LOVE IS THE MAIN INGREDIENT

What do people think about when they eat just baked hot cakes? They are remembering childhood, when they were running in the morning to buy bread for breakfast, or about that only in our country it can be cooked so delicious. Our ancient tradition - flat cakes on dastarkhan (tablecloth) at any event - supported until now, and the profession of baker is one of the honored.

The secret of preparation of delicious flat cakes, according to Kobiljon Zairov, Tashkent baker with many years experience, is simple: "There is one basis - flour, water, salt, yeast, but each baker has own recipes: one adds more different ingredients, other - less, someone changes the shape of flat cakes, and somebody pays special attention to the power of fire in tandoor (oven). However, the main secret is still in the soul, in preparation of bread with love and thoughts that it will adorn the family table".

Every half an hour from the bakery located near the former capital textile mill, at present the company "Yakkasaroy tekhnopark", delivers to the nearest bazaars and shops another batch of flat cakes. They are being taken quickly. This is the best reward for baker.

— Even from school-age I was involved in bakeries as an apprentice - Kobiljon-aka said, sticking another cake to the wall of tandoor. - Once I saw how it’s done, it was very interesting, I wanted to learn to do so. There were a few guys, we got up early and went to help seniors. After school we ran back. At first we only watched how dough is kneaded, we learned to roll it out, divide it into equal parts. Then, we ourselves moulded flat cakes, but joy knew no bounds when we got access directly to the oven. After all, this is the most crucial and difficult part in making bread. Now after so many years I still remember the instructions and advice of my teachers, sometimes I visit them and improve my skills.

Kobiljon aka already have his students - three boys of different ages. All the free time they are here near the baker, watching his every move. Rapid kneading of dough, scrolling it in hand - a few seconds, and flat cake is in the oven. On average flat cake is baked for five to seven minutes, but they bake in tandoor at least 300 per day. If there is an order for a particular event, the number can exceed thousand flat cakes - not every baker can manage this. That is why they have to get up at five o’clock in the morning and work hard, baking a batch after batch all day long. Closer to the nighttime the dough is prepared, from which tomorrow again hot dainty is baked.

— Even when I was a child, every day on the way home, I came here for fresh bread, - local resident Odil Karimov, who visited bakery to say hello to baker and to buy flat cakes, says. - Over a lifetime, I tried a lot of different kinds of it from the most distant corners of the country, but there are still no better flat cakes than here. Apparently, the taste of childhood won’t be changed.

The flat cakes of Kobiljon Zairov were rated also abroad - together with other bakers he traveled to different countries. He remembered a trip to Greece, which helped to gain new experience and to share their foreign colleagues. Our bakers convinced that the Uzbek bread is popular not only at home, but also among foreigners. One Greek woman every day came for flat cakes and once told bakers that in her childhood she visited Tashkent. It was the first time she tried bread and could not understand how it is kept in the oven. Soon she left, but she remembered its taste very often.

Getting familiar with baker’s work, she thought: in the world there are many things that everyone want to watch for a long time. You can watch endlessly how the bread is baked in tandoor. This beauty requires great everyday work that we do not always notice, but it certainly makes a special flavor in our every passing day.

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