The Plov came at the eighth stop. By then I was full, sweating in the late September heat of Kokand, ready to wave off whatever came next.
Then Dilshod opened the courtyard door and pointed at his father. The old man was crouched over a kazan the size of a bathtub, sweat darkening the back of his shirt.
The Kokand Kitchen Behind Stop Eight
The street food tour had been good but predictable. Samsas at a baker on Furkat Street. Shashlik from a man who would not say what was in his marinade.
Lagman in a courtyard where the noodles were still warm from the hand. By stop seven I thought I knew the shape of the day.
Then the guide walked us through a low blue gate in a residential lane. We stepped into the home of Rustam, an oshpaz who had cooked Plov at weddings for forty years.
His wife Gulnora was inside slicing carrots into matchsticks the thickness of a pencil lead, faster than I could follow. She wore a faded orange housedress and her hair was bound in a kerchief printed with tiny daisies.
They let me come back the next morning. That is how I learned what was actually happening in that kazan.
What Makes Uzbek Plov Different
Plov is the national dish of Uzbekistan and it travels under different names across Central Asia. Osh. Palov.
The 10th-century scholar Ibn Sina, born near Bukhara, wrote down a version he called palov osh. He is sometimes called the father of the dish.
In 2016 UNESCO added Uzbek and Tajik plov-making to its list of intangible cultural heritage. That sounds dry on paper and means in practice that this dish carries the weight of weddings, funerals, Nowruz, and the Sunday morning men’s gatherings called ertalabki osh.
It is not biryani. I had to unlearn this.
Biryani layers separately cooked rice over a heavily spiced masala and finishes with dum steaming. Plov is one pot, the rice steamed undisturbed on top of the zirvak, the spice profile pared back to cumin and salt and the carrots doing most of the work.
Where the Plov Goes Wrong at Home
The puzzle of cooking Plov well is not the recipe. The recipe is short. The puzzle is restraint.
Most home cooks stir the rice. Do not. Once the rice goes on top of the zirvak, your hand stays out of the pot.
You can pierce the mound with a long skewer to release steam. You can push the rice from the edges into a low dome. You cannot stir.
Stirring breaks the grains and releases the starch. You end up with a soft pilaf rather than something where each grain stands separate and amber.
The other mistake is rushing the carrots. Rustam laid them on top of the meat and onions and walked away for a full five minutes before touching them.
They steamed, slumped, turned glossy. That fat-soaked sweetness is most of what makes Plov taste like Plov.
And then there is the fat. I tried this with olive oil the first time back home. Do not.
Cottonseed oil tastes faintly nutty and grassy, and lamb tail fat carries the whole dish. Sunflower oil works as a backup. Olive oil is wrong here, the flavor too assertive and the smoke point too low.
There is one more place where things go sideways. The water level.
You add hot water in stages, not all at once. First just enough to cover the zirvak by half an inch while it simmers. Then more, just before the rice goes in, to cover the grains by another half inch.
What I Used
- Long-grain devzira rice when I can get it, basmati when I cannot
- Bone-in lamb shoulder, cut into two inch chunks, with the bones reserved for browning
- A small block of lamb tail fat from the halal butcher
- Cottonseed oil, ordered online, because nothing else tastes quite right
- Two large yellow onions, halved and sliced thin
- Two pounds of yellow and orange carrots, cut into long matchsticks about a quarter inch thick
- Two whole heads of garlic, papery skins removed but the cloves still wrapped together
- A tablespoon of whole cumin seeds, lightly crushed in a mortar
- A spoonful of dried barberries because Gulnora put them in hers
- Two small dried red chiles, left whole
- Fine sea salt, more than you think you need
- Five cups or so of very hot water from the kettle
Cooking Plov in My Own Kitchen
I do not own a kazan. My cast iron Dutch oven, the one with the cracked enamel my mother gave me when she moved to Phoenix, holds the heat well enough.
The lid sits tight. That is most of what matters.
I get the lamb shoulder and tail fat from a halal butcher in Little Arabia, fifteen minutes south on the 5 if LA traffic is kind. Devzira rice is harder to find.
