Uzbek pilaf with chickpeas step by step recipe. Uzbek pilaf with lamb and chickpeas

I am from Samarkand, a beautiful ancient city. They say that during excavations they found a pot with petrified grains of rice, and now it is believed that this was one of the most ancient pilaf recipes on the planet. Pilaf in Uzbekistan is a reason for celebration, for a large family feast. Usually, pilaf, like grilled meat, is done by men, and women prepare snacks. But in our family, my mother is always in command in the kitchen, and my sisters and I are in the wings. And we have known since childhood how to cook real Uzbek pilaf with chickpeas.

Rules for cooking pilaf with chickpeas in a cauldron

The main thing in pilaf is not to rush anywhere and not to get into the cauldron too often. You should especially not do this at the end of cooking. Pilaf loves patient hands, you just need to collect the ingredients in the right order, and then leave them alone, do not interfere with them being soaked in the aromatic steam from the meat lying at the bottom. This is how real Uzbek pilaf with chickpeas is prepared. Meat, vegetables and rice are placed in a cauldron at once, but until the end of cooking they lie in layers. They are mixed only on a plate.

Pilaf always goes with tomatoes and onions or herbs. In the meantime, guests are waiting for pilaf, snacks should already be on the table. It is customary for us to immediately seat guests at the table. Men in good houses are given a tie, women are given perfume or a headscarf. When a dish of pilaf is brought out, the owner of the house or the eldest of the men sitting at the table is the first to take a sample as a sign of respect. And then others join in, washing down their pilaf with green tea.

Cooking time: 2 hours
Quantity: 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

Recipe for preparing real Uzbek pilaf

Also see the recipe for real Uzbek pilaf in a cauldron from Stalik Khankishiev

Cooking instructions

2 hours + 5 minutes Print

1. Heat 200 grams of sunflower oil in a cauldron (ideally cottonseed oil, but any refined oil will do). In it, until a golden crust appears, melt the fat tail fat, previously cut into medium pieces. Together with it, at maximum heat, you can fry a lamb bone, if the purchased piece of meat contains one. Remove after 10 minutes. Add 1 kg of onion, pre-cut into rings or half rings - the oil will begin to bubble. Stirring the onion, fry it until golden brown over medium heat - it is better not to overfry. Lay out the pieces of lamb - the pieces should not be small, their diameter is about a third of a woman's fist. It is important that the meat is cooked correctly - at the end, before serving the dish, you will cut the finished pieces into smaller ones. Under the lamb, the fire can again be made stronger. The lamb is fried in oil with onions until a crust appears, depending on the fire - from 10–15 minutes. Reduce heat. Next, lay out 1 kg of carrots, pre-cut into strips. Add 1 tablespoon of salt. The carrots will simmer for about 15 minutes until they stick to the meat. You can stir the carrots. The volume of a portion of carrots should be reduced by almost 50% and become completely soft. Until this moment, the cauldron is not covered with a lid!

2. The second stage is cooking zirvak. The contents of the cauldron are onions, meat and carrots, fried in oil and salted, pour 1 liter of boiled (hot) water so that the pieces of meat are barely visible above its surface. Boil. Add pre-soaked and peeled chickpeas for 4–5 hours (aka nakhat, but essentially peas), spices (necessarily cumin, pilaf mixture, if available), barberries, raisins, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, place 3 heads of garlic. This whole aromatic mixture is covered with a lid and simmered over low heat for 20–30 minutes. Crib How to cut onions

3. After 30 minutes, open the lid. Remove the garlic and set it aside on a plate. Zirvak can be mixed. Next, the important point is to lay out the rice. Round grain rice is used. It needs to be prepared for cooking pilaf. It is very important to sort it out. Rinse and soak for 4-5 hours in warm water. Rice should be washed under running water or in a bowl until the water runs clear. During soaking, you can drain the water, rinse the rice and place it again on top of the zirvak, carefully level it (do not press it down), add salt with the 2nd and last tablespoon of salt and, if necessary, pour a small amount of water 1.5–2 cm above its level . Cook over medium heat. Do not cover the cauldron with a lid!
Crib Hob timers

