Tukhum-Barak

A signature dish of the Khorezm region in northwestern Uzbekistan — most at home around Urgench and Khiva, where it is treated as a culinary emblem of Khorezm. Its trick is that the filling goes in as liquid raw egg, sealed inside a dough pocket and set only by the boiling water. The name reads literally as 'egg dumpling' (tuxum = egg; barak, a Turkic term for a filled dough food, kin to the wider börek/barak family).

Khiva's old-town restaurant Mirzo Boshi inside the Itchan Kala fort serves it as the regional dish — 6 pouches for 35,000 som with kaymak. The trick of sealing all four edges with finger-pinched wet dough is exclusive to Khorezmi grandmothers.

Plump pillow-shaped pouches dressed with melted butter, often with a spoon of suzma yogurt or garlic oil. The first bite splits the wrapper and the soft-set egg spills out — savory and custardy, like fresh steamed egg, sometimes flecked with dill. The dough is rolled thicker than ordinary dumplings to hold the liquid egg until it cooks.

Dough rolled to 1–2 mm and cut into roughly 8x10 cm rectangles. A beaten egg, mixed with onion softened in fat and sometimes milk and dill, is spooned in while still liquid, the rectangle folded over and all sides pinched wet and sealed, then lifted carefully into salted boiling water. The egg begins to set within a minute or two; the pouches are done once they float — a rolling but gentle boil sets the egg soft rather than rubbery. Lifted out and brushed with butter so they don't stick.