I order it once a year from a Central Asian importer and ration it. Most weeks I substitute a long-grain basmati and it is honestly fine, though the grains do not stain quite as amber.
Sunday is the day for this. You need three hours and a kitchen you do not mind smelling like cumin for a full day after.
I had Tinariwen on the speaker the last time I made it, which has nothing to do with Uzbekistan and everything to do with what feels right when you are slowly rendering tail fat at nine in the morning.
The first time, I was so anxious about the no-stir rule that I lifted the lid five times in the last twenty-five minutes. The Plov was still fine.
It was also slightly underdone in patches. Now I set a timer, walk out of the kitchen, take the dog around the block, and do not come back until it tells me to.
Gulnora served theirs on a single wide lyagan platter. The rice mounded in the middle and the lamb arranged over it. She pressed two whole garlic heads into the surface like ornaments before she carried it out.
I do mine the same way when I can. A wide platter, the achichuk salad of tomato and onion and a hot green chili to one side, warm flatbread next to it, and a teapot of green tea on the table.
The first bite back in my own kitchen was not as good as the bite in Kokand. It might never be. Rustam still messages me a photo every Nowruz of his kazan in the courtyard, and the smell of cumin and slow-cooked carrot brings that low blue gate back every time.
Plov
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Place the rice in a large bowl and rinse under cool running water, swishing with your hand, until the water runs clear. Cover with warm water and let soak for at least 30 minutes while you prepare the zirvak.
- Pat the lamb completely dry with paper towels. Season lightly with salt.
- Set the dry kazan or heavy Dutch oven over high heat. Add the diced tail fat and render it slowly until the cracklings are golden and crisp, about 8 minutes. Lift out the cracklings with a slotted spoon and reserve.
- Pour the cottonseed oil into the rendered fat and heat until it shimmers and a faint wisp of smoke rises, about 4 minutes.
- Carefully add the reserved lamb bones to the hot fat and fry until deeply browned on all sides, about 6 minutes. Remove and set aside.
- Add the lamb chunks in a single layer. Do not stir for the first 2 minutes so a hard sear forms, then turn the pieces and brown them on all sides, about 8 minutes total.
- Add the sliced onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are deeply golden and any liquid has cooked off, about 10 minutes.
- Return the browned bones to the pot. Add the julienned carrots in an even layer over the meat and onions. Do not stir. Let the carrots steam and soften undisturbed for 5 minutes, then gently fold them through twice and cook 5 minutes more, until they slump and turn glossy.
- Sprinkle in the crushed cumin seeds, barberries, and whole chiles. Pour in enough hot water to just cover the contents by 1/2 inch. Nestle the whole garlic heads into the surface.
- Add 1 tablespoon salt, reduce the heat to a steady gentle simmer, and cook uncovered for 45 minutes so the zirvak builds depth and the lamb becomes tender.
- Taste the zirvak broth. It should be assertively salty, like a good seasoned soup. Adjust with more salt if needed; the rice will absorb most of it.
- Lift the garlic heads out and set them aside. Drain the rice well and spread it evenly over the zirvak in a smooth layer. Do not stir.
- Pour just enough additional hot water down the side of the pot to cover the rice by 1/2 inch. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, uncovered, until the surface liquid has been absorbed and small craters appear on top of the rice, about 15 minutes.
- Using a slotted spoon, gently push the rice from the edges toward the center to form a low dome. Nestle the garlic heads back on top.
- Pierce the rice mound straight down to the bottom in 6 or 7 places with a long skewer to create steam vents.
- Reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting, cover with a tight lid (wrap the lid in a kitchen towel for an even better seal), and steam undisturbed for 25 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and let the plov rest, covered, for 15 minutes.
- Uncover, lift out the garlic and reserve. Use a slotted spoon to gently fluff and turn the rice from the bottom, bringing the carrots and lamb up through the grains.
- Mound the plov onto a large warmed platter, arrange the lamb pieces and garlic heads on top, scatter over the reserved cracklings, and serve at once for the table to share.