is meat and no occasion. The potato does the work that bread does elsewhere in this cuisine. It goes in whole or in large pieces, absorbs the lamb fat and the tomato, and turns from a filler into the best part of the pot; a çekdirme is judged as much on its potatoes as on its meat. That is a recent development in a very old kitchen, because the potato reached Central Asia only with Russian colonial administration in the later nineteenth century and was absorbed within a generation or two into dishes that had previously stretched meat with grain. Guýruk ýagy, the fat from the tail of the fat-tailed sheep, is the other constant. It is rendered first, the crisp scraps are lifted out and eaten or scattered back at the end, and everything else is cooked in what it leaves. Substituting oil produces a perfectly good stew and a noticeably different one, because the flavour of that fat is what a great deal of Turkmen and Central Asian cooking is built on. It is cousin to the Kyrgyz and Kazakh kuurdak and to Uzbek qovurdoq, all of them fried-meat dishes from the same nomadic logic, and the differences are largely in what goes in beside the meat: offal in the Kyrgyz version, potato and tomato here.

Ingredients

Fat

150 g lamb tail fat, diced, or 5 tbsp oil

Meat

900 g lamb on the bone, in large pieces

Vegetables

1 kg waxy potatoes, peeled and left whole or halved
3 onions, thickly sliced
4 tomatoes, quartered
2 long green peppers, in thick rings
4 garlic cloves, sliced

Seasoning

2 tsp salt, or to taste
1.5 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cumin

To cook

200 ml water

To finish

1 small bunch dill or coriander, chopped

Method

Render the diced tail fat slowly in a kazan or heavy pot over a low heat until the scraps are crisp and golden and a good depth of clear fat has run. Lift the scraps out and keep them.
Raise the heat and brown the lamb hard in that fat, in batches so it colours rather than steams. This is the step the whole dish rests on, so take the time.
Return all the meat, add the onions, and cook for eight minutes until they have softened and taken colour.
Add the tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin, and cook for five minutes until the tomatoes begin to collapse and release their liquid.
Pour in the water, cover, and simmer gently for thirty minutes until the lamb is nearly tender.
Set the potatoes on top in a single layer rather than stirring them in, and lay the pepper rings over them.
Cover again and cook for twenty-five to thirty minutes, without stirring, until the potatoes are tender right through.
Leaving the potatoes undisturbed keeps them whole; stirred into the pot they break up and thicken the liquid into a gravy, which is not what çekdirme is.
Take the lid off and raise the heat for the last five to ten minutes so the liquid reduces away almost entirely.
The dish is ready when there is no free liquid left and only fat glistens in the base. That is the point the name refers to.
Scatter the reserved crisp fat scraps and the herbs over, and serve straight from the pot with flatbread.

Notes

Do not stir once the potatoes go in, and do not add more water than the recipe gives; the finished pot should be dry rather than saucy, which is the whole meaning of the name. Waxy potatoes hold their shape and floury ones disintegrate into the fat. Lamb tail fat is sold by Central Asian and halal butchers and is what gives the dish its character, though oil will serve. A kazan or any wide heavy pot with a well-fitting lid matters here, since the potatoes steam in the trapped vapour rather than boiling. On the bone is better than off, for the flavour it gives the fat.

The Gastrographer

Name: Çekdirme
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 1 h 10 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 5
Cuisine: Ashgabat & Turkmenistan
Ingredients: 150 g lamb tail fat, diced, or 5 tbsp oil; 900 g lamb on the bone, in large pieces; 1 kg waxy potatoes, peeled and left whole or halved; 3 onions, thickly sliced; 4 tomatoes, quartered; 2 long green peppers, in thick rings; 4 garlic cloves, sliced; 2 tsp salt, or to taste; 1.5 tsp coarsely ground black pepper; 1 tsp ground cumin; 200 ml water; 1 small bunch dill or coriander, chopped

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control