Sunday, September 21, 2008

Plov

Plov is an Uzbek dish according to Tanya and according to an Uzbek lady at the Samarkand Restaurant in Ulaanbaatar. Today I paid attention while Tanya was cooking it and this is as close to a recipe as I can come up with:
1 kg pork cut into 2-3 cm cubes (can use chicken and likely beef too though we have not)
3 good sized onions chopped up
3 good sized carrots shredded
Brown the meat in a large deep casserole dish in about 50 to 70 mls of oil for 15 minutes or so.
Add onions and carrots after about 5 minutes.
To 1 1/2 -2 cups of rice add boiling water and soak for 20 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water.
Spread the rinsed rice over top of the meat, carrots and onions in the same dish they were browned in.
Add water to cover plus about 2-3 cm
Salt, peppercorns and bayleaves are all Tanya adds though i think one could use one's imagination and make any flavour one wanted.
Cover and simmer slowly for 20 minutes or until the rice is cooked and the water is gone.
You will likely need to experiment with the rice/water ratios until you find what works in your casserole as Tanya has used this cast aluminum one for years for Plov and has it down to an art. She also uses short grain rice which has very different cooking characteristics from long grain as she likes sticky rice.

4 comments:

  1. I find you, your life and your blog so fascinating! I've been cooking that particular meal all my life and never called it anything but "slum gullion" and have no idea where THAT name came from. And as for fruit trees, and those apples on the ground gathering wasps like crazy!

    And I have to ask, you look exactly like a photo of my other favorite blogger. Are you related to Bronwein? I know it's not spelled right, but she writes BUGGERINGCRAPMONKEYS.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dayna, that is so awesome you picked that out. He's her dad. Ha ha ah ha ah ha ha ha. I am going to get a lot of mileage out of this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. OK people. Quit yanking my chain. I'm serious here. If he's not her dad, he's GOTTA be related somehow. Please?????

    ReplyDelete

Comments are encouraged. But if you include a commercial link, it will be deleted. If you comment anonymously, please use a name or something to identify yourself. Trolls will be deleted