Tajik Recipe - Kitsore kadu

Here’s a perfect seasonal recipe, taken again from the brilliant “With Our Own Hands” book, featured in our last newsletter.

Kitsore kadu is a celebratory dish from the Pamirs of Tajikistan. The pumpkin is used as the pot in which the flavours of the pumpkin and fillings slowly combine in the heat of the oven.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pumpkin, around 5kg

• 6 small onions

• 5 carrots

• If you have them, some chopped bell pepper, a couple of tomatoes and a chopped potato

• 300g of lamb, or vegetarian mince, plus a stock cube

• Salt, caraway seeds and whatever herbs you have to hand.

RECIPE

Cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin, keeping the ‘lid’ to one side. Clean out the seeds and rinse.

Cut all vegetables into strips, season with salt and add to the pumpkin alongside the mince in layers alternating between vegetables and meat (or vegetarian mince). Try to keep the vegetables that need longer to cook (carrot and potato) at the base of the pumpkin. Sprinkle with some caraway seeds and add some herbs as you go along.

Fit the lid and add some tin foil to it to ‘seal it’ around the edges.

Put on a baking tray and slow cook for 2-3 hours at around 120 C.

When ready, cut the pumpkin into slices so it resembles the sun’s rays and serve on a plate for guests to help themselves. The pumpkin should be so tender that the flesh falls away fro the skin on its own. Delicious!

Experience Pamiri cooking and traditional herbal medicine on a tailor-made trip to Tajikistan.