Horse meat, like the sausage made from it, is considered a real delicacy today. It is much healthier than other types of meat, contains protein complete in amino acid composition and is digested 8 times faster than beef. Hypoallergenic and dietary horse meat helps lower blood cholesterol levels and increase hemoglobin. There are several types of horse sausage, for example, “Kazi”, “Shuzhuk”, “Makhan”. These national Central Asian dishes differ in their cooking technology. In our article we will tell you in detail about the Makhan sausage and present a recipe for preparing it at home.
Types and names of horse meat sausages among different peoples
To find horse sausage on sale, you will have to go to Central Asia. There this product is available for free sale in every market.
Trying to figure out what horse meat sausage is called, the reader will find several options at once.
Each nation has its own name for the meat product:
- Mahan. This option is common among the Tatars and Turks. This is a dry-cured sausage that contains not only horse meat, but also fat.
- Kazylyk. This ancient dish appeared in Bulgarian cuisine. It is prepared according to a special recipe, all points of which strictly comply with the canons of Islam.
- Kazy. This is what sausage made from horse meat is called in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. She is considered the "guest of honor" at the wedding reception table.
- Sujuk. This name is in use in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Among these peoples, horse meat sausage is often prepared with the addition of other types of meat to the recipe. For example, lamb.
The names included in the list above are the most popular, but not the only ones. Sometimes there are other options. Especially in small villages. Thus, horse sausage is also known as tutyrma or kaze.
How much does Mahan cost?
Anyone who wants to try a truly high-quality and tasty “Makhan”, which does not contain any unnecessary ingredients, should know that such sausage cannot be cheap. The average price per kilogram of this dry-cured product, made from horse meat, horse fat, salt and spices, is approximately 800-1000 rubles per 1 kg.
Makhan sausage is usually sold in whole or cut loaves weighing 400 or 200 g. The length of a whole stick can be 40 cm.
What are the benefits and harms of such sausages?
Horse sausage, due to its rich composition with a large amount of essential minerals, vitamins, amino acids, is very beneficial for the body.
For example, its regular use helps strengthen the immune system, normalize high blood pressure and hemoglobin levels in the blood.
Such a product can be harmful only because of its high calorie content. If you consume it in large quantities, the gourmet will quickly develop excess weight and various problems associated with such changes.
Composition, calorie content and nutritional value of horse sausage
Horse meat, like any other meat, contains 25-28% protein. Due to its low fat content of 5-6%, this product is rightfully considered dietary. Horsemeat is absorbed by the body much faster than lamb or beef. Horse meat has a unique feature, unlike pork, it does not increase, but significantly lowers the level of cholesterol in the blood.
Its beneficial properties include the following aspects:
- meat has lower fat content;
- contains vitamins A, E and B;
- contains a lot of iron, phosphorus and magnesium;
- the product is absolutely hypoallergenic;
- calorie content: 100 g of horse meat has an average of 175 kcal.
The main disadvantage of horse meat is that the meat is poorly stored. It is acceptable to keep it raw in the refrigerator for no more than 72 hours. For this reason, horse meat is not sold on the market; the meat is carefully checked for the presence of salmonella. Otherwise, there are more benefits that can benefit the human body.
Due to the high calorie content, you should limit yourself from excessive consumption of horse sausages.
Kazy – Kazakh boiled horse meat sausage
The easiest way to prepare is boiled horse sausage. In this case, the housewife will not have to use any special devices.
Ingredients:
- horse meat – kilo;
- salt – 1-1.5 tbsp. l.;
- cumin (crushed) – 2 tsp;
- ground pepper (black) – 1 tsp;
- horse fat - half a kilo.
Preparation:
- Cut both meat and lard into thin elongated strips. The width of each should be about 4 cm. The optimal length of the layers is 12-14 cm.
- Place the chopped ingredients in a deep bowl. Add all dry ingredients. Actively mash the contents of the container directly with your hands. Both meat and lard should be well saturated with salt and spices.
- Place the workpiece in a cool place for 20 hours.
- Prepare the intestines: rub with salt (inverted), rinse with cold and hot water.
- Tie one end of the intestine securely. Fill the casing with the prepared meat mixture. Tie off the free end.
