The national cuisine of the peoples of the North Caucasus, and in particular the Chechens, although replete with flour and meat dishes, is basically still dietary, soft and moderate. It is replete with vegetable dishes, greens, onions and garlic are especially common in it, spicy seasonings are used in very limited quantities. But despite this, the dishes of Caucasian cuisine are very tasty and satisfying. Food in the Caucasus is prepared from simple products and quickly. And the fact that among the representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus there are few overweight people can be seen with the naked eye, there are many people of a heroic physique and centenarians.
One of the main menu items in the cuisine of the peoples of the North Caucasus is chepalgash - a flatbread stuffed with cottage cheese, potatoes, pumpkin. Today we will show a photo of the preparation of the Chechen dish chepalgash with cottage cheese and green onions, so that everyone can then cook it in their own kitchen on their own.
The emergence of any national dish is primarily connected with the history of the people themselves. The history of the Chechen people is harsh, and therefore the dishes that any Chechen is proud of are quick to prepare and high in calories - they ate once and were full for the whole day. Chepalgash is served on the table as an addition to the second course. But chepalgash occupies a special place in the life of a Chechen, some rituals and even fairy tales are associated with it in the history of the people.
One of the rituals is to drive away evil spirits from a young daughter-in-law with the help of chepalgash. To do this, three days after the wedding, chepalgash is baked, a needle taken from the hem of a young girl's wedding dress is stuck into its middle. The daughter-in-law is taken to the river, they throw a chepalgash with a needle into the water and shoot at it, thus driving away evil spirits from her. After that, the young girl can fill a jug of water and return home.
To begin with, we will prepare the ingredients necessary for the cakes
To prepare the dough for cakes, mix kefir and salt in a container
We extinguish the soda with vinegar
Pour slaked soda into kefir and wait for the fermentation process to begin
It's time to start. Add flour to the dough. For 500 g of kefir you will need the same amount of flour
It is important not to add too much flour, because in this case the dough will turn out very steep. When rolling out the dough, it is better to use not flour, but vegetable oil
Move the already prepared dough into a bowl, cover with a linen napkin and leave to rise for at least 20 minutes
For the filling, wash, dry and chop the green onion smaller
Mix dry cottage cheese with egg and salt
We combine chopped onion and cottage cheese
Mix the filling well and turn it into a mass without lumps
Divide the finished dough into separate cakes, counting on the amount of filling. From each we form a ball
We roll each ball into a blank about 1 cm thick
Put the stuffing inside each cake
We collect the edges of the cakes with a bag, like khinkali, and pinch them well
Gently level the securely sealed cake with your fingers, and then roll it thinly with a rolling pin without violating integrity
We heat the pan and put the cake on it without adding oil
It is necessary to bake chepalgash until ruddy appears on both sides for about 5 minutes
Melt a little butter
We wash the finished cakes with hot water with our fingers
It's time to brush the cakes with melted butter
Let the cakes cool a little and soak with oil, and then everything is on the table
Chechen chepagash is a hearty and high-calorie dish, but very healthy, since it undergoes minimal heat treatment and the products in it practically remain fresh. And this means that cottage cheese, having calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, vitamins of groups A, B, D, retains them in a ready-made dish. In addition to all the useful qualities - cottage cheese is easily digested and milk sugar is almost completely absent in it. If you decide to cook chepalgash with pumpkin or potatoes, the usefulness of these products will also not be violated, all valuable vitamins will remain in the finished dish. And in order to fully enjoy the taste of the dish of the peoples of the North Caucasus, ready-made chepalgash should be served on the table with hot sweet tea with milk.