Dear readers. Thank you so much for visiting my blog, it is very inspiring to look at stats and realize that I am not the only one that reads this. Unfortunately it is hard for me to access this blog from here. Many servers don’t support wordpress. Blogspot seems to be operating fine here, so I started a new blog on that platform.
Please go to :
http://tablefull.blogspot.com/
for new recipes, and new rants on the glory of Uzbek cuisine.
See you there!
Sincerely,
Rashid
The dream came true! We are sitting in Uzbekistan, on the raised bed “tapchan” under the grape vines, cooking and eating delicious plov, eating the most incredibly tasting fruit and drinking green tea. The cuisine in Uzbekistan is outstanding, to say the least. Water is a problem in many regions of Uzbekistan, but in Ferghana Valley, or the “Golden Valley” water is present and the fields and orchards are flourishing. My mother’s classmates came to visit her last week, they live in Kashkadarya, slightly north of Afghanistan, water is a big problem in their region; they cannot grow anything. Their towns literally have no water. They buy water once a week and fill up barrels, then they use this water for showers, food, laundry, and have very little ability to irrigate their plants due to high cost and scarcity of water. These two ladies had a wonderful time in Namangan, with running water, trees, grapes, mountain streams, and parks.
I cannot stop being amazed with the patience, entrepreneurship and hard work of Uzbek people. In y mother’s little garden she grows grapes, hot peppers, egg plants, stinging nettles, tomatoes, horse radish, two trees of almonds, sun flowers, a pine tree and decorative flowers. This is an empty lot in her mind and she feels lazy this year. She didn’t have much time to spend on the garden with all the children coming home. I very much admire her work. Everything in our house has a function and it is the cleanest house I have ever seen.
Uzbek people all over this country manage to grow so much on such little land. I admire their hard work, nothing goes to waste here.
For Arslan’s birthday I made plov over wood fire. Here is the slideshow of this wonderful process. I am finally cooking in the Kazan – a thick walled wok-type pot. This device was designed by the nomads that inhabited Central Asia. They traveled all over this place and anywhere they stopped they could easily prepare a nice meal. The fire in intense and everything cooks quickly. Kazan is a multifunctional device, you can deep fry in it, stew, smoke, sauté, bake, and steam. I used very tender meat in this plov, therefore I started with the onions. I heat up a mixture of melted lamb fat and oil and caramelized the onions in it. Then I added the cubed meat and some bones for good stock, and browned it all. In went the carrots, bell peppers, mixture of Central Asian spices, and of course cumin. After the carrots cooked down a little I added the water, brought it to simmer and in went the pre-soaked garbanzo beans and whole garlic heads. I also added some bar berry to this plov for some pleasant sour bites. After about 45 minutes of simmering, when garbanzo beans became soft and the stock became flavorful, I added some raisins, intensified the heat and added the pre-soaked rice. Before I added the rice I took out the bones, garlic and the bell peppers. Rice soaked in the delicious stock and the onions, carrots and meat continued caramelizing on the bottom of kazan. The key is to leave the rice on top and mix everything together ONLY AFTER the rice fully cooks. I made a nice pile of rice, pocked hole with a wooden spoon all the way to the bottom to let the stem out, put a couple of spicy peppers on top (I picked them in mother’s garden) and closed the lid for 20 minutes. It is very important to properly control fire under the kazan. People in Central Asia say that it is not the person that stirs who cooks plov, but rather the person who controls the fire! Plov turned out wonderfully, delicious, fluffy, and aromatic! With plov we served Korean salads that we bought at the market from my former classmate Natasha. Uzbek Koreans are well known for their amazing salads.
Come to Uzbekistan and you too can experience local hospitality, warmth of the people, and incredible flavors of the food.
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Sister brought back the legendary Uzbek lepyoshka bread! This little circle of sunshine was cooked in 3 minutes in a very hot tandoori oven. Soooooooooooo good.
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Shurpa – Uzbekistan’s most famous soup. Simple and hearty, this soup is best when prepared over wood fire, which gives it an unforgettable aroma. Soon enough I will be eating real Uzbek food! I am flying out here pretty soon and will continue my blog from Uzbekistan – the birthplace of the tricks mentioned here. My goal is to compile a recipe book that will unveil the beauty and secrets of the Central Asian cuisine. There is just so much that has not been discovered by the outside world yet. The beauty of our food is in the fact that it has not been industrialized yet. We still cook over fire, with seasonal ingredients, all local and humanly raised meat – it tastes so much better; it actually has a flavor as opposed to hormone fed, prematurely and strangely slaughtered animals that we get in the West. I say strangely because there is a specific way that an animal should be killed, blood must be drained and the animal should not be in the stress that it experiences when electrified or skinned while still alive as it happens in many slaughter houses. I am slightly off topic here, pardon – back to Shurpa!
For 4 people:
Cube 1 lb meat, in this case beef chuck eye cut and bones for the stock. In the real Uzbek version, which I will blog about when I land there and start gorging, it will be lamb.
Onions – 1 large, large dice
Carrots – 3 large, large dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 potato per person, peeled and large diced
2 quarts water
Slat, pepper, cumin to taste
Cilantro and green onion
Sear the meat in vegetable oil till brown, add the onion and cook for 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Add carrots and cook 5 more minutes, then add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and cook for a little bit (2 minutes). Add spices and let them release their flavor, about a minute. Add the water, bring to boil and simmer for 45 minutes to develop a nice broth. Add the potatoes and cook until they are done, about 25 minutes. Let the soup sit a little before serving. Serve with cilantro and green onion. Really good if you add sour cream!
Enjoy!
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Ryan’s parents hired me last Monday to cook them an Uzbek style dinner, for a little get together. Being the Uzbek trickster that I am I used the opportunity to prepare my favorite dishes! For starters I served baba ganoush and hummus. Mr. actually made those, under my eagle stare. I also made two entree type salads. These are Russian classics – Vinigret and Olivye. Vinigret is a beat salad, with young potatoes, green peas, kidney beans, carrots, shallots, pickles, herbs, and a simple dressing made of olive oil and lemon juice.
Olivye (sometimes referred to as the “Russian Salad”) is another staple and favorite in the post-Soviet block. It was brought to Russia in 1865 by a French Chef Mr. Olivier. Since the salad was first introduced, it has evolved quite a bit and is now carrying a somewhat flexible nature. You can use any meat you would like, or none at all. In my family we usually use ham or some form of sausage. People use grilled or poached chicken, you can really use anything you’d like. I really want to make it with some smoked meats in the nearest future! In this salad we also use boiled vegetables that we small dice and mix with a mayonnaise -based dressing. I used potatoes, carrots, boiled eggs, cucumbers, sweet green peas, kalamata olives, chives, and parsley. I mixed mayonnaise with yogurt, salted and peppered it, added a bunch of lemon juice and Dijon mustard to it and smothered everything in this magic.
Of course, I also made plov! We bough a nice piece of lamb which gave rice and incredible flavor. For plov I made a standard Uzbek salad of fresh ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, rinsed onions, and jalapeno. To go with plov I also made a yogurt based tzaziki sauce, there is a recipe for it in one of the older posts.
For desert we had my dad’s favorite snack – stuffed dried apricots. In this case they were stuffed with crushed walnuts, craisins and almonds, smothered in honey. This is a perfect desert, both rich and healthy. Rather then eating greasy, sugary cakes, a couple of these pieces of sunshine are actually good for your heart and are a wonderful post-gorging appetite suppressing, calming little sweet morsels.
We took vodka shots, we toasted, we gorged. I love to party Uzbek style!