- Place the product in a pan with cold water and cook the product for 2-2.5 hours. Immediately after the liquid boils, you need to pierce the filled intestine in several places with a thin needle, which will prevent the shell from bursting.
The presented recipe will best explain how to cook kazy at home. The broth remaining after cooking the sausage should not be thrown away. Based on it, you can prepare, for example, a delicious rich soup.
“Makhan” (sausage): recipe for cooking at home
To prepare raw smoked sausage you will need horse meat and horse lard, cooled and cut into pieces 5-10 mm thick. The ratio of meat to lard in homemade sausage is usually 10:1, that is, 1 kg of lard is taken per 10 kg of meat.
After cutting all the ingredients, the horse meat is salted for 3-5 days. To do this, add 380 g of salt, 200 g of sugar and squeezed garlic, and ground pepper to taste into a container with meat pieces. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed, after which the raw materials are sent for maturation at a temperature of 2-6 degrees in a ventilated room. Next, the meat preparation should be stuffed into a shell (casings or collagen protein) and sent for drying.
Makhan sausage is dried at home for about 30-45 days in a ventilated area and humidity of about 70%. You can store it in the refrigerator for 120 days, after wrapping each loaf in parchment paper.
Cooking in Tatar style
According to a special Tatar recipe, a large amount of sugar is necessarily added to the sausage. But at the same time it does not turn out sweet.
Ingredients:
- horse meat with layers of fat – 5 kilos;
- granulated sugar – 5 tbsp. l.;
- coarse salt – 5 tbsp. l.
Preparation:
- Cut films from meat. Divide the remaining pulp into large pieces. Their optimal size is about half a chicken egg.
- Add dry ingredients, mix everything well.
- Remove the knives from the meat grinder. In the “kitchen helper” you only need to leave the internal rotating spiral, fasteners and a round plate with holes.
- Intestine - diameter about 8 cm - cut into pieces. The length of each should be 60-70 cm. Try to release as much air as possible from the sections of the sausage casing. Attach the beginning of the intestine to a meat grinder.
- Roll the prepared meat into the intestine. During the process, you need to try to constantly release excess air and compact the workpiece. Places where this could not be done must be pierced with a needle.
- Fill each intestine, tie on both sides. Leave the workpieces for 40 hours, then compact again.
- Hang the future sausage on the balcony for 2.5-3 months. The room temperature should be 10-12 degrees.
In the recipe for Tatar horse meat sausage, sugar is needed to remove excess liquid. If you just drain it, the product will turn out dry.
Description and photo
“Makhan” is a dry-cured sausage made only from horse meat. Neither pork nor beef are suitable for it. Even the name of the Mahan sausage comes from the main ingredient of this Central Asian dish and is translated as “horse” or “horse meat”.
“Makhan” has a delicate taste. The product has a dense structure, but at the same time it literally melts in your mouth. The real “Makhan” is a sausage, the photo of which is presented above, almost black in color. When looking through it into the light, the ruby hue is clearly visible. It has a characteristic cut, in which chopped meat and large pieces of fat can be seen. The peculiarity of this dry-cured sausage is that minced meat is never used in its production, but only whole pieces of meat and fat. However, true connoisseurs of this product consider this, rather, its advantage, emphasizing the naturalness of the Mahan sausage.
Uzbek cooking recipe
The Uzbek recipe also uses both horse meat and lard at the same time. For the specified amount of food, 40-50 cm of intestines will be enough.
Ingredients:
- horse meat - kilo;
- lard - half a kilo;
- freshly ground black pepper – 1.5-2 g;
- cumin – 20-25 g;
- salt – 1-2 tbsp. l. (taste).
Preparation:
- Cut the meat and lard into long thin strips and place in a large bowl.
- Sprinkle with all dry ingredients. Mix everything thoroughly. Rub with your hands.
- Cover the infused meat components with clean gauze. Leave in cool place for 6-7 hours.
- Fill the prepared intestines with the resulting mass.
- Place the almost finished sausage into a cauldron with cold water.
- Cook the product over low heat for 1.5-2 hours. Remove foam during heat treatment. Also take care of making punctures with a thin needle over the entire surface of the workpieces.
Cool the hot sausage. Before serving, cut the product into thin pieces. Supplement it with onions pickled in vinegar and sugar.
How to cook shuzhuk
Suga says that making shuzhuk is not difficult. The prepared intestines must be turned out and rinsed well under running water. After the water has drained, generously add salt and set aside for a while. Then you need to deal with the meat.
“I cut the internal fat and meat into cubes and mix in a deep bowl. I add salt and black pepper there, squeeze out the garlic. All this needs to be mixed again, cover the bowl with a lid and put in a cool place for one or two days. Some do it differently: first they salt a whole piece of meat and leave it in a cold place. But, in my opinion, when sliced, it is better saturated with spices and absorbs the aroma of garlic,” Suga shares his family recipe.
A stick is used to turn the intestines out. Then they fasten one edge of the intestine with a toothpick, and some housewives recommend pulling the other through the neck of a plastic bottle cut to half and turning the edges onto the neck. This makes it more convenient to fill the intestine, otherwise it will slip out. Then it is filled with chopped pieces of meat and carefully straightened along its entire length. Both edges of the intestine are connected using a toothpick and hung in a cool place for three to four hours.
Almost ready-made shuzhuk can be brought to condition in two ways: by boiling it or smoking it. When cooking, you should put cold water in a saucepan, put the shuzhuk in it, bring to a boil over high heat, skim off the foam and then make punctures in several places in the intestine. This is necessary so that the intestine does not rupture during cooking. Cooking time is 1.5-2 hours. For lovers of a smoky flavor, shuzhuk is hung in a cold smoked smokehouse (up to 60°C) for 18 hours. Next, the horse meat sausage is dried for two to three days in a dry, ventilated room at a temperature of 10-12°C.
Shuzhuk prepared in one way or another is cut into rings no thicker than a centimeter and served together with beshbarmak, or beautifully laid out on a separate dish as a cold appetizer.
Recipe:
- 1 kg of horse meat;
- 500 g horse fat;
- 350 g horse intestines;
- 7 large cloves of garlic;
- 2 tbsp. l. salt;
- 1.5 tsp. pepper
Cooking in a simplified way
There is even a simplified recipe for making dried horse sausage. It is quite easy to repeat it at home.
Ingredients:
- horse meat - 1.5 kilos;
- horse lard – 200-250 g;
- salt – 2/3 tbsp.;
- black pepper – 1 tsp;
- garlic - a whole head.
Preparation:
- Cut the meat into thin long ribbons. Also chop the lard, but its pieces should be smaller.
- Chop the garlic. Mix it with pepper and salt.
- Rub the resulting mixture onto the meat and place it in a bag. Tie the package and put it in the refrigerator.
- Clear the intestine of mucus, rinse thoroughly, fill with meat mixture.
- Tie the casing of the future meat product on both sides. Hang the resulting sausage loaves for 3-4 days in a sunny but well-ventilated place.
- Then, put the workpieces in a cool room with good ventilation for 8-9 days.
Homemade meat products can be perfectly stored for up to 20 weeks.
In Soviet times, everyone had the pleasure of trying horse sausage. Few people now know that it can be a real delicacy. But among the Turkic peoples, not a single holiday is complete without kazylyk made from horse meat. This meat snack can be boiled, raw smoked, or dried. Most often this delicacy is boiled. It is quite difficult to prepare kazylyk, or simply kazy, at home. At the same time, you need to know what kind of meat to choose, how to prepare the intestines for stuffing, cooking technology, how long to cook kazy.
Sausage reviews
The opinions of public tasters of the Makhan sausage, as usual, are ambiguous. Of course, first of all, everything depends on the manufacturer. But even without taking this factor into account, positive and negative reviews of sausage can be divided into two separate groups.
Customers liked “Mahan” as follows:
- interesting natural taste;
- pleasant aroma;
- natural composition and benefits for the body.
Negative customer reviews are as follows:
- the presence of chemicals in the composition of products from most manufacturers (flavors, flavor and aroma enhancers, color fixatives, antioxidants);
- using meat ground into minced meat rather than cut into pieces;
- specific taste, presence of coarsely chopped fat.
When choosing dry-cured products, it is important to pay attention to the quality criteria that real Makhan sausage should have. This is its structure (not minced meat), color, and composition. The reviews and recommendations presented above will allow you to buy truly tasty and healthy horse meat sausage. Meanwhile, if you really want to, you can prepare it at home.
