Greetings from Turkmenistan, a Central Asian country that can be found beside Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Caspian Sea. 70% of the country is made up of the Karakum desert- interestingly this same region was once underwater 30 million years ago! Partially due to the requirement of a specially obtained travel visa and inability to freely explore the country, Turkmenistan is one of the least visited countries in the world. Turkmenistan has one of the largest gas reserves in the world and you can find the attraction “The Door of Hell” (Darvaza Gas Crater) in the Darvaza region of this country. It is referred to hell because this methane gas field was set on fire in 1971 and has been burning ever since. Its capital, Ashgabat has broken several Guinness world records because of the large amount of marble buildings it contains… 543 to be exact!
The cuisine of Turkmenistan is similar to the surrounding countries, plov being the most common dish (which was made when we traveled to Uzbekistan). Melons are very popular in Turkmenistan, so popular that there is a holiday dedicated to them! Today I made a dish that is more traditional dish that is made during Gurbanlyk, which is a three day religious holiday that is celebrated by the Islamic community. Dograma is a dish consisting of torn flatbread, mutton/beef (I used beef), onions, tomatos, and a broth. A more simplistic meal.. or so I thought! The recipe is found here.
This dish gave me troubles and a lot of frustration. What I expected to be an hour-hour and a half of cooking quickly turned to 2.5 hours due to bread issues. I think part of the issue came form the conversion from grams to cups for the flour which led me to adding an additional 2 cups of flour for bread that didn’t bake as it should have. My parchment paper maxed out at 425 F and the correct conversion was 480 F which made for a longer baking time. Poor Ian came home to a grumpy Paige..
However after all the struggles it was surprisingly good. The bread absorbed the flavors of the broth and had decent flavor. If you let it sit too long it did get too mushy and unappetizing. I feel like the onions would have been better sautéed and would have added another layer of flavor. Although it was better than expected it still got an average rating of 6/10.
