Rage Against the Stuffed Pepper

Uzbek Plov

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Pair up with crunchy chickpea pilaff.

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Uzbek Plov

My awful food photography makes this look atrocious but it tastes amazing!
Course Main Course
Cuisine Uzbek
Prep Time 3 hours
Cook Time 3 hours
Total Time 6 hours
Servings 5

Ingredients

  • 500 g fatty lamb (I used a shoulder joint)
  • 500 g short grain rice (e.g. medium arborio or paella rice)
  • 500 g carrots
  • 2 medium onions
  • 1 tbsp cumin
  • 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds - toasted and ground
  • 1 head of garlic
  • 1 stock cube - or fresh stock
  • 150 ml oil for frying
  • salt

To serve

  • Turkish yoghurt mixed with salt.

Instructions

  1. Rinse rice and let soak for a while (up to 3 hours).
  2. Chop up meat into cubes (about 2cm x 2cm).
  3. Chop carrots into matchsticks.
  4. Chop off the root and papery outside from the garlic, leaving the bulb intact.
  5. Chop the onion into rings.
  6. Heat the oil on high in a heavy bottomed pan (like a dutch oven) and fry the meat in batches until golden. Remove and set aside.
  7. Fry the onions in the same oil, until soft and golden.
  8. Put the meat back in the pan to prevent the onions from burning.
  9. Add the cumin and coriander and stir.
  10. Add the carrots, cover and cook for about 15 minutes. In the plov which I ate in Russia, you get a beautiful dome of carrots encasing the meat, so you shouldn’t stir, just pat down the carrots until they cover the meat.
  11. Turn down the heat and cover with stock until all the meat is covered. Simmer for up to 1.5 hours until and almost all the water has disappeared.
  12. Turn up the heat. Drain the rice and put it on top of the meat so that it forms a layer.
  13. Remove the whole garlic bulb in the rice. (If you are keen on a sweeter taste of garlic, I have discovered you can roast the garlic for up to an hour in foil in the oven before doing this and I confess I now do, though if you want the authentic experience as the boys cooked it - it should be raw when it goes in).
  14. Pour water over the rice so that it covers it by about 2cm and season well. Cover but keep your eye on it - you may need to turn the heat down. Cook rice until finished (approx 20-25 minutes). You can poke holes down to the base of the pan with the handle of a wooden spoon.
  15. When cooked, remove the garlic clove and set aside. If you have a dish big enough, you can invert the plov onto it so that the meat appears on top like a rice sandcastle, and then dress with the garlic. Failing that: mix well to distribute the meat and carrot.

Serve with salted yoghurt.