Please tell me, have you been on the Internet for a long time?
Have you seen a lot of pilaf recipes with photos or videos, with illustrations?
Have you read the comments under them?
After all, every second is clever and writes:
"You have not pilaf, but porridge turned out."
Those who are a little more literate and more educated,
and more knowledgeable in Central Asian cuisine, write:
"You have not pilaf, but a shavlya turned out."
You know, shavlya is a very old and very reliable Uzbek dish.
Today I'll show you how to cook it.
And you will see that cooking it is no easier than pilaf,
but it is worth learning how to cook it.
Everything starts exactly as in pilaf.
We put the cauldron. If there is no cauldron, then we put the pan on the stove.
We heat it properly and pour oil into it.
Only now, if you cook, for example, pilaf,
then you need to pour about 250-300 ml of oil,
and for shawli you need less oil.
And this is due to the fact that shavlya is a dish of poor people.
You always had to buy oil, so you saved oil.
We will take approximately 120 ml.
And this will be quite enough for cooking shawli.
Here the oil has heated up to a haze.
This is the way it is, it is the way it is in Uzbek cuisine.
We dip the meat into it.
I always put onions into pilaf first, but meat first into shavlya.
Have you noticed that there is not so much meat?
For shawli, this amount of meat is considered large,
because, in principle, for 800 g, perhaps for 1 kg of rice
, 300-400 g of meat would be enough. And that would be very generous.
And not necessarily lamb, you can take beef.
You can take meat in general simpler, from such a simple, inexpensive cut.
Old people in Tashkent told me
that during the war Uzbeks very rarely ate meat,
maybe once a month on major holidays.
But just the shawlah is prepared with dried apricots,
which were chosen a little sour.
And they say that it was very tasty.
Even without meat, it was delicious and satisfying.
Well, OK. But in modern times,
how can you cook a shawla from a small amount of meat,
but so that it is very tasty. There is one secret.
The less meat you have, the smaller the pieces should be.
This is the surface of the meat that is in contact with the oil, and it forms the flavor of the meat.
Do you understand? We cut it smaller, fried it a little harder.
That is why I still have never interfered in the cauldron.
I let the meat grill on one side first,
then turn it over and let it grill on the other side.
Noticed that the oil foams in the cauldron?
This oil is unusual. After all, usually shavlya is cooked in some very cheap,
the most accessible oil.
In the last, maybe 100 years, maybe 80 years
, the most accessible oil in Uzbekistan is cottonseed oil.
But once before, even before the boom in cotton production
, another oil was the most widespread, linseed oil,
or rather a mixture of linseed and sesame oil.
I have it here, this old oil
called "Zigir-yeg". Eg is butter.
It happens at the sellers of spices, just try to ask in order
to feel this almost forgotten taste of the old Uzbek cuisine.
You know, now I just add two spoons for the smell, for the taste.
In fact, this zigir-eg also needs to be very strongly calcined.
It needs to be heated for maybe 1-2 hours.
Thick white smoke will go, neighbors will come running.
It's better not to do this at home, it's fun for giving.
Zigir-eg is cald for a very long time at low heat,
but then the pilaf turns out to be amazing.
It has such a red-burgundy color,
and its taste is unusual, the taste is attractive.
This is for those who are already tired of the fat tail,
who are already tired of cottonseed oil, olive oil.
Here's another hitch for you - zigir-eg, 2 spoons.
The meat has cooked very well until golden brown
and it has shrunk in volume.
It's okay, we have a bow.
And not just onions, but a lot of onions, as in ordinary Uzbek dishes.
Do not fry the shawli onions too much.
Firstly, it will not be possible to fry it the
way we fry it for pilaf to such a golden-red color.
No, on the contrary, here in the shawla the onion should be stewed,
as it were, so that later it melts and forms this consistency,
because the shawla should have a consistency that
is very reminiscent of risotto.
Therefore, as soon as a delicious smell has gone from the onion, it's time to lower the carrots.
The Uzbeks always had a lot of carrots.
Onions, carrots, all this grows in the garden.
That is, what was not necessary to buy, they always put in more, generously.
Let's get in the way, the carrots should also fry a little bit,
lean somewhere against the hot wall of the cauldron, dip in the oil,
maybe brown a little. What for?
So that she even gives this small amount of oil
her aroma and smell.
And finally, rice. But what kind of rice should you choose for shawli?
Generally speaking, shavlya was prepared from the rice that was.
Usually, after all, in Uzbekistan, in the country of pilaf, the rice was not bad.
Even if it was inexpensive, it was at least delicious.
I can tell you which rice to choose on supermarket shelves.
This is rice for "National" pilaf.
