In culinary terms, Uzbekistan is a very colorful country,
very diverse. Great Khorezm, holy Bukhara,
magnificent, stunning Tashkent and sweetest Fergana, my homeland.
But there is one city: infinitely fragrant, infinitely tasty,
infinitely great in culinary terms.
Of course, you guessed it, I'm talking about Samarkand.
Everything in Samarkand is special, everything is unique.
There is special bread. Here are Samarkand flat cakes, they cannot be obtained anywhere else.
There are some extraordinary cold dishes,
extraordinary sweets.
But the most unique in Samarkand is, of course, pilaf.
Well, it cannot be that you were born into the world
and have never heard the phrase "Samarkand pilaf".
It was lamb fat, melted,
and now I'm adding some vegetable oil.
Well, literally 50 milliliters.
And here I have a special oil brought from Samarkand, the
so-called zigir-yeg.
You are already familiar with this oil from some other recipes.
Here I pour it generously, all 50 g that I have left,
but no more. Zigirnoe oil, here's another drop left, the glass from the bottle,
is a mixture of linseed oil and sesame oil.
I know what clever people will write, saying that you cannot heat flaxseed oil.
These nutritionists have come up with the idea that flaxseed oil has
some special benefit.
Look, all foods are useful.
Take garlic, it also has benefits,
take pepper, it also has benefits,
take onions, take carrots.
And all this benefit, when heated, disappears
somewhere, is lost somewhere. And now, everything is raw?
Eat yourself. We will heat everything up,
because for thousands of years they have been cooking for zigir-yeg in Uzbekistan,
and somehow the population has not died out. Thank God!
If I were cooking Fergana pilaf, now I would lower the onion.
But I cook Samarkand pilaf,
so I take 3 pieces of great mutton,
lamb, look at what pieces! Lovely, not chunks!
Large pieces. 300-400 grams each.
The most important thing is to heat the oil properly.
And now I dip these whole pieces of meat into this heated oil.
The main thing is to fry the meat until a beautiful golden-red crust.
Do not overcook it, but fry it properly.
For this, the oil should not be enough.
Oil stores temperature, oil stores heat.
And the meat dipped in very hot oil is fried very quickly
and it turns out very tasty.
They fried it, turned it over and this is the very moment to salt the meat.
I take about 1/3 of the amount of salt
that goes into my pilaf.
Here I have 1,200 kg of carrots, meat was also about 1,200 kg.
Therefore, I know that it will take almost 2 tablespoons of salt.
Now is the time to pepper the meat.
Yes, in Samarkand pilaf, meat is certainly peppered with black pepper.
Do not be afraid, it will be delicious. It was itching in my nose.
Salt and pepper just on top of the meat for now.
It must be understood that salt does not dissolve in oil.
And pepper, if it gets into such hot oil now,
it will simply burn out.
Therefore, it's time to add onions to the meat,
quite a lot of onions. 2 onions.
But by no means this stupid 1: 1 ratio.
I do not understand who came up with this, that it is necessary to take 1 kg of rice,
1 kg of carrots, 1 kg of meat and 1 kg of onion.
So, I explain, take and fry 1 kg of onion in a cauldron,
and then fill it with a little water, extinguish,
in general, simulate these conditions that onions go through in pilaf.
And you will see that as a result you will get
quite such a sticky, sauce-like mass.
Just think, this sticky sweet sauce,
does pilaf really need it? I am convinced not.
And look, now that hissing has practically stopped,
this sound "dz-z-z, j-z-z", now the sound has stopped.
What does this mean? That we put a cold onion.
And if we put 1 kg of onion here,
it would stop boiling in our cauldron.
And the fire under the cauldron now, God forbid, what!
At this point, when onions are added to the meat,
some chefs add carrots.
I will also add carrots, a little, 1 zhmenka.
Everything is going great.
It could be cooked in pure fat tail fat,
it could be cooked in cottonseed oil.
Well, if you get it on the market - buy it.
There is nothing special about it, but somehow those who lived in Uzbekistan got
used to its taste.
If you come across such yellow carrots,
you can also buy. Yesterday I just got caught on the market,
got it, bought it. Usually where the spices are sold.
But today I do not lay yellow carrots all at once, but like this,
about half. On top of this first half, I spread the peas.
Soaked chickpeas.
And this will be enough if you soak it for 5-6 hours.
If you are in a hurry, then you can put it to cook there for half an hour or an hour,
while you cook the cauldron.
Further here, in the cauldron, it will cook very quickly,
because now it will be steamed.
