A night with Plov

What better way to jump back into blogging at Registan than with an osh/plov/палау/пылав post? By various means and circumstances, I have come into possession of my very own kazan. This dish is absolutely a blessing when trying to cook Central Asian dishes, from the encyclopedic variety of soups and fried-meat dishes, to the ubiquitous and obligatory pilaf. My kazan features prominently in this post, and surely the plov wouldn’t have gone well without it.

I used my own recipe because I live in the USA, and while many of the ingredients my Uzbek host families used are available here if you know where to look, I think there’s something to be said for fusion, evolution, and admitting that I’m only going to fail if I try to copy the masters.  Also, the meat I used was not bought from the meat bazaar, but from Kroger’s.  The carrots were not yellow at all, which is a  must if you have access to Uzbek yellow carrots.

In other words, because I don’t have Central Asian ingredients, I decided against aiming for true Central Asian authenticity.  But, without further ado…

Michael’s Own South Kazakhstan Plov

• ¾ cup vegetable oil
• 3 large onions, finely chopped
• 1 ½ lb. beef stew meat
• 6 carrots, peeled and quartered
• 2 ½ cups jasmine rice
• 3 ½ cups boiling water
• 2 tsp. cumin seeds and 1 tsp. ground cumin, or 2 tsp. ground cumin
• Salt/Pepper, use as much as you dare
• 2 tsp. turmeric
• 2 cups raisins
• 1 cup sliced dill pickles
• 1 cup garlic [in cloves, or chopped elephant garlic]

Heat oil in kazan on high heat.  A kazan can be approximated by using  a Dutch oven, or a deep wok, stew pot, or large sauce pot.  Sautée onions until translucent, about five minutes.  Then add stew meat on top of the onions.  Cook meat for at least ten minutes, browning all sides of chunks.

Once you feel comfortable that the meet is thoroughly browned, make a layer of carrots on top of the meat and onions, being careful not to stir and mix the layers.  Immediately following, add the rice to make a third layer on top of the carrots. 

Then, gently pour the boiling water on top of the rice, being careful not to mix the layers.  Add the spices to the water, stirring only the top rice layer.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat.  At this point, add the garlic by pushing into the rice, cover, and simmer for forty minutes, or until the water has mostly evaporated.

At that point, poke some holes into the rice, adding the raisins into only the top layer, allowing the remaining water to cook off. Simmer another twenty minutes, then remove from heat. Let stand for five minutes.

Prepare plate with a mound of plov, topped by a crown of meat, with circles of sliced carrots at the bottom edges of the mound.

I have to say that there are things I like and don’t like about the recipe, but the result of the above was delicious, and there was enough to pass out to friends both Central Asian and American.  The greatest compliment I received was from a Kyrgyz woman who declared it as good as any plov she’d eaten before.

It also helps if you cook to the strains of your favorite Uzbek or Central Asian artist.  In this case, it was the soothing sounds of Sevara Nazarkhan that flavored my cooking. 

The finished product reminded me of my Uzbek host mother’s plov in south Kazakhstan, though it was really only a passing resemblance.  There is a lot of debate on the proper order and timing to add ingredients, and I hope I didn’t offend anyone by leaving out the chickpeas, which do seem to be a common character in these productions.  I’m not a big fan of chickpeas or their confederated products – not everyone is, you know.  Anyway, if this recipe helps serve as a model for your own culinary experiments, than my work is done.

The whole gallery of my endeavor is below: