The Nomad’s Cookout – BBQ in Mongolia
Do you want the real cookout? Try Mongolia.
The boys for whom outdoor cooking was the only style of cooking were the nomads. Their barbecue styles were perfected over centuries of travel, often in extremely inhospitable domains, and some of these methods are still practiced among Mongolian nomads to this day.
Nomadic Mongols have various methods of barbecue; one of them is the “khorkong”. This involves cooking lamb (or goat) over the heat of hot rocks. First the animal is cut into pieces leaving the bone. The Mongols then place ten to twenty fist-sized rocks on the fire. When the rocks are hot enough, they place the rocks and meat in the cooking vessel. Interestingly, the utensil normally used for this is the metal milk jug, although any container strong enough to hold the rocks will usually work.
Next, they add the other ingredients: vegetables (carrots, cabbage, potatoes) to make a stew, and finally the salt and other spices. The food is layered, with the vegetables on top. Finally, they pour in a quantity of hot water to create a bubble of steam inside the jug, which is then closed with a lid.
The meat in this style is cooked with the heat of the stones and the steam inside the pot. Sometimes the cook can put the jug back on the fire if he thinks it’s not hot enough. The stones will blacken from the heat and fat they absorb from the meat. During the entire cooking time (approximately an hour and a half) the cook will listen and smell the food to judge whether it is done.
When you are done, the cook will deliver not only pieces of the food, but also the cooled stones along with it, the stones are said to have beneficial properties if you hold them in your hands!
Another style of cooking in this part of the world is the “boodog” (“boo” means wrap in Mongolian). Usually a black-tailed prairie dog or goats are cooked this way. No jars are needed for this recipe; after dressing the animal, the entrails are reintroduced through a small hole, and the entire carcass is cooked over an open fire.
However, the Mongolian barbecue found in most Mongolian restaurants is not the authentic food. So to get the real stuff, seek out the nomads and savor the food, stones and all!