And for a couple, an amazing thing, peas are cooked very quickly.
In the same way, here, for a couple, garlic,
pepper and several pieces of fat tail fat will be cooked .
If we cooked exclusively in vegetable oil,
then it would be perfectly acceptable. But in this case, several pieces of fat tail fat
are added to pilaf .
And I'll show you how to deal with him later.
But now I will do what no one in Uzbekistan does.
But first I'll put some water in here.
In Japan, Japanese chefs, who also know how to cook rice perfectly, have
come up with such a grid for cooking rice
or for dividing some dishes into layers.
The fact is that Samarkand pilaf should only be cooked in layers.
But you try to cook only in layers,
you will certainly mix the rice with the carrots,
moreover, the carrots will mix with these peas,
with garlic, with pepper, with lard, do you understand me?
Therefore, I now boldly, calmly, this mesh is designed for such temperatures, I
cover its cauldron. Nobody did that. Nobody did that.
And I understand what kind of indignation it will cause now.
Guys, listen to me, everything will be fine.
Now we put the second part of the carrots on top.
Sprinkle this part of the carrot with cumin.
The one that will be steamed.
And now, we never do that
when we cook Fergana pilaf, the one that everyone is used to.
But in Samarkand pilaf it is
necessary to close it with a lid now.
There is no lid like mine, a thermos,
so you can take a bowl of some kind, a large dish.
But you have to cover. It should boil, steam very intensely
for 20-25 minutes under the lid.
While everything is boiling in the cauldron, getting ready,
I will tell you about the choice of very important products.
Here, firstly, chickpea, nakhat, as it is called in different ways.
"Chickpeas" is English, "garbanzo" is spoken in Mexico.
In a word, Asian peas. I take National. Excellent peas.
Very tasty. And rice, already well-known to you rice,
rice "National" is golden.
See what kind of rice it is.
Perfectly beautiful and actually golden-tinged rice.
It is actually parboiled rice.
And I know that many amateur cooks
neglect steamed rice, they think that this is some kind of second-rate product.
You guys don't understand anything.
This is rice that is specially processed in such a way
that it cooks better so that it remains crumbly,
despite all the mistakes that you will sooner or later make
when cooking pilaf or just rice as a side dish.
This rice is very difficult to digest,
this rice is very difficult to spoil.
And all you have to do with it is rinse it with warm water,
never wash the rice with cold water, it will crack.
However, it is very difficult to make this rice crack.
Well, let's get down to business.
The rice is washed, open the mesh, remove the lid.
Everything boils perfectly. Now look, you need layers.
Here is a separate layer of rice, a separate layer of carrots, a
separate layer of peas, garlic, pepper, fat tail and meat separately.
Second grid. Listen to me carefully, I am not trying to persuade you.
If you don't want to, you can not use it.
I just understand that it is very convenient,
and I understand that there will be questions:
"Where can we get such a grid for the poor and unfortunate?"
Guys, well, first of all, such a net is on sale,
but you don't even have to buy it,
you can take gauze and boil it.
Why can't it be used?
Maybe 2 layers, maybe 3 layers,
I don’t know, check.
But in any case, here I am now pouring all the rice here, 1,200 kg of rice.
I level the rice, press it down.
If there is some kind of moisture, some kind of juice, and so on,
then let it rise.
If not, I'll fetch water now.
The Samarkand pilaf has one such difference.
If all the rest of the pilaf, the rice is dipped into the zirvak,
and the zirvak is already salty, the zirvak is already tasty,
then in the Samarkand pilaf the rice is placed on top of the carrots and boiled in water.
Therefore, the water must be salty.
A spoon, plus a little more, I dissolve the salt in the water
and start pouring salt water over the rice.
So, we poured water.
And now you need to add some firewood so that it boils,
but moderately enough.
Tell me, give me the answer, not those who theorists
who know everything simply because they watched something there on YouTube,
but those who actually cooked Uzbek pilaf at least 10 times in their lives.
Have you had such a thing that you put rice, and the water is too much,
and you understand that it is about to turn into porridge?
If you have a grid like this,
then you can simply pick up and pick up all this rice.
Do you understand? And that's all.
And secondly, in Samarkand pilaf, you still need to stir sometimes rice.
Why? Yes, because now the rice absorbs water,
and part of the water evaporates, the water level in the cauldron is gradually decreasing.
And the rice that is left at the top, it will not cook.
Rice cannot be cooked without water.
All the talk about the fact that some kind of rice is steamed is nonsense.
Rice is cooked exclusively in contact with water, hot water.
