One of the most delicious dishes of oriental cuisine is balish. The recipe for its preparation is not as complicated as it might seem at first glance. This Tatar dish can be closed or open, large or small, sweet, meat or vegetable. It is fried and baked in the oven, if possible, then cooked in a tandoor. In fact, it is a pie, and they call it "balish", sometimes "belish" or "cheesecake in Tatar". It is not difficult to prepare a dish , however, the first time it may turn out not as cleverly as an experienced housewife, but over time, skills appear and things progress more quickly. At the same time, the cake can become a real decoration of the festive table.
Tatar balish, recipe for cooking in the ovenThe dough for making this pie can be regular or yeast. In the latter case, the process will require more time, and the result will be something like Russian whites (their name just came from the word "belish", literally meaning "meat pie"). Full similarity will turn out if you fry them in a large amount of oil instead of baking (sometimes they do).
So, for starters, you should prepare the dough for balish. The recipe in a yeast-free version is extremely simple. For it, you will need 500 g of sour cream, 3 cups of flour with a slide, a little salt and sugar. It is cooked completely without eggs (one is only needed to lubricate the top), but it turns out to be very tender and tasty. Sour cream is simply mixed with flour, slightly salted and sweetened. The mass should be soft and elastic, not stick to the hands. It is divided in half, one piece is rolled thinner and laid out in a deep form, oiled (for example, a frying pan). The second will be a lid, it will be stretched to the size of the form, in the middle they will make a small hole and cover the filling with it.
Now about what balish is usually filled with. The recipe for the original filling is as follows: a large onion, sliced in half rings, several potatoes chopped into cubes, and meat chopped like potatoes. It should be about 500 g, while it is better to use different types (beef with chicken, lamb with pork, etc.). All components are mixed and salted, filled with balinese (the recipe involves the use of exclusively raw ingredients, without prior heat treatment). From above the structure is covered with a “lid” of dough, greased with an egg and sent to bake. In the oven, the cake will spend quite a lot of time - about 2.5 hours - at a low temperature (160-180 degrees). And after an hour, it is recommended to pour about a glass of broth or salted water into the hole, and 20-30 minutes before the readiness of the balash, cover with a wet towel.
Serve the dish hot, having cooled slightly after the oven. If you do this according to all the rules, then the top cover should be cut off, divided into portions and with a spoon eat the filling, bite with pieces of dough and washed down with green tea. When the Tatars celebrate Eid al-Adha, one of the main dishes on the table is exactly balish. Its recipe may be slightly different, the dough is sometimes made differently, you can use a different filling. The main thing is the presentation principle: a festive atmosphere and the opportunity to gather as a whole large family at one table in order to assess the skills of the hostess.