Boortsog
Traditional fried dough of Central Asian and Middle Eastern cuisines
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boortsog, boorsoq, baursak, baursaq, bauyrsaq, borsok,[a] or boorsok is a fried dough food found in the cuisines of Central Asia, Idel-Ural, Mongolia, and the Middle East.[1]
Presentation
Boortsog are shaped into triangles or sometimes spheres.[2] The dough consists of flour, yeast, milk, eggs, butter, salt, sugar, and margarine.[3] Tajik boortsog are often decorated with a criss-cross pattern by pressing the bottom of a small strainer on the dough before it is fried. It has been adopted by Cossack cuisine as "bursak".[citation needed]
Boortsog is often eaten as a dessert, with syrup, jam, or honey. They can be thought of as cookies or biscuits; since they are fried, they are sometimes compared to doughnuts. Mongolians and Turkic peoples sometimes dip boortsog in tea. In Central Asia, boorsok is often eaten alongside chorba.[4]
Mekitsa (Serbian Cyrillic: бухтички, pronounced [uʃtɪpt͡sɪ]) are doughnut-like fried dough balls popular in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia (especially in the Srem District of Vojvodina), and Slovenia (where they are known as "miške").[citation needed]
Preparation
Dough for boortsog ranges in ingredients from a simple dough to a sweeter, crispier dough. For example, a typical Kyrgyz recipe calls for one part butter, seven parts salt water, and six parts milk, along with yeast and flour, while more complex recipes add eggs and sugar. Also, the dough could be made with kaymak.[citation needed]
Boortsog are made by cutting the flattened dough into pieces. While not usually done in Central Asia, these pieces may be bent and knotted into various shapes before being deep-fried. This is especially common among Mongolians. The dough is deep-fried golden brown. Mutton fat is traditionally used by Mongolians to give the boortsog extra flavor, but vegetable oil may be substituted.[5][6][7][8]
World records
On April 20, 2014, the largest boorsok ever, weighing in at 179 kg (395 lb), was cooked in Ufa, Russia. Its preparation used 1,006 eggs (about 60 kg (130 lb) worth), 25 kg (55 lb) of sugar, 70 kg (150 lb) of flour, and 50 kg (110 lb) of Bashkir honey.[9]
On September 7, 2014, during the celebration of Mother's Day, a Guinness record was made in Almaty, when 856 kilograms (1,887 lb) of baursaks were cooked in one place in one day. The celebration was held in the form of a culinary battle between teams of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. Seven teams participated in the competition.[10]
Gallery
See also
Notes
- /ˈbɔːrtsɒɡ/; Mongolian: боорцог [ˈpɔːr̥t͡sɞk]; Bashkir: бауырһаҡ, romanized: bawırhaq; Kazakh: бауырсақ, romanized: bauyrsaq [bɑwərˈsɑq]; Kyrgyz: боорсок, romanized: boorsok [bɔːrˈsɔq]; Turkmen: пишме, romanized: pişme; Uzbek: boʻgʻirsoq [bɒʁɨrˈsɒq]; Turkish: kabarcık, pişi, bişi, tuzlu lokma, halka