Pilaf
Uzbek traditions are interesting in themselves; however, they show a relaxed and laid back style of life in most of the traditions, starting with how they cook pilaf or spend their time in the summer. Since the country is near a desert and mountains the traditions are all regulated by the hot climate. For instance, there is a tradition of drinking green tea, which lowers your blood pressure, instead of a regular tea, which helps to survive the heat of the summer. To survive the heat is also better with as little motion as possible, so there is a tradition of laying and drinking all day in the summer, as many Uzbeks do so on special beds called “tahta”. In light of those traditions Uzbeks are considered very relaxed and laid back; however, they are just as any other inhabitants of a desert. The tradition of cooking pilaf incorporates elements of being relaxed and of being laid back in the fact that it takes all day to do pilaf in Uzbek settings. Guests are invited in the morning and they have to choose among the sheep, the one they want for to be cooked for pilaf. Pilaf is served with meat, which is usually mutton. As the process takes all day, guests lay down on tahta and, while drinking green tea, chat all day. The sheep is caught, cut and cooked for the pilaf. Only men are traditionally allowed to cook pilaf. The pilaf itself is mainly a rice dish. And there are dozens of ways to cook rice, so there are about forty different recipes of pilaf. The one that is known in our family is the one I will be describing in this paper.
Before going into recipe I would like to tell some history about how the recipe has developed over time with our travels. We, my parents, my brother and I, came to Canada in October, 1993. The first city we lived in was London, Ontario. We found many friends as soon as we came to London. As we made friends we invited them over to our house. We had guests over quite often, almost every weekend, and quite often we cooked pilaf for them. We even brought a special pot for cooking pilaf, called “kazan”. As Canadians, like most North Americans, are careful about what they eat, they hesitated to eat such fatty, oily and spicy dish as pilaf. They did not like too much fat, or too much oil, or even too much spice. So after cooking for Canadians we have changed the recipe quite a bit. After spending seven and a half years in Canada we moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. And we brought with us the final recipe when we moved here.
Now, the final recipe, that has been modified many times until it came to the final and mature form of development, and which will stay in our family for generations.
You need two to four pounds of meat of mutton or beef, ten carrots, ten onions, two to four pounds of rice, vegetable oil and spices, like cumin seeds, saffron, paprika, parsley, pepper, salt, and anything else you like to add to the pilaf.
First, you take a large chunk of meet of about two to four pounds, be it mutton or beef. Then, put a chunk of meat into water and vegetable oil, which should cover bottom of the cooking pot, which I will call “kazan”. (You can slice meat if you wish at this stage or you can leave it as a whole and cut it later. I would recommend to cut it because it will cook faster in pieces, rather than as a whole chunk.)
Next, what you need to do is to fry meat in vegetable oil. Make sure you turn the meat or stir it to allow it to be fried from all sides. Fry until meat is thoroughly cooked which would be around two hours, if the meat was fried as a chunk. If you have cut the meat before frying it will take less time to fry it. Then, take meat out and save the fatty sauce that remains after cooking meat.
In the third step you need about ten carrots and ten onions. Peel them and cut into round pieces. Fry them in the frying pan until its slightly brownish on the edges. You can fry onions and carrots separately, if you wish, and put them into the meat sauce.
In the fourth step, add water to fill about half of the kazan. Boil the mixture until bubbles appear on the surface. Remember to add spices: pepper, salt, paprika, parsley, saffron, Italian seasoning, meat loaf seasoning, and couple table spoons of cumin seeds. Also add a pound of chick picks from a can.
Then, in the fifth and longest step, put one kilogram, equivalent to two pounds, of rice for 4 persons or two kilograms, equivalent to four pounds, of rice for 8 persons. Make sure water completely covers the rice. If it does not, then add more water to cover the rice with a layer no less then a length of a nail, which is approximately one inch. Steam rice until most of the water evaporates from the surface. Once the water has evaporated form the top of the kazan, make a pile out of rice in the middle of the kazan. Reduce heat and let it steam for two hours. Make sure to have water at the bottom of the kazan for the whole two hour period. Do not allow rice at the bottom to get fried. At the end of two hours of steaming, add meat (if you did not cut meat before, cut it before putting into pilaf). Mix meat with the rice. Now the pilaf is ready.
This was a procedure I followed when I was cooking my first pilaf. I learned how to cook pilaf only after I came to Fort Wayne, Indiana. My mom liked it once she tasted it. She put a portion on a plate to eat. But my little sister, Valentina, who was born in Canada, saw the plate, and even though she never liked rice before, she grabbed the plate and ate everything that was on it. That was the best compliment I could ever dream of.
I would recommend to beginners to let members of their family to taste your first pilaf, for they are the ones who will tell them honestly whether their pilaf needs improvement or not.
April, 2002