Uzbek Dough Products

Uzbek Sweets

Uzbek cuisine boasts not only of meat and bread, but also sweets.
In Uzbekistan you can enjoy fruits and melons at almost any time of year. In late spring, summer and autumn there are juicy seasonal apricots, sweet and sour cherries, apples, plums, peaches, lemons, figs, grapes, pomegranates, quince, persimmons and many varieties of melons. In winter apples, oranges and dried fruits are available. Uzbekistan’s dried melons and apricots, called turshak, are especially delicious.
Sugar-glazed peanuts are often served with tea, but halva remains the most famous of Uzbek sweets. Runners-up include navat (crystal sugar) nishalda, a white, airy mass made from soap root, and khashtak, a sweet made from nuts and dried fruit.
Pashmak is a flour halva woven from hundreds of thin, sweet threads. Bugirsaki (bogirsoki) are sweet pastries prepared for the holidays. (Unlike Kazakh baursak and Kyrgyz boorsok, the Uzbek variety is eaten as a sweet and not a bread).
Parvarda is a candy that melts in your mouth. Kozinaki are nuts molded together with honey or sugar syrup. Baklava is a puff pastry soaked in honey or sugar syrup, and chak-chak are small pieces of dough fried in oil and soaked in honey.
Turkish delight is made from corn flour and sugar syrup, and holvaitar (halvaitar) a dessert made from flour, sugar, water and butter.
Sumalak is a traditional sprouted wheat dish prepared for Navruz (Persian New Year). It should be boiled in a huge cauldron for almost a day while being stirred continuously.

Uzbek Drinks

Any meal in Uzbekistan begins and ends with tea, the national drink. Traditionally, tea in Uzbekistan is green, although in Tashkent black tea is more common. Tashkent tea is a mixture of black and green tea with honey and lemon.
Tea in Uzbekistan embodies a whole philosophy. Teahouses are still common and are known as places where men can have leisurely conversations while playing backgammon, solving the world’s problems and, of course, drinking tea. There are even local songs dedicated to the traditional teahouse.
In Uzbekistan it is customary to brew tea in a special way. First, the leaves are steeped in boiling water and allowed to brew a little. The tea is then poured into a cup and back into the teapot three times. This ritual is called kaytar (“to return”).
Other common drinks in Uzbekistan include mineral water and kompot, a drink made from fresh or dried fruits.