What to Order in Chechnya

Chechnya has had a bitter history, but those who’ve tasted Chechen food say it’s delicious. Like the rest of the northern Caucasus, it has a cuisine influenced by both the Middle East--you can find familiar pastries like baklava--and Central Asia.

The country slopes down from the wooded Caucasus Mountains to desert-like steppe lands, and Chechnya’s neighbors to the north are sheep-herding nomads speaking Turkish and Mongolian dialects. Like the nomads, the Chechens make thick soups called chorpa and thin flatbreads. One famous dish is a flat corncake (siskalghin) topped with cottage cheese and melted butter.

Also like the nomads, the Chechens make meat pies and dumplings, sometimes cooking them in a pan the way the Chinese cook pot stickers: The dumpling is, in effect, half fried and half baked. Chepalg is a fried dumpling filled with cottage cheese. The steamed meat dumplings mantesh resemble the Turkish mantu, but they’ve also been compared to the large ravioli known as khinkal in other Caucasian lands, such as Armenia.

Pilaf is known, but this is noodle country. Pasta is garzanash; famous Chechen dishes include garlicky beef stew served with boiled dumplings (zhizhig galnash) and chicken stewed in cream, butter and onions, served on the same (kotam galnash).

Unlike other North Caucasus peoples, the Chechens do not seem to be associated with one kind of meat. By contrast, Dagestan, Chechnya’s neighbor to the east, is known for serving ram (adult male goat) to honored guests. And in the west, several groups known collectively as Circassians are famous for a dish of minced chicken and walnuts. I once asked a Circassian woman what her people eat, and she spread her hands and said, “Chicken, chicken, chicken.”