Plav

Plav is a dish typical to the Middle-Asian kitchen. There are many regional versions of it, but essentially it consists of meat, rice and carrots, all mixed through in a process of cooking. Generally any meat can do, (lamb, chicken, beef, even fish), as long as it has a bit of fat; which usually poses a problem here, as the only fatty meat you can get is pork, and that normally is not used for its traditional preparation. Traditions aside, pork does just fine, you can even add some lard to it. Rice wise the best are local Middle-Asian rice cultivars, but Basmati rice is good enough substitute for everyday cooking. There are two ways to make it, a real one and a quick one, depending on what you want to achieve (feast or everyday meal).

Need:
300 g of faty beef, lamb or pork
2 large winter carrots
2 onions
1 head of garlic
200 g of dry Basmati rice
1 table spoon of tomato puree (can be replaced by barberry berries (original), or a paste from dried sour plums)
1 table spoon of yellow raisins
2 spoons of butter, sunflower oil or lard
Spices: 1 tea spoon cumin powder, 1 tea spoon coriander powder, a pinch of black pepper, a tea spoon of salt


True version:
Generally making of plav is a bit of a ritual, a communication event with your guests while plav is slowly cooking in your kitchen or even outside on a brazier. Its a good alternative for a BBQ if you have a nice kettle to cook it in over the fire. Tomato puree is used here as a substitute for barberry berries, which are less commonly available, its there to give a bit of sourness to it. Raisins are an optional ingredient, a variation of recipe, I like it better with them though, especially if I use tomato instead of barberry as a sour additive.

So, cut the meat into bite size strips. Cut the carrots into thicker straws, cut onions in halt rings.
Clean and chop garlic. Now in the original version you cook the whole head of garlic, sort of stick it in the middle of the pot, and then squirt garlic paste out of it, but I like to improvise here and just add it normally.

To a pan in which you are going to cook your plav, add a good chunk of lard, and turn the fire to max. Add spices, add meat, fry it until it starts turning golden at the edges, then add carrots, garlic and onions. Stir fry it for a few minutes, then add about 1 liter of water - so it is a bit above the meat and vegetable mix by a few inches. Add tomato puree and raisins. Reduce fire, and cook it for about half of an hour. When it is done you have what is called zirvak - a basis for plav (which, if prepared in larger amount, can be frozen for the later use).

Then we add rice to our zirvak, simply pour it over the vegetable and meat mix, and then carefully pour about a liter of water over it - so, that it does not mess up the layering. Generally water should be more or less a few inches above the rice. Turn the fire hotter and cook it further - somewhere about 15 min or so. To check if it is done you can do two things, one is to do a few holes in the rice, so the steam from the bottom can go up (eating stick is a fine tool for that). Do that and see if there is still bubbling at the bottom, if not, plav is done. Also taste rice from top and see if it is edible, if not, add a bit of extra water. The idea is that the steam cooks the rice. When it is done-ish, mix it properly through, cover a pot and let it rest for another 15-20 min.

Traditionally the drink to accompany it is tea, it also can be served with fresh cucumber salad.

Quick version:

It is for those days when you come home from work and have no time for rituals.

Cut meat, carrots, onion and garlic as above.
Fry meat and vegetables on a frying pan, until soft and done. Mix with tomato paste with a bit of water and add to it at the end.
At the same time, make rice: boil water, add rice, cook for 8 minutes, get the water off the rice.
Mix everything and eat.