See what kind of rice.
Well? In fact, gold, not rice! One to one.
You saw, when we laid the rice, it did not even cover the whole net,
in the middle the net was sticking out.
See how it has increased in volume.
But you have to try: ready or not ready.
You know, if these were traditional Uzbek varieties,
then the rice, and from the amount of water that I poured into it for the first time,
would have already been digested, but this one requires more water.
Another half a spoonful of salt, a little less water this time.
But this is all, of course, only after the test,
only after you understand that rice can still be taken.
And never pour as much water as I am pouring now,
it is better to do it in 50-100 grams.
Once, and you may be mistaken, you do not have a grid
to raise and prevent the digestion of rice.
When you cook pilaf in some traditional way,
you can never see what's down there.
I can take in one hand, pick up rice,
in the other hand I can pick up, pick up carrots.
Or I can even open it and see what is happening there with the meat.
I can walk along the bottom of the cauldron with a slotted spoon
and add water to the bottom of the cauldron so that it does not burn.
I understand what is happening now
in the seething, indignant minds of some spectators, some commentators.
"Ah, no one does that! I've never seen this!
I'll put you a dislike now,"
Guys, put as many dislikes as you like,
I will still move the cooking forward.
And if the Japanese got their heads down to this way forward
than mine, I'm not ashamed.
I would be ashamed not to learn good things.
But the Japanese came up with a good one.
And I am going to use this good
, including in Uzbek cooking, and in Azerbaijani cooking,
and in any other business that I will be doing.
Do you understand me?
Now I have removed the remnants of firewood from under the cauldron.
This brick, this granite,
everything that surrounds my cauldron is very hot.
And this heat is enough for the rice to infuse.
Now I close everything, all the valves.
Rice should not drink all the moisture it can drink.
He, perhaps, would have drunk 2 times more and would have increased 2 times more,
but after that he would have released all the starch from himself,
would have become covered with paste.
You would have succeeded, well, you know what, without even a shawl.
Do not call what you get in this case shawley.
Do not insult the shawl.
We have here here a hint for a shawl.
See how the shawl is prepared.
This is a wonderful dish, but I like Samarkand pilaf more,
because I cook it a little less often.
Forgive me, people of Samarkand, I am from Fergana.
And I categorically do not welcome these bazaar disputes,
some silly women's disputes:
"Your pilaf is like porridge. Yours is not pilaf."
What?
Here is Samarkand, here is Fergana, and there are 300 km between you.
Yes, different pilafs.
So fate decreed, Allah gave you 2 different pilafs.
And you will go to Tashkent - there is the third,
and you will go to Surkhandarya - there is the fourth,
and you will go to Khorezm - there is the fifth pilaf.
You see, one Uzbekistan and 5 basic types of pilaf.
And in Samarkand, they also cook 3 types of pilaf.
The one that I am showing you now is the simplest of them.
And now what to argue because of this, to swear because of this?
Are you fools or what?
Visit each other and try a new pilaf every day.
The point of cooking is to provide us with variety in our diet.
Learn, open your eyes wider, broaden your horizons.
See how wonderful the world of cooking is!
All right, it's time to open the pilaf.
By the way, if you come to Samarkand
and want to taste Samarkand pilaf,
and I believe that one day you will find yourself in Samarkand,
you have to eat pilaf before 12 noon.
After lunch, pilaf is not cooked in Samarkand.
I will tell you more, if someone is going to eat pilaf in Samarkand,
then the cook first puts in this much rice,
takes it to the eaters to try how the rice was cooked.
And if the eaters approve, then everything else is added to the dish.
Perhaps there is enough rice for 5 people.
So I raise the rice layer.
Here it is, just carrots and nothing else.
Everything turns out in perfect layers.
Let's put lard somewhere over here, a
layer of peas, garlic on top of the peas.
And now they have reached the point that some consider the most important thing, to meat.
The meat is laid out on pilaf like this,
from one side of the dish in a whole piece.
But pilaf is served on the table for a reason.
Anyone who cooked pilaf should come to the table
with such a small board, with such a well-sharpened knife,
with clean hands and with a clear conscience,
and cut it into neat slices
so that later they can decorate pilaf with it.
See how. Well, somewhere over here, over here.
Before each eater, it is imperative to put 1-2 pieces of meat.
But the most interesting thing is that this dish is so balanced,
this dish is so comfortable
that you can drink it even with cold water, nothing will happen.
Bon Appetit!
And welcome to Uzbekistan,
welcome to Samarkand!