Preparation of raw materials
The main components for preparing kazy are meat and intestines. The most delicious snack is obtained if you manage to get the meat of a young horse. Anyone who cooks this dish regularly knows that the meat of fattened horses is used for kazy. They have a sufficient amount of fat. Sausage is usually made from the rib portion of the meat.
Horse or beef intestines are used as casing. To get real Kazakh sausage, it is better to take natural horse casings. They should be turned inside out, washed in cold water, scrubbed well using coarse salt, then rinsed thoroughly several more times in hot water.
Advice! For the convenience of stuffing the kazy, the prepared shells are cut into pieces 45 - 50 centimeters long.
How to cook kazy
Another popular horse meat dish is kazy. A piece of kazy, cooked correctly, literally melts in your mouth! What is the difference between kazy and shuzhuk? In the method of preparation. In the authentic recipe for kazy, horse rib meat and loin fillet are chosen, since there is more fat there. These pieces were seasoned with spices, and then the intestines were filled with them, without cutting them. The result was a round sausage. In modern cuisine, the ribs are removed, but the fillet pieces for kazy are not cut into small pieces. Meat for kazy is selected especially carefully, because not a single toy (holiday) is complete without this delicacy and it is important not to lose face in front of the guests. For this reason, cooking kazy is trusted only to experienced housewives.
“I already have regular clients who regularly request kazy, call in advance and ask to prepare as much as they need,” says Suga. – Some people want more meat in the kazy, others like the predominance of fat, but according to the classic recipe, the ratio should be approximately 70/30. I cut good ripe meat from the horse’s rib into strips, marinate it for a day in a cold place with salt, garlic and pepper, and then carefully fill the intestine with it.”
Recipe:
- 0.5 kg horse fat;
- 1 kg of horse meat;
- 10 medium cloves of garlic;
- 0.5 m horse or beef intestine;
- salt, ground pepper - to taste.
Boil kazy, like shuzhuk, for about 2.5 hours, piercing the intestine in several places with a toothpick. To prevent the delicacy from darkening, it is recommended to cool it directly in the broth. The salty taste of horse meat, seasoned with pepper and garlic, cannot be compared with any store-bought sausage!
Kazy preparation technology
Kazy is not cooked every day. Make enough of it at once to cook once. Next, the sausage is stored in the refrigerator and the required amount is cut off as needed.
It is noteworthy that minced meat is not made from meat to prepare kazy. The natural casing is stuffed with prepared pieces of meat, previously marinated. To do this, horse meat is cut into small pieces. Add crushed garlic to it and mix well. If the meat is lean, then the fat also needs to be cut into pieces and added to the meat. This whole mass is mixed well again, and then salt, pepper and season with caraway seeds to taste. The meat prepared in this way is transferred to a large cup, covered with gauze and put in the refrigerator.
On a note! It is believed that the meat will be completely ready for cooking kazy in just a couple of hours. But experienced housewives advise marinating it for at least two days, after which you can stuff the casing and cook the sausage.
The prepared half-meter pieces of shell are turned inside out. Each intestinal fragment should have one end tied with a thick thread. Now you can tightly stuff the shells with meat and tie them at the other end. All! The kazy are ready to be cooked.
Kazylyk is placed in a large pan. No matter how many sausages there are, there should be enough water so that it does not have time to boil away while the delicacy is being cooked. For flavor, kazy can be topped with dill sprigs. Then the broth, on which you can then cook soup or prepare sauce, will turn out more tasty.
Important! To prevent the sausages from cracking and falling apart while they are cooking, they need to be pierced in several places with a needle or knitting needle.
After boiling, reduce the heat and cook the kazy until tender for about two hours. From time to time the foam needs to be skimmed off so that the broth is clear. When the kazy are ready, they need to be cooled without removing them from the broth. Sausages cut into thin slices can be served as an appetizer or added to other dishes. Onions pickled in vinegar go well with this appetizer.
Methods for preserving the finished product
A small amount of sausage can be safely stored in the refrigerator if it is expected to be eaten within two weeks. If kazy is made with a reserve, then you should take care of another storage method:
- You can hang the sausages in a cool place, such as a basement. There shouldn't be any insects there.