It absolutely meets the taste that existed in ordinary Uzbek families,
let's say, 10-15 years ago, and maybe even now.
Let's see what kind of rice it is, so that you understand
what kind of rice you need to choose in general.
Firstly, it is quite dense, it squeaks well in a fist.
This is a good sign, a sign of good rice.
Secondly, this is medium-grain rice, not round,
it is exactly this kind of pilaf.
It is absolutely clean, it is perfectly sanded.
It doesn't have too much powder on it.
And I think that's a good sign.
It is very uniform and has a good smell.
It has no musty smell.
It smells delicious right now.
And since this rice is absolutely clean,
I will not rinse it.
After all, if we rinse, we will rinse off the starch,
and for shavli starch is of decisive importance.
And now we mix, we need to fry the rice too.
Stir frequently. Every grain of rice should now be soaked in oil.
And every rice should be properly warmed up.
It should almost even be fried.
If some grain of rice turns brown, that's okay, that's good.
And I again recall those words that were once cooked without meat,
but with sour cherry plum or sour dried apricots.
Probably, since those times people are accustomed to the fact
that shavlya should not be sweet like pilaf, but sweet and sour.
And in some families, tomatoes were added to the barbecue.
I have tomatoes here.
These are already peeled, skinned, mashed tomatoes.
They are perfect for this dish.
How many are here? 300 g, I guess. Add 300 g.
All the grains of rice should be shared equally.
But what about seasonings, but what about spices?
But what about the famous Uzbek zira?
Listen, what a zira. Zira was added on holidays,
rich people added zira, and this is an everyday dish.
This is what the working class prepared for itself
, what the farmers prepared for themselves.
They added what they had in the garden.
By the way, almost everyone grew up with pepper.
Therefore, you can add red pepper.
For example, I generally put sweet paprika.
There is some kind of pungency in it. That's enough.
Well, maybe we'll add some salt at the same time.
I think that about 1 spoon, even 1.5 tablespoons will take salt.
Maybe a spoon without a top like this and so much more.
It will be fine, because there will be a lot of food.
Do not look at what has just been ordered.
You don't know how this rice swells yet.
And now there is a lot of water, a lot, a lot of hot water.
There will be so much water that at first it will seem to little knowledgeable people
that I am trying to cook soup.
No, don't worry, everything will be fine.
This will be exactly the shawl. And the rice, you see how it swells.
He just poured water, but he is already like that.
Do you know what happened here now?
There was a short break.
The rice is being cooked, all the operators gathered over the cauldron and began to discuss.
One says: "It smells like the army smelled in the kitchen.
We had an Uzbek cook. Do you understand?"
So hello to all the guys
who once served in the Soviet army and were cooks.
You left a good mark, you left good memories of our homeland,
of Uzbekistan thanks to the fact that you honestly worked in the kitchen.
How is it, at the age of 18 a guy comes to the army
and can you want to feed a company, you want a part, a whole division?
These are centuries, these are millennia of folk experience that
have developed, everyone has gathered here in this shawla,
which we are now preparing with you.
We reduce the fire a little, you do not need too much heating.
And you need to stir quite often.
And you know, it shouldn't turn out so that we cook the rice into dust.
No, the inside of the rice should be felt, it should resist the teeth,
but everything around should be made from these products:
from carrots, from onions, from meat, from tomatoes,
from everything that we put here, and combined with rice.
Smooth transition of the taste of one product to another.
Legato, as the musicians say.
You know, but in fact it smells so delicious
that I want to try.
I miss a little pungency and pungency.
Therefore, I have a pod of fresh pepper.
I'll cut it beautifully now and use it as a shawli decoration.
Whoever wants to take it, and that will be spicy.
And who does not want to, he will simply eat.
Or rather, not just, but as I will now teach.
Shavl needs to be eaten in a special way.
Come on. Oh, how thick, you look.
An excellent shawl turned out. This is exactly what you need.
But now there is a very subtle and important point.
I turn off the stove, and I can't keep the shawl in the cauldron.
All of it must be distributed immediately.
It is necessary to level it and lay it out exactly like this.
You know, one person does not eat with Muslims.
There must be at least a few people at the table, at least two.
Therefore, such a lagan, such a dish is
offered, as a rule, for two.
Look, you just can't eat the shawl either.
Here is a good onion, delicious, sweet.
We spread it around.
We take a spoonful of shawli and be sure to have some onions.
Those who want something spicy take some shawli and a ring of pepper.
Well, how did it happen? Appetizing dish, tasty?
Do you know what shawlya and pilaf are?
It's like an older sister and a little brother.
The older sister is a little softer, a little kinder,
and pilaf, he is such a peppy guy.
But shavlya, she's home, you need to eat her at home.
Bon Appetit!