The plov and other classics of Uzbek cuisine
The national dish of Uzbekistan - and most of its neighbors - is plov (also called palov or osh, depending on the region and dialect). It's a long-grain rice-based dish, cooked by absorption, whose most common recipe is generously garnished with pieces of meat (lamb or mutton), carrot sticks and onions. It is usually cooked in a kazan (or deghi) over an open fire. Garnished with chickpeas(plov noute), raisins(plov baïram), stuffed grape leaves(plov kovatok), quince(plov chodibek), garlic (plov sarimsok piezli) and so on, the variations are endless.
Although usually prepared at home for the family and their guests by the lady of the house, plov (pronounced plof) is also cooked on specific occasions by theoshpaz (osh chef), sometimes serving up to 1,000 people. There's no shortage of occasions: public holidays, weddings or breaking the Ramadan fast. Plov is also served daily in bazaar canteens. Large dishes are brought to the table and eaten with the right hand, forming rice balls against the edge of the dish. Oshi nahor is a tradition in which people gather to prepare and enjoy plov, typically as part of a wedding celebration. In Uzbekistan alone, there are around a hundred different osh recipes.
Another highly prized Uzbek specialty is chachlik: the Persian word for kebab and, more precisely, the Turkish şiş kebap. Always cooked by men, they are generally made up of alternating pieces of meat and fat. A choice of mutton, beef, lamb or chicken is common. Chachliks can be made with mutton liver or pieces of fat, the noblest part for connoisseurs but not always digestible for Western stomachs. However, if you are offered fat, consider it an honor, and try not to refuse. Fat is more than a dish, it's a religion! The best part comes from the sheep's tail, which in some species can weigh up to 20 kg. The more adventurous will try the experience, which results in an explosion of fat on the palate. Counterbalance this by nibbling on pickled onions and plenty of dill!
Beshbarmak is a traditional dish of the nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia. The term literally translates as"five fingers", as it is eaten with the hand. Horse or mutton meat is boiled, then sliced into thin strips and placed on a bed of wide wheat noodles. The whole dish is served with a spicy onion sauce. It is accompanied by chorba or sho'rva, a soup found throughout the Muslim world and the Balkans. While some versions can be rich, containing meat, vegetables and pasta, in Uzbekistan it's a simple, clear lamb broth. As for dimlama, it's a stew of meat (lamb, beef or veal) and a variety of vegetables: potatoes, cabbage, eggplants, tomatoes, etc.
Tracing their origins to the East and China, lagman and norin are noodle-based dishes served as soups or main courses. Lagman is a variant of lamian noodles, which originated in northwest China (a Hui speciality). Cooked in a variety of ways - sautéed or boiled with a mixture of vegetables and a few bits of meat - they are seasoned with a very spicy sauce. Noodle- and meat-based norin/naryn (horse or mutton) are served cold(kuruk norin) or hot with broth(khul norin). A Uyghur specialty, manty can be found as far away as Turkey, in a variety of shapes and sizes. They are large steamed ravioli filled with mutton and onions. Extremely tasty.
Closely related, chuchvara is a type of meat ravioli served with tomato sauce and vegetables. Finally, hanum or khanum is a roll of dough containing vegetables and meat that is steamed before being cut into thick slices. Otherwise, for those with a small appetite, samsa is a turnover filled with meat and onions, sometimes flaky, fried or baked. And let's not forget chebureki, a slightly heartier dish in the form of a large half-moon-shaped turnover filled with minced meat.
Breads and vegetables
Bread is a sacred food in Central Asia. The best-known is lepeshka. It has a circular shape, easily recognizable by its swollen edges, sometimes decorated with patterns, and its hollowed center. But each region has its own leaven, its own baking method and thus its own inimitable taste. The Ferghana Valley, for example, is famous for the flaky bread known as katlama-non, each layer of which is coated with oil or sour cream. In other regions, you'll find jizzali-non, which contains small pieces of mutton fat, or zogora-non, made from corn flour. Some lepeshkas are prepared with onion or meat, cooked in dough.
Traditionally, Uzbek bread is never cut with a knife. At the start of the meal, it is torn into pieces by hand and placed on the table next to each place setting. It is often served with butter. Do not place Uzbek bread upside down, as this is considered very disrespectful.
The Ferghana Valley is a paradise for lovers of fruit, vegetables and raw vegetables. Cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, radishes, peppers, eggplants and a host of aromatic herbs overflow the market stalls in summer. If there's one salad worth making a detour for in Uzbekistan, it's the Tashkent salad, made with grated white radish and cooked shredded beef, topped with mayonnaise, hard-boiled egg and fried onions before serving.
Uzbek Jewish cuisine
The history of the Jews in the Bukhara region has shaped a distinct cuisine, subject to the restrictions of Jewish dietary laws or kashrut, including the prohibition of pork, seafood and the mixing of meat and dairy in the same meal.
Bukhara's most typical Jewish dish isoshi sabo, which is cooked over a low fire overnight and eaten hot for Shabbat lunch. It's made with meat, rice, vegetables and fruit, giving it a uniquely sweet-and-sour taste. More than a recipe, it's a symbolic dish, just like bakhsh or green plov - a rice dish containing beef, lamb or chicken and plenty of green herbs (coriander, parsley, dill) - which can also be served on Shabbat. Another rice dish is serkaniz, a very garlicky pilaf also containing chickpeas and carrots. As foroshi piyozi, this isa recipe for onions stuffed with minced meat, often served with mohibir'yon, a fried fish dish with garlic sauce (for Friday night dinner), sprinkled generously with coriander.
