🍘 Aaruul

Aaruul is Mongolian dried curd, one of the nomads’ main dairy stores. Soured milk or yogurt (most often from cows or yaks; the mass left after distilling milk vodka is often used) is heated, the separated curd is pressed in cloth, then cut, squeezed through moulds or shaped into pieces and dried in the sun and wind — traditionally on the roof of a ger. Once dried, aaruul becomes very hard and keeps for a very long time.

In Mongolia aaruul can be sour or sweetish, made with öröm (clotted cream) or sugar, and comes in different shapes, from small bars to decorative pieces. People take it on journeys, give it to children, offer it to guests and put it in tea; in summer it is stocked up for winter.

Aaruul is a relative of Central Asian kurt, Iranian kashk and Jordanian jameed: all of them are made by drying strained fermented milk curd. It differs from kurt mainly in local techniques and in often being unsalted. It is gnawed or slowly sucked like a hard sweet.