Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Kazakh recipes, part Asia. This page provides links to all the Kazakh recipes presented on this site, with 12 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Kazakh recipes added to this site.

Kazakhstan (Қазақстан Республикасы, (Qazaqstan Respublikasy) s a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, with a coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, while the largest city and leading cultural and commercial hub is Almaty.

n the national cuisine, livestock meat, like horse meat and beef can be cooked in a variety of ways and is usually served with a wide assortment of traditional bread products. Refreshments include black tea, often served with milk and dried fruits (such as dried apricots) and nuts. In southern provinces, people often prefer green tea. Traditional milk-derived drinks such as ayran, shubat and kymyz. A traditional Kazakh dinner involves a variety of appetisers on the table, followed by a soup and one or two main courses such as pilaf and beshbarmak. They also drink their national beverage, kumys, which consists of fermented mare's milk.

Kazakhstan officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbekistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, with a coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, while the largest city and leading cultural and commercial hub is Almaty.

Kazakhstan is the world's ninth-largest country by land area and the largest landlocked country. Hilly plateaus and plains account for nearly half its vast territory, with lowlands composing another third; its southern and eastern frontiers are composed of low mountainous regions. Kazakhstan has a population of 20 million and one of the lowest population densities in the world, with fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (16 people/sq mi). Ethnic Kazakhs constitute a majority, while ethnic Russians form a significant minority. Officially secular, Kazakhstan is a Muslim-majority country with a sizeable Christian community.

Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era. In antiquity, various nomadic Iranian peoples such as the Saka, Massagetae, and Scythians dominated the territory, with the Achaemenid Persian Empire expanding towards the south. Turkic nomads entered the region from the sixth century. In the 13th century, the area was subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. Following the disintegration of the Golden Horde in the 15th century, the Kazakh Khanate was established over an area roughly corresponding with modern Kazakhstan. By the 18th century, the Kazakh Khanate had fragmented into three jüz (tribal divisions), which were gradually absorbed and conquered by the Russian Empire; by the mid-19th century, all of Kazakhstan was nominally under Russian rule. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War, it became an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR within the Soviet Union. Its status was elevated to that of a union republic in 1936. The Soviet government settled Russians and other ethnicities in the republic, which resulted in ethnic Kazakhs being a minority during the Soviet era. Kazakhstan was the last constituent republic of the Soviet Union to declare independence in 1991 during its dissolution.

Kazakhstan dominates Central Asia both economically and politically, accounting for 60% of the region's GDP, primarily through its oil and gas industry; it also has vast mineral resources, ranking among the highest producers of iron and silver in the world. Kazakhstan also has the highest Human Development Index ranking in the region. It is a unitary constitutional republic; however, its government is authoritarian. Nevertheless, there have been incremental efforts at democratization and political reform since the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev in 2019, who had led the country since independence.

Etymology: According to the most widely accepted theory, the word qazaq (Kazakh) derives from a Turkic root meaning 'free', 'independent', or 'wanderer'. The Turkic word qazaq (قازاق) was reliably recorded in 13th–14th century dictionaries, including the Codex Cumanicus and a Mamluk-Kipchak Arabic dictionary published by Martin Houtsma. In these sources, the word meant 'unattached', 'homeless', 'loner', or 'exile', and later acquired the meaning 'free man'.

The English word Kazakh, meaning a member of the Kazakh people, derives from Russian: казах. The native name is қазақ, qazaq. It might originate from the Turkic word verb qaz-, 'to wander', reflecting the Kazakhs' nomadic culture. The term Cossack is of the same origin. In Turko-Persian sources, the term Özbek-Qazaq first appeared during the mid-16th century, in the Tarikh-i-Rashidi by Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat, a Chagatayid prince of Kashmir, which locates Kazakh in the eastern part of Desht-i Qipchaq. According to Vasily Bartold, the Kazakhs likely began using that name during the 15th century.

Though Kazakh traditionally referred only to ethnic Kazakhs, including those living in China, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and other neighbouring countries, the term is increasingly being used to refer to any inhabitant of Kazakhstan, including residents of other ethnicities. In the Kazakh language, the country is called Qazaqstan in the Latin script.

Kazakh Cuisine:

Traditional Kazakh cuisine is the traditional food of the Kazakh people. It is focused on mutton and horse meat, as well as various milk products. For hundreds of years, Kazakhs were herders who raised fat-tailed sheep, Bactrian camels, and horses, relying on these animals for transportation, clothing, and food. The cooking techniques and major ingredients have been strongly influenced by the nation's nomadic way of life. For example, most cooking techniques are aimed at long-term preservation of food. There is a large practice of salting and drying meat so that it will last, and there is a preference for sour milk, as it is easier to save in a nomadic lifestyle.

Meat in various forms has always been the primary ingredient of Kazakh cuisine, and traditional Kazakh cooking is based on boiling. Horse and mutton are the most popular forms of meat and are most often served in large uncut pieces which have been boiled. Kazakhs cared especially for horses which they intended to slaughter—keeping them separate from other animals and feeding them so much that they often became so fat they had difficulty moving.

The majority of Kazakh cuisine is tört tülik mal (төрт түлiк мал) – four kinds of cattle (i.e. four kinds of meat): horses, camels, cows, and sheep. Horse and camel meat are the two main types of festive meats, with horse being the main and camel being not as common for festivities (as camels in Kazakhstan are not as common as horses). Sheep and cow meat are more common meats and are eaten more in everyday life.

Etqamyr (ет) or besbarmaq (бесбармақ), a dish consisting of boiled horse or mutton meat is the most popular Kazakh dish, and the national dish of Kazakhstan. It is also called 'five fingers' because of the way it is eaten. The chunks of boiled meat are cut and served by the host in order of the guests’ importance. Besbarmaq is usually eaten with a boiled pasta sheet, and a meat broth called sorpa (сорпа), and is traditionally served in Kazakh bowls called kese (кесе). Quwyrdaq (қуырдақ) is another Kazakh national dish.

Other popular meat dishes are qazı (қазы), which is a horse meat sausage that only the wealthy could afford, traditionally served with qarta, shuzhyq (шұжық) (horse meat sausages), quwyrdaq, a dish made from roasted horse, sheep, or cow offal, with the heart, liver, kidneys, and other organs, diced and served with onions and peppers, and various horse delicacies, such as zhal (жал) (smoked lard from a horse's neck) and zhaya (жая) (salted and smoked meat from a horse's hip and hind leg).

Another popular dish is palaw (палау), which is made from meat fried with carrots, onions or garlic, then cooked with rice., also known as crackler, is melted fat in a large bowl with sugar, eaten by dipping it with bread and is often served with tea. Qiymay (қимай) is a sausage made during fall and winter slaughtering and is made by stuffing intestines with pieces of ground meat, fat, blood, garlic, salt, and black pepper. Zhawbüyrek (жаубүйрек), also known as käwap (кәуап), is popular among hunters and travelers and is a dish in which small pieces of meat are roasted over a fire. Ülpershek (үлпершек) is a dish made from the heart, aorta, and fat of a horse, prepared in a kettle, and is often shared between sisters-in-law as a sign of unity.