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Prepared by: Marina Zolotseva
09/01/2014 Cooking time: 40 min
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If you have never tried Tatar-style chak chak, then I definitely recommend preparing this dish at home. Traditionally, it is made only on holidays, but it is very difficult to resist the temptation.
History and legends
This dish is prepared with pleasure not only by Tatars, but also by Bashkir, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Kazakh and Uzbek housewives. The history of the dessert is not connected with any unusual facts. It’s just that in those days, flour products and honey were the most affordable products, but truly royal desserts were made from them! Although there is a legend that once the Bulgarian khan asked his cooks to come up with a delicacy that would be simple to prepare, tasty, nutritious and beautiful - so that overseas guests would admire and dream of getting the recipe. And the chefs succeeded! A huge chak-chak was served at the wedding of the khan's son, wishing the newlyweds to become a family as strong as peas of dough glued together with honey. Since then, this dish has become a wedding dish!
Chak-chak was prepared by the whole family, or more precisely, by the female half. Unmarried girls rolled out and cut the dough, married women fried pieces, and more experienced older housewives shaped the sweets and worked on the honey syrup. According to tradition, chak-chak was piled up on a platter or small figures were made from it. The delicacy can be stored for up to three weeks, so it was always prepared for future use, but, of course, it was eaten much faster.
Recipe options
- I would like to recommend that you prepare another interesting dessert. This is a thin and crispy brushwood. Children will especially like this dish.
- Don't be surprised by the recipe for brushwood with vodka. During heat treatment, all alcohol evaporates, and the dough becomes fluffy and tender.
- The recipe for brushwood with milk is one of the simplest; this dessert is prepared very quickly.
- And the recipe for brushwood with sour cream will appeal to all those with a sweet tooth.
Dear housewives, share your experience in preparing this dish . Tell us what kind of syrup you make and how you cut the dough. Bon appetit!
Secrets of delicious dough
The dessert is prepared from dough mixed with premium wheat flour, eggs, milk, sugar, vegetable or ghee. Sometimes a pinch of salt, baking powder or soda is added to the ingredients, and the soda can be quenched with vinegar. Instead of milk, vegetable oil is often poured in, sometimes mixed with butter, and some oriental recipes also include vodka. The dough should not be hard. Eastern housewives are sure that the softer and more tender it is, the tastier the dish will be, so sometimes the flour is sifted twice. Cooking chak-chak is a whole science. Or maybe art?
Let's cook chak-chak together.
We will need:
- eggs - 3 pcs.
- sugar - 1 tbsp. l.
- salt - a pinch
- baking powder - 1 tsp.
- milk - 3 tbsp. l.
- flour - 300–450 g
Take 3 eggs and start beating them using a mixer. Add 1 tbsp to them. l. sugar, a pinch of salt, 1 tsp. baking powder and 3 tbsp. l. milk. Then mix the ingredients and add flour in small portions - about 300-450 g, the amount depends on the size of the eggs. You need to knead until the dough becomes elastic, but it should stick a little to your hands. If you have time, let the dough lie under a towel or napkin - let it rest a little!
Step-by-step recipe for Tatar delicacies
I found an amazing recipe, by the way, very similar to the one my grandmother cooked. No vodka is used in the composition. We will use regular baking soda as a baking powder. You probably noticed that the author of the video also says that her grandmother cooked it this way. I was already beginning to think that this really was an old recipe. Which is most likely passed down from generation to generation. Now you can find out about it...
So tasty and simple, I will definitely use these recommendations. You probably noticed that there are quite a few of them in the video. Therefore, to get amazing results you need to follow the instructions. And everything will definitely work out.
Deep-fried cubes
Pour a little flour onto the table and roll out the dough into a thin cake about 2 mm thick. Using a sharp knife, cut long strips 1 cm wide, and then divide them into several parts, about 4 cm long. These neat little sticks, reminiscent of French fries, are ready for frying. The sticks can be made shorter, or you can turn them into small cubes or balls the size of a pine nut. Some pastry chefs use a curly knife to create wavy shapes.
All that remains is to deep-fry the chak-chak. To do this, pour more vegetable oil into a deep frying pan or thick-bottomed pan, heat it and add pieces of dough in portions. Fry until golden brown, stirring so that the chak-chak does not turn into a sticky mass. Approximate frying time is 2–3 minutes. Remove the pieces with a slotted spoon and place them on a paper towel to remove excess fat. Oriental sweets should not be too high in calories and heavy on the stomach.
Honey impregnation
At the end of the previous stage of preparing chak-chak, you can already put an end to it. The deep-fried dough is very tasty, and if you make tea or coffee, you can enjoy the aromatic oriental dessert. But we must finish what we started and surprise our family with our culinary skills, so we continue!
The simplest honey syrup will require us to have only two products (although there are different recipes):
- honey - 130 ml
- sugar - 120 g
For the syrup we mix honey and sugar. First, bring the syrup to a boil, and then cook for another 5-7 minutes. Some confectioners mix water with sugar and honey, cook for 5 minutes, and then drop a little syrup into cold water. If you get a ball, it’s time to remove the pan from the heat.
Pour honey over chak-chak, mix well and form a mound on a plate with wet hands. You can decorate the treat with nuts, sesame seeds or dried fruits. Next, we put the dessert in the refrigerator for several hours and get ready for tea, if, of course, you have enough patience...
