Achik-Chuchuk (Shakarap)
A delicious, simple salad made from tomatoes in Uzbek cuisine, served alongside the national Eastern dish — plov. It is prepared extremely simply and quickly, yet turns out amazing, harmoniously adding a sour-spicy taste to the fluffy rice of the plov. Variations of the Achik-Chuchuk tomato salad are widely spread in Central Asia. Kyrgyz cuisine has named it Shakarap.
Ingredients:
Main
Tomatoes – 5 pcs
Onion – 1-2 pcs
Salt – to taste
Additional
Ground black pepper – to taste
Fresh chili pepper – to taste
Cucumbers – 1-2 pcs
Fresh herbs (basil, cilantro, celery, parsley, dill) – 100 g
Achik-Chuchuk Salad – Recipe
The ingredients should be sliced into thin half-circles or half-rings. The way of cutting ensures the original taste of the dish. A sharp knife should be used to achieve a fine cut of the components.
For preparing Achik-Chuchuk (Shakarap) salad, sweet, meaty, aromatic tomatoes are used. The tomatoes should be firm, not soft.
Thoroughly rinse with cold water. Allow to dry.
Tomatoes are the main ingredient of the dish. They are sliced thinly into crosswise half-circles with a sharp knife while held in the air. This way, the tomato juice released during cutting will not be lost.
The sharpness of the salad is given by the onion, which can be of any kind on hand: traditional yellow, white, or purple.
The onion is sliced into thin half-rings. If the onion is bitter, it is rinsed beforehand with cold boiled water. In the salad, the onion is marinated in tomato juice, becoming sweet. The onion can be replaced with green onion for a spring interpretation of the dish.
Peel the onion, rinse, and slice it into thin half-rings on a cutting board. Add to the sliced tomatoes.
A widely spread variation of the dish includes cucumbers. Cucumbers are sliced into thin half-circles and soaked in the tomato-onion sauce.
To enhance the spiciness of the dish, an optional component — hot chili pepper — can be used. It should be applied carefully, as the hot bitterness may not be to everyone's taste and is often contraindicated in dietary nutrition. Chili pepper can be replaced with aromatic ground black pepper, which uniquely enhances the flavor of the tomatoes.
Original variations of the dish are created by adding spicy herbs: cilantro, basil, celery, parsley, dill.
Salt the prepared components. Mix well. After the components have soaked in the released juice, season with vegetable oil. The oil is chosen according to taste. For dietary nutrition, unrefined olive oil is recommended. The dish can also be consumed without adding oil.
Serve Achik-Chuchuk with plov, shashlik, and various main dishes.
Salads and Appetizers
