During the summer months in Ulaanbaatar, you can find many stands selling сүүн зайрмаг, which just means “milk ice cream.” These creamy ice cream cones are the best I’ve ever had.
While I immediately took a liking to some dishes, like tsuivan or khuushuur, I did not initially enjoy others. Mongolians tend to prepare their meats with large portions of fat and not much seasoning, and I had a hard time trying to adjust to that. The dairy products were also acquired tastes (what does this term mean?). I found many of them to be too strong or too sour when I first arrived in Mongolia.
However, as time went on, I learned to enjoy these foods more and more. I especially love the dairy products now. I often have a bag or two of aaruul at home and I can’t stop myself from munching on them constantly. I also developed an addiction for bambar. I pick up one from the small convenience store nearby my apartment almost everyday. They cost only one thousand tugriks, which are equivalent to around thirty cents USD. I will sorely miss the dairy sweets when I leave Mongolia.
The khorkhog, which can be roughly understood to be a Mongolian version of barbecue, is prepared using rocks. Yep, rocks.
To prepare khorkhog, one first heats up some stones over open flames until they are extremely hot. While the stones are heating up, the cook should prepare the ingredients by cutting up large chunks of mutton with bones still attached, in addition to potatoes and carrots. Once the stones are hot enough, they are tossed into a container, which is usually a metal jug, with the meat, the potatoes, and the carrots.