4. The rice swells, absorbing liquid for 20–30 minutes. It’s easy to check - carefully, with a spatula, move it along the walls of the cauldron and see at what level the water is. It should be slightly below the middle of the contents of your cauldron by the time it’s time to carefully collect the rice in a heap, cover it with another portion of cumin, make through punctures in it, put the garlic put aside on top (drowning it a little inside) and cover it with a plate or basin. Cover the cauldron itself with a towel and a lid on top of it. Reduce the heat to low and leave to simmer for another 15 minutes. Then remove from the heat and let it brew for another 30 minutes, or even more. Please note that during the entire cooking time, rice is under no circumstances mixed with zirvak.

5. After the rice has absorbed all the liquid and all the aromas, serve it to the table. To do this, you need to remove all the meat from the cauldron and mix the rice with the rest of the contents of the cauldron. Cut the lamb pieces into smaller pieces. Place the rice on a lagan or simply on a large plate, place the meat and heads of garlic on top.

Do you want to cook an unusual, but very interesting pilaf? Try pilaf with chickpeas. It can be meaty and lean, but whatever this dish is, it will surprise guests with purely oriental notes. In addition, such pilaf is healthier - chickpeas, or chickpeas, as they are called in the Middle East, help reduce cholesterol in the body.

The legume chickpea differs in preparation from grain rice. Rice takes about 30 minutes or a little more to cook, while chickpeas need at least an hour and a half to be fully cooked. Therefore, the cooking of peas is accelerated by pre-soaking. This is done a day or, in extreme cases, 12 hours before the start of the process.

Chickpeas consist largely of vegetable protein, which, when combined with water, quickly sours the liquid. The water needs to be changed periodically, adding fresh peas. Soak chickpeas at the rate of four glasses of water per glass of peas.

Tip: If you put soaked chickpeas in the refrigerator, the infusion will not sour. This concentrated infusion is useful for washing your face; it has a good effect on the skin, cleansing, rejuvenating and refreshing it.

Uzbek pilaf with chickpeas

This pilaf is traditionally prepared in Tashkent, Samarkand and Fergana. If you want to make real Uzbek pilaf with chickpeas, buy high-quality and light peas.

Every region of Central Asia has its own version of pilaf. It depends on the rice grown in the area, because from ancient times the Uzbeks used to prepare the dish the products that they had on hand. Therefore, most often they used devzira (a local variety of rice), Uzbek yellow carrots (there is nothing special about them, except for the lower price and the tradition of mixing two varieties of carrots in pilaf). Plus onions, lamb or beef (the country is predominantly Muslim), as well as some spices. If you see a recipe for real Uzbek pilaf with cumin, dill, and finally, bay leaves and other seasonings, don’t believe it! Uzbeks prepare real pilaf only with a limited number of spices.

For this reason, you should not purchase ready-made pilaf kits, but rather buy them separately:

• cumin;
• barberry;
• red capsicum;
• garlic.

Many people add raisins for sweetness. That's it, nothing else is added.

Now let’s talk about how much food you need to prepare for pilaf with chickpeas. This is about half a kilo of meat, the same amount of carrots and rice, a couple of medium-sized onions, a head of garlic, 150 grams of fat tail, 200 g of dry peas, half a glass of vegetable oil, a pinch of cumin and a handful of barberries.

Preparation.

1. Soak the chickpeas in advance.
2. Chop the meat and fat tail into small pieces.
3. Chop the onion into half rings, cut the carrots into medium strips.
4. Heat the oil in a cauldron until it smokes bluishly, put the fat in it and heat until it turns into cracklings. Remove the cracklings.
5. Fry the onion until it turns a little brownish.
6. Add the meat to the onion and quickly fry, achieving an even, beautiful crust.

