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Shelpek
Thin Kazakh fried flatbreads made for Fridays and remembrance
Shelpek are paper-thin flatbreads fried in a shallow pan, and in Kazakh homes they carry meaning: on Thursday evenings and Fridays women fry seven shelpek 'for the smell', a prayer for the ancestors, and they're handed out at funerals and memorial meals. In everyday life they are eaten warm with tea, butter and jam, all over Kazakhstan and in the Kyrgyz villages across the Tian Shan. The dough is soft and rich with milk and butter, and takes minutes to fry. Chef's tip: roll them almost transparent; thin shelpek blister and stay soft, thick ones go stiff like crackers.
- Total time
- 30 min
- Difficulty
- easy
- Serves
- 7
Ingredients
Method
0/5 doneStep 1: Mix 10 ½ oz plain flour, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar and ½ tsp baking powder. Pour in ¾ cup warm milk and 1 oz butter and knead for 3–4 minutes into a soft, smooth dough. Cover and rest 10 minutes.
10 minStep 2: Divide into 7 balls. Roll each on a lightly floured surface into a 22–24 cm round, as thin as you can; you should see the pattern of the worktop through it.
Step 3: Heat about 1 cm of ¾ cup sunflower oil in a wide frying pan over a medium-high heat until a scrap of dough sizzles briskly.
Step 4: Lay in one shelpek, which should puff and blister at once. Fry about 40 seconds a side, until pale golden with darker bubbles. A frequent mistake is frying too long for colour; they turn crisp and brittle, when they should stay soft and flexible.
1 minStep 5: Drain upright or on paper and stack, covering with a cloth to keep them soft. Serve warm with tea, butter and jam.
Nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 270 kcal
- Protein
- 6 g
- Carbs
- 33 g
- Fat
- 13 g
- Fibre
- 1 g
Nutrition values are estimates.
KrazyBadal
Good to know
- How long does shelpek take?
- About 30 minutes in total: 15 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to cook.
- How many people does it serve?
- 7 as written. Change the servings above the ingredients and every amount scales to match.
- Is it vegetarian?
- Yes. It has no meat or fish.
- What can I use instead of plain flour?
- Self-raising flour, same amount (then leave out the baking powder).
- What can I use instead of sugar?
- Caster sugar, same amount.
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