Bread is sometimes fried and then dipped in the remaining garlic sauce. Called noni toki, this crisp, unleavened bread is cooked on the back of a wok, giving it a salad bowl shape. Slotah bukhori - a salad made with tomato, cucumber, green onion, coriander, salt, pepper and lemon juice - is another specialty, ideal for cooling down during the sometimes scorching Uzbek summers. Some also add lettuce and chilli.
What to drink
There's a whole ritual to serving tea, and it's important to observe it to ensure the best possible contact with Uzbeks. Always take or give the teapot or cups with the right hand, possibly placing the other hand over the heart. Before drinking, the tea is poured into the teapot three times, allowing it to air and cool. To drink tea, if it's too hot, don't blow on it, but suck in air noisily with the liquid (this advice also applies to soup). Green tea is drunk all day long, and tea houses(tchaikhana) are of significant cultural importance. Black tea is preferred in Tashkent. Both are generally drunk without milk or sugar. Tea always accompanies a meal, but is also a hospitality drink, automatically offered to every guest.
Koumiss is another very popular drink, a product of Central Asia's nomadic past. A must for anyone venturing into the steppes or deserts, it's as popular with locals as it is with tourists. It's a drink made from fermented, slightly alcoholic mare's or camel's milk. The best koumiss is made in spring, when the grass is tall and green. After each milking, the mare's milk is poured into the savaa - a large sheepskin bag that is smoked each week - and then beaten for at least a quarter of an hour; the longer it is beaten, the better it becomes. Doctors consider koumiss to be highly curative and excellent for the health, and it's certainly easier to drink thanayran, a yoghurt drink served chilled, which is very popular in summer.
Although Islam is the official religion, Uzbekistan is more flexible when it comes to the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Vodka first appeared in Central Asia under Russian and then Soviet occupation. It is still found on banquet tables. It is drunk in the same cups as tea, which makes a generous quantity to swallow in one gulp after the traditional toast. Beer is popular, but there are a few local brands (Bravo) and Russian brands (Baltika and Zolotaya Botchka), but most breweries are subsidiaries of major European groups, such as Pulsar, a Czech pilsner that is very common in the country, and Sarbast from Denmark's Carlsberg group.
Samarkand wine is the most famous. The best-known white wines are bogimaïdon and baïgibechir (dry wines) or gola qandoz and shirin (sweet wines). Red wines, such as aliatiqo, have a sweet, cooked-wine taste. Uzbekistan has 14 wineries, the oldest and most famous being the Khovrenko winery in Samarkand (est. 1927). The Samarkand winery produces a range of sweet wines from local grape varieties: Gulyakandoz, Shirin, Aleatiko and Kabernet likernoe (literally licorous Cabernet in Russian). Uzbek wines have won international awards and are exported to Russia and other Central Asian countries, where they enjoy great popularity.
A thousand and one... melons!
The king of fruits is unquestionably the melon. It belongs to the inodorus group (native to Anatolia and the Middle East), which means it has white or pale green flesh, is sweet, juicy and sometimes crunchy, but less aromatic. The famous Avicenna recognized its various properties, using the skin, pulp or boiled melon to cleanse the urinary tract, small kidney stones, constipation, anemia, liver and kidney diseases... Many virtues! It can be eaten fresh or dried.
In Central Asia, Uzbekistan is the largest cultivation area, with some 40,000 ha and 500,000 fruits produced. More than 160 varieties are listed and 36 are marketed: Chillaki with thin skin and orange pulp; Koukcha green, long and not very sweet; Obi novvot round and yellow with juicy and very sweet pulp; Zhura kand green oval with very sweet crunchy pulp... Some weigh up to 4 kg, like the Metrovka, with its clear, delicate, sweet pulp, or are giants, up to a meter long! Such is the case of the Mirza Cho'l', an elongated, mottled yellow or green fruit weighing up to 11 kg, much appreciated for its orange pulp with a floral aroma and spicy, honey-like notes.
The melon festival, or kovum saili, is held in the bazaars, where the best melons of the year are chosen. Hundreds of kilos of melons are unloaded in well-defined areas of the bazaar, but hawkers always find places around the bazaar to sell their small harvest. Watermelons, pumpkins and all sorts of cucurbits are also available at the same time of year. They can be bought by the piece, but many vendors cut up quarters to be eaten immediately.
And for dessert...
Patisserie is the poor relation of Uzbek cuisine, but baklava and its variants can be found in bazaars, wedding cakes (sold by the slice, sponge cakes with lemon cream, cherry cream... and a brightly colored topping, as at the Chorsu market in the bakers' area), or fried pastries such as merveilles or oreillettes. Locals delight in fruits - fresh or dried - such as apricots (Uzbekistan is the world's2nd largest producer), melons, cherries, peaches and strawberries, as well as the country's best grape, the kichmich variety, with its succulent, very sweet, seedless berries.
Dried fruits are also succulent, although they appear browner than their counterparts sold in Western Europe. That's because they're not packed with preservatives like sulfur dioxide, which can turn dried apricots orange! There's a wide choice of apricots (color, size), dates, walnuts, almonds and peanuts, which can be bought with or without their shells. In the bazaars, men and women are busy with this exercise, stocking mountains of nuts.
Soft sesame halva is one of the country's rare sweets. It is made from sugar syrup, egg whites and sesame seeds. Solid sesame halva is made from stretched sugar to which sesame seeds are added before being molded on a tray and cut. Alternatively, soumalak is a sweet paste of Iranian origin made exclusively from sprouted wheatgrass seeds: it is made in a large saucepan to a delicately sweet brown cream. It is specially prepared for the Persian New Year, or Norouz, on March 21, which is also celebrated in Uzbekistan.
Otherwise, you'll see plenty of white marbles piled up on some stalls: Uzbeks are crazy about kurut, dried sour yoghurt dumplings.