Don't be afraid that the onions will overcook or burn. The temperature of the oil will drop sharply when immersing the meat, the onions will simply boil in the meat juice and cook properly.

1. Add salt.
2. Add carrots and chickpeas soaked the day before to the meat component. Lightly fry, sprinkle with barberry and cumin, pour boiling water so that the water completely covers the zirvak. Cover with a lid and leave to simmer for about 40 minutes. Rule: the longer the zirvak is cooked, the richer and more aromatic the finished dish is.
3. Wash and soak rice in salted water. This is an important point - the less starch left in the rice, the more likely it is that the pilaf will be crumbly, light, and will not stick together when cooked.
4. Put garlic into the prepared zirvak, clearing the head of outer scales, whole hot pepper, raisins, and add rice. Pour boiling water until the cereal is completely covered.

Tip: It is usually recommended to pour water two fingers above the rice. This is not entirely true, because the surface area of ​​the cauldron is not taken into account (there is a difference between the plane of the roasting pan and the frying pan), the degree of soaking of the rice, and finally, the width of the fingers. So it’s better to underfill and add liquid later than to overfill and end up with a sticky mess.

1. Place the cauldron on the highest heat, bring to a boil and reduce the heat. After the water has boiled away and the rice is almost ready, rake it to the center, cover the cauldron with a dry towel, place a lid on top, turn off the heat and let the dish rest.

Recipe from Stalik Khankishiev

Any dish from Stalik Khankishiev is a culinary work of art. He also cooks very tasty with chickpeas. Like everything that this connoisseur of national cuisine makes, this pilaf has its own characteristics.

First, proportions. Stalik's law - pilaf does not have to have a lot of meat; Uzbeks do not put meat at the forefront. But you need a lot of carrots. But still, usually you take a kilogram of meat, the same amount of rice and carrots, but very little onion - a couple of onions, just to create the aroma and color. The color of pilaf, contrary to popular belief, comes from onions, and not carrots, as many people think. Carrots add a special aroma and sweetness to pilaf. That’s why Stalik advises her to take the hardest, densest one so that it doesn’t become limp during cooking, and not the young one. But yellow or regular - your choice, whichever you find.

Take chickpeas randomly. If you love it, take more; if you’re not sure, half a glass is enough. Stalik calls this pilaf Samarkand, which means that, in addition to chickpeas, it contains large pieces of meat.

Then everything is done like this.

1. Soak the washed rice.
2. Heat 350 g of fat tail fat in a cauldron, remove the cracklings. If you don't have it, take vegetable oil. Or you can pour oil and use lard for flavor.
3. Place one onion in hot fat and fry until almost black. This tradition comes from the times of cottonseed oil, the specific taste and smell of which was captured with onions. Nowadays they do this rather to intentionally flavor the oil.
4. Discard the onion. Place coarsely chopped pieces of meat into the oil and at the same time two onions chopped into half rings. Fry, stirring, until golden brown. Add salt.
5. Place half of the shredded carrots, chickpeas, then barberries, peppers, and carrots again. Sprinkle with cumin.
6. Pour in one and a half glasses of water and simmer covered for 20 minutes. Try the zirvak for salt - it should be quite salty so that it is enough for rice.
7. Place the rice removed from the water in the zirvak, add water so that it does not even cover the rice. Cover with a lid and cook over low heat. Stalik's secret is that water is absorbed into the grain, it swells, and in order for this to happen evenly, the rice is shoveled without touching the grain periodically, holes are made in it for steam to escape.
8. When the water has evaporated, the rice easily flies off the slotted spoon, you can cover it and turn off the heat.
9. When serving, the rice is not mixed, first the cereal is placed, then the carrots and chickpeas, and finally the meat, placed on the edge of the plate in a piece, with a cutting knife served to it.

In a slow cooker

In a slow cooker you get crumbly pilaf, and this is how it is prepared.

