Uzbek Cooking with Damira: Immersion Workshop

Damira hails from Samarkand, the crossroads of East and West, and a city whose inhabitants are known for their warm and generous hospitality. You’ll appreciate this reputation as soon as Damira welcomes you into her home with a hot cup of green tea and an assortment of homemade traditional snacks, which could include pastries filled with meat and vegetables, freshly baked cinnamon or lemon cakes, and dried fruit from Uzbekistan. For Damira, food, family and culture are inseparable. She fell in love with cooking as a child on her grandmother’s farm, helping to prepare meals for her large family (including 33 grandchildren!).

Damira’s love of history and storytelling will shine as she teaches you to use traditional Uzbek cooking tools and explains the origins of her rustic, flavorful dishes. A retired cardiologist, Damira will also share the health benefits of the fresh herbs, vegetables and spices that color her cooking. An occasional numerologist and tarot card enthusiast, Damira might even tell your fortune. You’ll leave Damira’s home inspired to share her stories and cook her food, which we’ll make easy with a packet of recipes and a shopping guide to her favorite markets.

Menu

• Bichak (Stuffed Spinach Pastry)
• Handmade savory, flaky pastry dough stuffed with sauteed baby spinach, sourcress, onion, and herbs.
• Salat Bahor (Spring Salad)
• A fresh, crunchy salad of shredded cabbage, cucumbers, dill, and garlic, tossed with a gentle apple cider vinegar dressing.
• Bodiring Salat (Cucumber and Potato Salad)
• A bright salad of diced cucumbers and diced boiled potatoes mixed with garlic, oil, and fresh dill.
• Tuy Kabob (Lamb Stew)
• Cumin-rubbed lamb simmered until tender in an onion and tomato broth.
• Kulcha Uynoni (Homemade Small Bread)
• Beautifully decorated individual rounds of yeasted bread, traditionally made to accompany tuy kabob (lamb stew).