Turkmen Fish Dishes

Turkmen fish dishes are especially popular in the communities which live along Turkmenistan’s Caspian Sea shore. They mainly use sturgeon, beluga, salmon, herring, stellate sturgeon, sea and river pike perch, catfish, mullet, sazan and kutum. Even the pilaf in this region is commonly cooked with fish.

The secret to delicious local fish dishes is the use of freshly-caught fish. The fish (balyk in Turkmen) may be roasted, fried in a pot, dried, stewed or boiled. It is normally served with spices and a sweet-sour sauce. Some of the Turkmen fish recipes are spinoffs of popular meat dishes, while others are more complex to make and have no equivalent elsewhere in Central Asia.

In Turkmen cuisine, salmon is often used for cooking balyk shara (fish kebabs) and in a dish called govurdak (fried fish). For balyk shara, the fish is cooked in the same way as for meat kebabs: marinated pieces of fish are alternated with onion rings on a skewer and roasted over hot coals. For balyk gavurdak, small boneless chunks of fish are fried in a pot in their own grease. Sometimes a little sesame oil is also used.

Other popular Turkmen fish dishes include balyk berek (fish manty dumplings), balykly yanahli ash (fish pilaf) and gaplama (a variant of pilaf).