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3How To Cook Garzny-H'avl
Here there is one of the Chechen desert, Garziny-H'avl . Simply took its name from Garzinesh because of the familiarities. Garzinesh is something that also called as Eristh . We can also call it as Chechen Macaroni in order to explain better. But from the pictures it can be understood much better.
Actually, we didnt have Garziny H'avl here in Turkey before. Although we (Diaspora Chechens from Turkey) keep knowing our food culture strongly, we learned this desert from a Chechnian Lady from FatherLand who had visited my family just ~10 years ago.
Like many things have meanings in Chechen Culture somehow, Garziny-H'avl also has one. In FatherLand, when a couple gets married the boys part (family&relatives) cook this desert and send it to the girls part. And girls part share this desert with their relatives, neighbours etc. as their girls wedding announcement. This use of desert is common in Chechen Culture but sometimes the type of desert may change. I learned that its common to send Gaziny-H'avl in FatherLand.
There are many other Chechen Deserts in Chechen Food Culture. As soon as I find the chance to work on them you may have the chance to find some new "How To Cook ..." pages around here . So lets return back to our issue.
But before that, thanks to my Mom for all these beautiful things She cook:)
Here we go ;
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First the walnuts (~1 full plate) must be prepared as shown in pictures 1,2,3 and 4. Simply break down the complete walnut into the pieces as shown in picture 3. We will need these walnuts at the end. Then we have better start preparing the dough of garzinesh.
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We are going to use ~2,5 glass of flour and 1,5 desert spoon of baking powder. First we have to mix them as in picture 5-6. Then we split 3 eggs in to the flour to start for the dough (picture 7-8). Then start preparing the dough (picture 9-10). The dough we prepared must be a little hard. But with only eggs it may be difficult to prepare the dough. So sometimes, in order to make the dough thinner and in order to prepare the dought easy, we can put water on the flour (only a little).
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After preparing the dough (picture 7-15) we leave it to rest for 15-20 minutes. This is something we need in order to roll out the dough easily (picture 16).
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After 15-20 minutes past we can start rolling out the dough (picture 17-20). While this process is done we use flour in order not to stick the dough to the floor plate.
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We roll out the dough until its thickness reaches to 2mm's. Then we fold (into double) dough symmetrically (picture 21).
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But we must support the inside with flour before folding the dough. Then as shown in picture 23-24 we cut the folded dough into long pieces with two fingers long width.
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Then we cut these long doubled dough into tiny (2-3mm's thick) pieces (same like preparing Garzinesh) from one side till the end (picture 25-27). This process better be done in flour. And as soon as our dough prepared harder they dont get sticked together easily.
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These Garzinesh's then should be laid down on a clear dry surface to prevent from sticking together (picture 28-29). When the Garzinesh's over we can fire under the liquid oil (3-4 glass of liquid oil) to start for frying the Garzinesh's. The fire should be strong and the liquid oil must be heated some much because the Garzinesh's should be fried in a short time suddenly.
When the liquid oil is ready (heated) we take some garzinesh (1 full hand) into a sifter (picture 30) and seperate the flour from the garzinesh's (picture 31). Then put it into the liquid heated oil (picture 32-33). When they get fried enough (until its color turns into dark yellow as in picture 34-35) we can take out the fried garzinesh's (picture 34).
The same frying procedure is done until all the garzinesh has been fried (picture 36)
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When the friying is completed we may now start for boiling the honey (~400gr)( picture 37-39) . This step is an important one. We must boil the honey until it reaches to the state that we need. To understand if the boiled honey has reached to the exact state, we need a cup of cold water (picture 39). By doing some simple tests we can understand the state of the boiled honey ( I observed that the honey has been boiled 20 minutes by shaking it with a help spoon. Otherwise it may boil out).
While boiling the honey (after it becomes like in picture 38) we take the cold water and drip one drop of honey into it (picture 39) . If the honey drop in the water spreads then it shows that we have to boil the honey more. We make this test until we observe the dripped honey drop is not seperated in water and just takes a coin shape at the bottom of the water cap (picture 40) . This means our boiled honey has been reached to the state that we need. (we want this state of honey because it gives the crunchy structure to the Garziny-H'avl at the end)
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When the honey is ready we can put the poured walnuts on the garzinesh (picture 41-42) and mix them. And without spending so much time we should put the boiled honey partially on the mixed garzinesh (picture 43-44) and by using hands (picture 45) (you must be careful inorder not to injuýre your hands because of heat) or by using two spoons in hands (picture 46) you have to mix the boiled honey, walnuts and garzinesh good. This should be better done by putting the honey partially. It would help whole of the honey to be mixed easily and homogenously.
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It is important to mix the honey before it gets its solid structure. It should also be mixed homogenously to the whole garzinesh. After mixing the honey all we give a structure as in pictures 48-49 & 53. We can then put the honey left in the pot on the garziny-h'avl (picture 50-51)
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Finally , when mixing and shaping is over we should leave the h'avl to rest in a cold place for 30-40 minutes.
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When everything is finished we can cut the whole Garziny-H'avl into pieces like cake and take one into a serving dish (picture55) .
But becareful while cutting into pieces because it will be hard to do that. You may need to force the knife to cut.
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Delicious..!
shalt - 28.02.2005