- Kazy is perfectly stored for several months under a layer of flour or bran.
- Sausage aged three years is considered especially tasty. To preserve the kazy for such a long time, the sausages are hung directly in the chimneys. There they are smoked and in this form they remain there for storage.
Kazylyk has a specific taste and smell, which are appreciated by true connoisseurs of horse meat. This high-calorie product is used as a general tonic. It should be noted that kazy increases blood pressure. In addition, such an appetizer is an excellent decoration for the holiday table. Don't be afraid to surprise your loved ones. Moreover, you now know how to cook kazy correctly.
Even during the most severe shortages that preceded the collapse of the Soviet state, at least one type of sausage was always available in Uzbekistan. True, this sausage was quite specific, and was sold not in stores, but exclusively in bazaars. It is prepared from horse meat and is called kazy.
Kazy is not a household, everyday version of sausage, but rather a festive one, since almost no one - an Uzbek or Kazakh national feast - can do without it. Kazy is added to dishes such as pilaf and naryn or simply cut into slices and placed on the table as an appetizer. It is believed that this tasty and high-calorie product raises blood pressure, so it is also used as a general tonic.
Do you want to cook KAZY at home? Here's the recipe for you. Ingredients: 1 kg horse meat, 500 g lard, 40-50 cm intestines, 1.5 g ground black pepper, 25 g cumin, salt. Cut horse meat and lard into strips 10-15 cm long, 3-4 cm wide, put in a cup, add salt, sprinkle with black pepper, cumin, rub well, mix so that the spices are better absorbed into the meat.
Preparation: Cover the filling prepared in this way with gauze and leave for several hours in a cool place. Rinse the horse intestines in cold water, wipe with salt, rinse three or four more times in cold and then in hot water. Pierce one end of the intestine with a stick and tie it with a strong thread; place the filling at the other end, alternating pieces of meat with pieces of lard. Cut off the intestine 45-50 cm long. Having filled the intestine, tie the other end, place it in a cup and place it in a cool place. This is already a half finished product. To use kazy as a snack, it is boiled. To do this, put the finished sausages in a cauldron, add cold water and cook over low heat for 1.5-2 hours. When the water boils, remove the foam and pierce the kazy in several places with a needle. Cool the finished kazy and cut into slices no thicker than 1 centimeter. Serve the kazy with finely chopped onions sprinkled with vinegar.
If you are an extreme person, here are instructions on how to dry/smoke KAZY: It is better to dry kazy in warm weather, hanging them for a week in a sunny, ventilated place. Kazy should be smoked with thick smoke at a temperature of 50-60 degrees for 12-18 hours, dried for 4-6 hours at 12 degrees.
But here’s a typical Russian version of preparing KAZA with potatoes (well, Russians can’t do without their potatoes!) By the way, it’s perfect for BEER...
So, if your friends from Tashkent gave you a KAZY stick, place the KAZY in a large bowl (preferably a cauldron), fill it generously with cold water, throw in a couple of carrots and an onion, put it on gas and go about your business. When it boils, pierce the KAZY in several places, otherwise it will burst.
The young potatoes have already arrived... So wash them thoroughly and put them in the broth, seasoning it all with cumin (preferably also of Tashkent origin). Next - it’s elementary: potatoes - until ready, KAZY - for a dish... The most important thing is that there is enough for everyone...
Now pour out the BEER - whoever wants what, and bon appetit!
And today, when there are almost no nomads left, for their descendants - Kazakhs, Turkmens, Mongols, Yakuts - this meat is still the basis of the table.
The secret is simple: for a long time, horse meat was the most affordable meat in Central Asia. These days, horse meat dishes are still popular.
Cooking features
Horse meat - therefore, the younger the horse was, the more valuable its meat. The most delicious meat is the meat of 2-3 year old horses, and the meat of one-year-old foals is most valued. To distinguish the meat of an adult horse from a foal, look at the color of the fat. The younger the horse, the lighter its fat; in foals it is almost white, slightly pinkish, and in adults it is yellow.
To soften the meat, it must be marinated or smoked and then boiled. Pretty long. Then it turns out soft and tasty. A bit like beef, only sweeter.