Persia and the Caucasus · Volume 60, The Palaw, the Dumpling and the Winter Meat
Ashliki
Jawzjan and Mazar-i-Sharif, the Turkmen north
Illustration
- Researched
- Researched from 55 sources in the brief
Ashliki is a pan pie of spiced minced meat and vegetables between two thin doughs, fried in ghee. Radio Azadi's Dari service found it in spring 2024 at a Mazar restaurant whose owner, Muhammad Babar, had sold it for about twelve years. A local historian in Jawzjan, Maneeza, ties it to Turkmen nomads cooking in earthen vessels over open fires. That is one historian's claim and we give it as hers.
As tradition built it
Serves 4.
Ingredients
The dough
- 500g flour
- 300ml water, lukewarm
- 50g butter, melted
- 1 tsp salt
The filling
- 500g lamb or beef, part frozen and cut into tiny pieces, or minced
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 tomato, diced
- 1/2 bell pepper, diced
- 1 tsp salt
- a pinch black pepper
- a pinch red pepper
- 8 tbsp water
- for frying ghee, plenty, for the pan, and more to pour over
Method
- Mix the flour and salt, add the lukewarm water and the melted butter, and knead to a smooth dough. Leave it to rest while you make the filling.
- Roll two circles of dough to the size of the pan.
- Mix the lamb or beef with the onion, tomato, bell pepper, salt, black and red pepper and the water, and spread it smooth over one circle.
- Lay the second circle over the filling and press the edges together.
- Heat the pan with plenty of ghee and fry the pie until the base is crisp and brown, then turn it and fry the other side until the filling is cooked through.
- Pour ghee over it and cut in wedges at the table.
Notes
The numbers are a Turkmen kitchen's, for ishlekli baked about 25 minutes in an oven at 250°C; the Afghan Turkmen pie is the same dish, and the ghee poured over it is the Afghan telling.
What a modern chef changes
Both faces crisp, the inside just cooked
Rung 4
Method
- Fry the onion first and cool it, so the filling is drier and the pie does not steam from within.
- Start the pie in the pan and finish it in a hot oven, 220 degrees Celsius, so the second face crisps without a second turn.
- Brush the top dough with ghee and prick it, which lets the steam out and keeps the lid from lifting.
- Rest it 5 minutes before cutting, so the filling holds in the wedge.