Pilaf, pilaff, pilau

Pilaf, pilaff, and pilau are all different spellings of one famous Uzbek dish. Although a Uzbek pilaf is very delicious food, it is not difficult to prepare a pilaf. There is a general traditional recipe for a Uzbek pilaf on this page. Try and your result will be tasty.

General traditional recipe for Uzbek Pilaf

Before cooking, assemble equipment and ingredients. To prepare pilaf you should obtain additional cooking equipment called a qozon (a qozon is the Uzbek name of special pilaf cauldron). Also, you need the following ingredients:

• 2 pounds of fresh meat lamb or beef (better if you have some meat on the bone for the taste);
• 1.5 - 2 pounds of onion;
• 1 - 1.5 pounds of carrot;
• 2 pounds of rice;
• 1 bulb of garlic (optional);
• 0.1 gallon of oil such as cotton, corn, or canola oil;
• 1 - 2 teaspoon of cumin seeds;
• 1 - 1.5 teaspoon of grounded coriander seeds;
• and Salt.

The first step is preparing the ingredients. Clean, wash, and julienne the carrots. Clean and wash the onion. Cut each onion in half and then cut it in semi-circles about 1/5 inches wide. Cut the meat into cubes measuring 1 inch by 1 inch. Also, clean, wash one additional onion bulb.

The second step is preparing a Zirvak, the Uzbek name for the specific pilaf broth. Heat the cauldron on a medium flame. Add the oil and heat it over a medium flame (or, brown the pieces of lamb fat to get the fat out over the medium flame) until a light smoke starts to appear. Add one whole middle onion bulb (or, half of big onion bulb), piece of a carrot, and, if you have some, a bare bone into the oil; let them brown on all sides. Then remove all these charred stuff from the cauldron and throw away. Turn up the flame to high and put the meat into the oil. Be careful, use a skimmer. Fry the meat until the desired color is reached. (Fry the meat until the meat becomes crusted.) Remember, you should fry the meat on a high flame.

Once the meat has a light brown crust, add half of the cumin and half of the coriander, and after that add the cut onions. Mix everything well. Fry everything together and keep mixing to prevent the ingredients from sticking to the bottom of the cauldron. Once the onions reach gold or light brown color, put the cut carrots into the cauldron. Fry until the carrots are half-ready. Turn the flame down to medium and pour previously prepared boiling water. The water level must be a little higher than the height of all the other ingredients. Add salt. When the water starts to boil, turn down the flame to a low level. The water must be kept simmering but not boiling. Let everything simmer on a small flame for a minimum 0.5 hours (no more then 1 hour).

The next step is preparing the rice. When the simmering time is up, thoroughly wash the rice. Add the garlic bulb, push it deeper into the broth (the pilaf broth called zirvak). Turn up the flame to medium. Add the rice; evenly distribute the rice with the skimmer. If there is not enough the water, add some more previously prepared boiling water. The water level must be about 0.5-0.7 inch above the rice level. From this moment on, don’t mix the ingredients until a pilaf is ready. Once the rice begins absorbing the water, you can turn over the top layer of the rice a little to keep it evenly moist. When there is no water remaining, turn the flame down to a minimum low level and dome the rice. Cover the cauldron with a lid (or cover rice with a high temperature plate). Let pilaf “rest” for 20 or 30 minutes.

And finally, once the time is up, remove the lid (or the plate). Remove the garlic, extract the meat and mix the ingredients using the skimmer. Put pilaf on big dishes; cut up the meat into small cubes and serve meat and garlic on top of the pilaf.

Bon appetite! Enjoy!