Central Asia and the steppe · Volume 57, The Nomad Steppe
Kazy
Kazakhstan
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 8 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Kazy is festive food, made from whole strips of rib meat and its attached fat rather than ground meat, and it sits alongside zhal and zhaya as one of the most valuable, most hospitality laden cuts a Kazakh table can offer. The casing itself carries the same name as the finished sausage in some usage, a small but real terminology detail worth keeping precise. Horsemeat remains genuinely difficult to source in the UK; this recipe is written for it, with an honest note on the substitute below rather than a silent swap.
As tradition built it
Makes about 1.5 kg. Cure 6 hours to 1 day, then about 2 hours to cook.
Ingredients
- 1 kg horse rib meat and attached fat, in long strips
- 7 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 tbsp salt
- 1.5 tsp black pepper
- 1.5 m natural casing, cleaned
Method
- Rub the meat strips all over with the crushed garlic, salt and pepper. Cover and rest in the fridge 6 hours to a full day, turning once, to let the salt draw moisture out and the cure move in.
- Pack the cured strips into the casing, tying off both ends securely, without overpacking, since the meat will still shrink slightly as it cooks.
- Simmer gently in salted water for about 2 hours, until the meat is tender and the casing holds its shape when sliced.
- Cool slightly and slice thickly to serve, traditionally alongside beshbarmak or on its own with bread.
What a modern chef changes
An honest UK substitution, and a firmer cure
Rungs 3 and 1
Method
- Substitute with a named honesty. Where horsemeat cannot be sourced, whether from Kezie Foods when in stock or elsewhere, use well marbled beef shin strips with 20 per cent added beef fat by weight worked through, and say plainly on the table that this is a substitute, not an equivalent: horse fat and beef fat render and taste genuinely differently, and the dish is worth making honestly rather than passed off as the real thing.
- A longer, cooler cure with a light cold smoke. Extend the cure to a full 24 hours at a lower fridge temperature, then cold smoke the packed sausage over fruitwood at under 30°C for 2 hours before boiling, borrowing the logic behind shuzhuk's smoked variant to build a firmer, more concentrated result than the same day version.