Almost "Anthill"
Chuck-chuck with condensed milk is also a real chuck-chuck, and don’t let the lack of honey bother you. But we will add vodka to the dough to make the sweetness crispy.
You will need the following products:
- eggs - 3 pcs.
- vodka - 3 tbsp. l.
- salt - a pinch
- flour - 300 g
- vegetable oil - 1 cup
- condensed milk - 4 tbsp. l.
- almonds - to taste
- powdered sugar for decoration
So, beat 3 eggs with a pinch of salt, pour in 3 tbsp. l. vodka and mix. Pour 300 g of sifted flour into the mass and knead the stiff dough, and then let it rest under a towel for 30 minutes.
Roll out the layer to a thickness of 1–2 mm and cut into strips. Heat a glass of vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry portions of chak-chak, and then transfer it to a sieve to remove fat.
Pour condensed milk over the pieces placed in a bowl. Add almonds, mix the sweet pieces, form a mound with wet hands directly on the tray and put it in the refrigerator. Before serving, you can decorate the dessert with powdered sugar. You will love this delicious homemade chak-chak recipe as it is a bit like Anthill Cake. Although no - the dessert turns out even better!
Some tips
- To prepare the dough, you need to use ingredients at room temperature, the dough will be softer and more tender;
- Flour must be premium grade wheat flour;
- You can add 1 tablespoon of vodka to the dough, thanks to this ingredient the dough will turn out crispy;
- In order to give the finished dessert a shape, you need to wet your hands with water and make any shape to your taste;
- The chak-chak cake will be even tastier if you add ground nuts and dried fruits to the syrup.
It turns out that chak-chak is a simple dish that is not difficult to prepare. Take note of these recipes and be sure to make this delicacy. Treat yourself and all your family to it. Rest assured, everyone will love it! Children will especially love it, because this sweetness is very tasty and sweet!
Oriental flavor
“There is nothing better than chak-chak with nuts and dried fruits! This is the best oriental delicacy!” - these are exactly the phrases you can hear from Asian sweet tooths. Let's prepare chak-chak at home and certainly with these tasty and healthy additives.
To prepare dessert we will take:
- eggs - 3 pcs.
- salt - a pinch
- flour - by eye
- honey - 5 tbsp. l.
- nuts, dried apricots, prunes, raisins - to taste
Beat 3 eggs in a bowl with a pinch of salt, and then knead the dough directly with your hands, adding as much flour as needed. This chak-chak recipe will not have exact numbers on how much flour to add - we will have to use our culinary intuition and knead a soft dough that will be easy to roll out. Of course, it must first rest for 20 minutes under a napkin, and only then can it be rolled out into a thin layer.
We cut strips 2-3 cm wide and cut them like noodles. Heat the vegetable oil in a cauldron, fry the chak-chak until rich golden brown and place it in a colander with small holes so that not a drop of oil remains.
To serve a beautiful portioned “cake,” prepare the molds in advance by greasing them with vegetable oil. Place pieces of dough in a bowl, mix with chopped nuts and dried fruits, and then pour in 5 tbsp. l. warmed liquid honey. Mix all the ingredients again, put them in molds and put them in the refrigerator for half an hour. This is quite enough to have time to prepare for tea and invite loved ones to the table. They will be pleasantly surprised!
How to cook chak-chak in the oven
I really like this recipe because it doesn’t need to be fried in oil. Everything is much simpler here, prepare the dough, divide it into pieces and you can cook. The oven helps us out a lot in this case. And plus to everything, chak-chak turns out to be not so high in calories. In a word, dessert for children.
We will need:
- Flour - 280 gr.
- Salt - 0.5 tsp.
- Granulated sugar - 1 tsp.
- Milk - 6-7 tablespoons
- Baking powder - 1 tsp.
- Chicken egg - 2 pcs.
Syrup:
- Sugar - 100 gr.
- Honey - 100 gr.
- Water - 5-6 tablespoons
Preparation:
1. First of all, let's prepare the dough. Take a deep bowl and pour the sifted flour into it. Add salt, sugar and baking powder here. Pour in the amount of milk and break the required number of eggs.
Now mix all the ingredients well. And knead a homogeneous dough.
2. Divide the finished dough into two equal parts. Roll out a layer from one half, no more than 5 mm thick.
From the resulting layer, cut strips, one width is 4-5 cm. Then we cut each strip into strips. We do the same with the second piece of dough.
3. Place the resulting blanks on a sheet. Spread parchment paper on it in advance.
Please note that the pieces of dough should be at a distance from each other. This way the pieces will not stick together during baking.
Place the baking sheet in a preheated oven at 180 degrees. We will bake the product for 25-30 minutes. In the meantime, let's start preparing the syrup.
4. Preparation of syrup. Take a deep bowl and put all the ingredients in it: sugar, honey, water. Then put on the fire and stirring constantly, bring to a boil.
Photo
Pour the finished syrup over the chak-chak. Stir the whole mixture using silicone spatulas. Do not put your hands in under any circumstances, otherwise you will get very badly burned.
Place the finished treat on plates. Then shape it into a mound. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Then leave for 30-40 minutes until the syrup completely hardens.
The finished delicacy can be served to the table. And be sure to invite all family members, so to speak, for a trial.
