Grilled Skewers · Open-Flame

Shashlik (Шашлык)

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The word 'shashlik' reached Kazakhstan through Russian, which borrowed it from the Turkic 'shish', meaning skewer.

Shashlik is meat — usually lamb, beef, or chicken — marinated in onions and simple spices, threaded onto long metal skewers, and grilled over hot charcoal until charred at the edges. It's sold everywhere from roadside stalls to bazaar grills.

Why it's made this way: Kazakhstan's nomadic herding history made skewer-grilling over open coals the fastest, most fuel-efficient way to cook meat outdoors, and that same logic carries straight into today's roadside grills.