Tajik oshi palav

Ingredients

• Mutton — on the bone, in large pieces800 g
• Mutton fat150 g
• Devzira or short-grain rice700 g
• Yellow carrots — in thick batons800 g
• Onions3
• Garlic — whole heads2
• Cumin seed2 tsp
• Barberries2 tbsp
• Chickpeas — soaked overnight100 g
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Rinse the rice through seven changes of water and soak it an hour in warm salted water.

   15 min

2. 2

   Render the mutton fat in the cauldron and lift out the cracklings.

   12 min

3. 3

   Brown the meat hard, add the onion and fry it golden.

   18 min

4. 4

   Add the carrot and cook ten minutes, leaving it undisturbed for the first five so it heats rather than weeps.

   12 min

5. 5

   Add boiling water two fingers above, along with the chickpeas, cumin, barberries and salt, and simmer the zirvak forty minutes.

   42 min

6. 6

   Spread the rice in an even layer, press in the garlic heads and add boiling water a centimetre above the rice.

   8 min

7. 7

   Cook on a high flame until the water has gone, mound the rice, pierce it to the bottom, cover and hold twenty minutes on the lowest heat.

   32 min

About the dish

Yellow carrot is essential in Tajik pilaf: it is sweeter and denser than orange, does not collapse in an hour and tastes different. Orange is a substitute made of necessity.

The zirvak — meat with onion and carrot — is built before the rice goes in and determines everything. An oversalted or underbrowned zirvak cannot be rescued by the rice.

The rice is not stirred once it is in. It finishes in steam rising through holes poked to the bottom with a stick; stirred, it turns to porridge.

Worth knowing

• — Rinse the rice until the water is completely clear. Leftover starch glues the grains and the pilaf comes out sticky.
• — Boiling water, never cold. Cold water halts the frying and toughens the meat.
• — Before serving, turn the pilaf over from the bottom and mound it on a platter, meat on top, the garlic heads whole in the middle.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

780 kcal

Protein

34 g

Fat

38 g

Carbs

76 g

More from Tajikistan

• Qurutob — Flaky fatir bread soaked in reconstituted dried qurut, under fried onion and fresh vegetables.