The North Caucasus is an area located in the foothills of the Caucasian Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian lowland. It's considered that a drink ayran and a pie khychin are the masterpieces of the national Karachai cuisine and the most popular North Caucasian dishes. The presenter Igor Vukolov set out to the holiday camp «Honey Waterfalls», where a custodian of the Karachai recipes aunty Mariam explained to him how khychins should be put in butter properly, how much leaven it's necessary to add to ayran and how to identify its preparedness. And what is more, Igor Vukolov got to know ayran had turned out to be a forefather of our well-liked contemporary kefir!

Recipe Khychins (Khychin is a pie with potato and cheese or meat and greenery stuffing)

recipe serves 3 persons; preparation time ~ 40 minutes; cooking time ~ 10 minutes
Ingredients for dough:
100 ml. water, ½ kg. four, 1 egg, package of dry yeast .

Ingredients for stuffing:
300 g. potato, 100 g. home-brewed cheese (or sheep cheese), 150 g. curds, 1 bunch of beet tops, 150 g. mutton minced meat, 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves, spices, 200 g. rendered fat.
Directions:

Knead dough using water, flour, egg and yeast. Dough must be elastic, not very stiff. Leave for 30 minutes to let dough rise.

Stuffing preparation:

1.Boil potato and grind it. Chop cheese, grate it and blend with potato until smooth.
2.Finely chop beet pots and blend with curds.
3.Finely chop onion and garlic and blend with mutton minced meat and spices.

Roll each stuffing into a fist-size ball.

Divide dough into parts equal to stuffing size. Knead each part, roll ball-stuffing inside and knead again to get flat cake.

Heat rendered fat in a deep cauldron. Put khychins one by one along cauldron sides. Use a deep-fat frying until golden crust. When khychin begins to blow up, turn it over and watch it it over to prevent burst.