A daughter of the Talas valley, cooking in Chicago
Jibek's Dastorkon
Irad paloosu

Iradi plov

Time 1 h 15 min Serves 4 For Sundays, name days, church feasts Posted Irad
Illustration of Iradi plov

I want to start with the dish that smells most like home to me. On Sunday afternoons my chong apa stood at the stove with a ladle in one hand and the other on her hip, stirring and stirring, while my mother and I peeled carrots at the table. Every Iradi grandmother will tell you this is plov, and every Uzbek friend will tell you it is not. My dear, they are both right.

In the 1950s the Korean farmers in the Chu valley grew a short, sticky rice. When the women of our families tried to steam it the Uzbek way it turned into a brick, so they stirred it like porridge, ladle by ladle, and kept the name. The method is a risotto’s, but the flavour is pure plov: meat, onion and carrot, cumin, and little sour barberries. Please make the beet suzma to go with it. My grandmother would never forgive me if I let you skip it.

Ingredients 4 servings

  • 500 glamb shoulder or beef chuck, in 2 cm cubes
  • 60 mlsunflower oil or rendered lamb fat
  • 2 onions, sliced into half-moons
  • 2 large carrots, cut in matchsticks
  • 1.5 tspcumin seed (zira), crushed between your palms
  • 300 gshort-grain rice (arborio, or Korean/Calrose)
  • 1.2 Lhot beef or lamb broth, kept at a simmer
  • 2 tbspdried barberries, soaked 10 min
  • 30 gbutter
  • 3 tbspsuzma or thick strained yogurt
  • ·salt and black pepper

Method

  1. Heat the fat in a heavy pot or kazan until shimmering. Brown the meat in batches, well, then return it all to the pot.
  2. Add the onions and cook until golden, about 8 minutes. Add the carrots and cumin and cook another 5 minutes until the carrots soften. This is the zirvak.
  3. Add a ladle of broth, cover and simmer 25–30 minutes until the meat is nearly tender.
  4. Uncover, raise the heat, and add the rice. Stir for 2 minutes so every grain is coated in fat and turns translucent at the edges.
  5. Add hot broth one ladle at a time, stirring often, and wait until each is almost absorbed before the next. After about 15 minutes stir in the drained barberries.
  6. Cook 18–20 minutes in total, until the rice is tender with a little bite and loose enough to slowly spread on a plate. Season with salt and pepper.
  7. Off the heat, beat in the butter and suzma. Rest 2 minutes with the lid on, then serve on a big platter with beet suzma alongside.
From my kitchenIn Talas we use wild mountain cumin (Bunium persicum, sold as black cumin or kala jeera). If you find it, use 1 tsp in place of the ordinary cumin.

With love from my kitchen to yours,Jibek

← All recipes