An Uzbek Feast

So for my first full weekend home in many months, I thought it would be great to gather some friends together on a cold, rainy Sunday and cook some yummy plov. To do this, I dug into one of my treasured recent acquisitions, The Art of Uzbek Cooking by Lynn Visson [Amazon].

The menu for this cold Sunday of deliciousness was a bit incongruous. The titles come from Visson’s book:

• Bukharan Beef Plov
• Fried Mushrooms
• Onion naan
• Uzbek-style Korean Carrot Salad
• Dark Chocolate & Bacon Cupcakes

Okay, that last one was clearly not Uzbek. My friend Miss B made them—recipe here—and man oh man were they delicious. Anyway, on with the recipes—including how I think they could be made better, supposed authenticity be damned.

I know I’m going to get nailed for the plov. It is one of the more personal recipe types out there—I’ve compared how people react to plov recipes with the way Italians gripe about pasta recipes (or Texans do barbeque). That being said, I’m going to post Visson’s recipe in a modified form, since I did not follow it exactly (for example, I didn’t just have sheep tail fat lying around). The results were still delicious.

Bukharan Beef Plov
(Guishti palov)

• 3/4 cup corn or cottonseed oil
• 3 large vidalia onions, peeled and finely chopped
• 1.5 pounds ribeye steaks, cut into 1-inch cubes (marbling and all)
• 6 carrots, peeled and cut at a quarter-inch bias
• 2.5 cups of basmati rice
• 3.5 cups boiling water
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground tumeric
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Heat the oil in a large, heavy dutch oven. I had an 8-quart stock pot, and it wasn’t wide enough to do this right. Sautée the onions for 3-4 minutes over medium heat until they turn soft and translucent. Add the beef and stir frequently, making sure it browns on all sides, for 10 minutes or so. Layer the carrots on top, but do not stir. Pour in the rice, evenly layering it on top of the carrots. Do not stir. Carefully pour the water over the rice, making sure the layers are undisturbed. The water should come about an inch over the rice. Add the seasonings and stir the rice only. Bring the entire mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 40 minutes or until most of the water has evaporated.

After most of the water is gone, use the back of a wooden spoon to poke holes in the rice and allow the remaining water to simmer for another 20 minutes or so. Fluff up the rice with a fork, reduce the heat very low, and allow it to steam for another 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes or so, then scoop the rice into a serving bowl, with the meat and vegetables on top.

I served alongside the plov some “fried” mushrooms. I put the “fried” in quote marks because they didn’t work out exactly as I had hoped. I’ll post the recipe as I made it, and discuss how it could be made better.

Fried Mushrooms
(Kuizikorin kovurma)

• 2.5 pounds mushrooms
• Salt
• 3 medium vidalia onions, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup strong beef broth
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)

I took a shortcut and bought a bunch of the pre-sliced and washed mushrooms. Chopping two and a half pounds of mushrooms is just too much work for my lazy ass. Fill a really huge bowl with cold water, add about 4 teaspoons of sea salt, and soak the mushrooms for a few minutes. Drain them in a big collander.

Chop the onions finely. Heat the oil, add the mushrooms and onions, and simmer over medium-high heat, stirring frequently for about ten minutes. When the onions have softened and the mushrooms have given off a lot of their moisture, add a few pinches of salt and the beef broth. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for another ten minutes. Just before serving stir in the coriander.

Now, this resulted in delicious mushrooms, however I was disappointed in just how much liquid was leftover. There was a lot, and it was so runny I couldn’t properly call it a sauce (and I was not about to toss something like flour or cornstarch into it to make it tighten up). I would use less oil next time in a non-stick pan, sautée for a lot longer, maybe even ten minutes longer, and possibly halve the amount of beef broth I put in it. Again: these were delicious, just too watery.

To go along with all this deliciousness, I also made some onion naan. The recipe follows. My only caveat is that Visson does not use enough flour—after following her recipe, my dough was still really sticky and difficult to roll out. I ended up adding at least another half-cup of flour to the mixture, and I probably could have used more. I had to dust a lot of flour out to keep everything from sticking, and once I was done browning all the naans in the pan, I had to brush off a lot of excess and burnt flour.

Onion Flatbread
(Non)

• 6 tablespoons butter
• 2 medium white onions, very finely chopped
• 3/4 cup tepid water (110 degrees or so)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups AP flour, unbleached

In a large heavy skillet, melt one tablespoon of the butter over medium heat and add the onions. Sautée until they are soft and translucent, but not brown (about 5 minutes or so). Remove them to a bowl to cool. In the same skillet, melt the rest of the butter and then pour it into a large heavy mixing bowl. Add the warm water and salt, then stir in the onions. Sprinkle in the flour, one half-cup at a time, and knead until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. Cover the bowl with a towel and set aside for at least 20 minutes.

Pull apart the dough and form about 10 to 12 balls, each about 2 inches in diameter. Lightly flour a board or countertop and roll out each ball into a flat circle about 8 inches in diameter. They will be very thin, so make sure you have enough flour to prevent sticking. I don’t own a rolling pin, so I used a can of soup, and it was perfectly adequate.

Heat an ungreased teflon pan over high heat and brown each dough circle for 3-4 minutes each side. There will be smoke from the extra flour, so make sure you’re in a well ventilated room and able to disconnect the inevitable fire alarm. Flip with a spatula. Cool the breads on a rack. I placed several on an ungreased cookie sheet in a 250-degree oven to continue crisping a bit more. You can serve these warm or room temperature—they’re delicious either way, and great for eating a lot of things besides plov!

Lastly, I made a spicy Korean carrot salad. It was expectedly delicious—most carrot salads are cloying and sweet, but this was was nice and tangy with a tiny bit of bite. I’ll be making it again in the future.

Korean Carrot Salad
(Uzbek style)

• 4 large carrots, peeled and julienned into 2-inch strips
• 2 scallions, trimmed and finely chopped (white and green—both are tasty)
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and minced (don’t use a garlic press—this is better with noticeable garlic pieces)
• 2.5 tablespoons soy or shoya sauce
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 1.5 tablespoons white sesame seeds
• 1.5 tablespoons dark toasted sesame oil
• 1.5 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• Pinch of cayenne pepper

Boil four cups of water and add the carrots. Cook for four minutes, the drain. Combine everything else in a medium bowl until the sugar is dissolved and everything is well blended. Pour over the carrots; serve at room temperature.

All of this food was quite delicious: my friends, who are not at all familiar with this kind of food, were excited to be eating it… including, to the point of ouchies from a tummy ache from eating too much. I was in the same boat, and after eating everything and watching some Wii Bowling I was ready for bed by 8 pm. But of course, I had one very un-Uzbek delicacy to consume:

(AHEM) I had four. I wasn’t alone—the chunks of bacon sound weird in the abstract, but are amazing in the flesh. So to speak. Eating like this has left me with a bit too much flesh, as you can see from the deliberately shrunk picture above. I guess I can’t eat like this all the time, but it was wonderful.

All photos taken with my iPhone, so apologies for the quality. I highly suggest buying Lynn Visson’s book, The Art of Uzbek Cooking.