Market Tea-Time Snack · Fried Dough
Boortsog
Photo: Vidor / Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Tsagaan Sar's real showpiece is a taller, ceremonial cousin of everyday boortsog called ul boov — the same fried dough shaped and stacked into an odd number of tiers, with the tier count read as a mark of the household's status and age.
A firm dough of flour, egg and a little fat is shaped into small ovals or twists and deep-fried until golden and slightly hollow inside. Bakeries and market stalls across Ulaanbaatar sell it by the bagful as an everyday snack alongside milk tea.
Why it's made this way: As an unleavened fried bread that keeps for weeks without spoiling, boortsog suited a nomadic pantry long before it became a city bakery staple, and the same dough is what's shaped into the tiered ul boov centerpiece set out at Tsagaan Sar.
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