1. In a multicooker bowl, heat 50 g of oil on frying mode.
2. Fry one large onion and then half a kilo of medium-sized chopped meat - beef, lamb, pork.
3. Add spices: a couple of teaspoons of barberry, a spoonful of saffron, a little pepper and salt.
4. Add chopped carrots and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Place the washed rice, pour in 800 g of water, and cook in pilaf mode for 40 minutes.

Dish with chickpeas and chicken

You can also cook pilaf with chicken. For 600 g of chicken fillet you need a glass of rice and chickpeas, a couple of carrots and onions, garlic, pepper and spices.

Vegetables and meat are fried in a slow cooker, soaked peas are added to them, then rice, everything is filled with water, salted, spices are added and everything is cooked in pilaf mode. The pilaf turns out fast, juicy and tasty.

With prunes and duck breast

Pilaf with duck and prunes has a spicy taste. For it you will need a meaty duck, duck fat. In a small amount of vegetable oil, the fat and fat from the skin are rendered. Having taken out the roast, put onion half rings there and fry until transparent. Add the chopped breast, fry, pouring a mixture of honey (2 spoons) and 1 orange. Place prunes cut into strips on the meat. Next comes the soaked chickpeas, which we cover with a layer of boiling water and let cook for half an hour, then add orange slices and soaked rice. Add water and cook until tender over low heat.

Products:

• 1 kg duck;
• a little butter and duck fat;
• 250 g prunes;
• a glass of chickpeas;
• 2 onions;
• a couple of oranges;
• salt, spices;
• 1.5 cups rice.

Vegetarian pilaf with chickpeas

Even meat lovers enjoy vegetarian pilaf with chickpeas. It is hearty, light, unusual. Lenten pilaf is easy to prepare. The chickpeas are soaked in advance before cooking the rice. Then the carrots are fried in oil into strips. Then onions are added to it. Put spices and chickpeas into the fried onions, then add rice, salt (about one and a half spoons), pour boiling water to cover the rice, and set to cook on low heat. We determine the readiness of pilaf by tapping: if the rice responds with a dull sound when tapped with a slotted spoon, it is ready.

Components:

• 1.2 liters of milk;
• 2 liters of water;
• 0.4 kg basmati;
• 0.4 kg carrots;
• 2 cups boiled chickpeas;
• 120 g melted butter;
• 150 g roasted peanuts;
• 250 g turnip onions;
• 3 cloves of garlic;
• 50 g fresh ginger;
• a little cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, a few cloves, hot pepper;
• mint greens, cilantro;
• 3 tbsp. spoons of sugar, salt.

Technology:

1. The chickpeas are boiled until tender, the rice is soaked and washed.
2. Water and spices are added to milk (1 l), and everything is boiled.
3. Rice is boiled in the milk mixture and discarded.
4. The greens are chopped and mixed with rice.
5. Garlic and ginger are ground in a blender.
6. Garlic and ginger dressing is fried in hot oil and chili pepper is added. Diced onions are also placed there and sautéed.
7. Carrots are added, then chickpeas, everything warms up well. Next it is placed in a heat-resistant form, greased and sprinkled with flour.
8. Layers of rice, vegetables with chickpeas, more rice are placed in the mold, everything is filled with sweetened milk, and sprinkled with turmeric. You need to bake the pilaf for a quarter of an hour. When serving, the slightly cooled pilaf is turned over onto another dish and served with lime slices as a garnish.

Everyone loves pilaf with chickpeas. A step-by-step recipe is described in our article so that everyone can quickly and effortlessly prepare this magnificent dish, suitable for holidays and everyday life.

Pilaf recipe

Step No. 1 - preparing products

The entire process will take from 1 to 2 hours. To prepare delicious pilaf you will need a simple set of ingredients:

• lamb meat of the first freshness (you can take any part of the carcass, for example, a shoulder blade is suitable) - minimum 800 grams, maximum 1 kilogram;
• high-quality rice, round, steamed long, Basmati or Devzira varieties (any variety of rice that does not have the ability to steam is suitable) - minimum 600 grams, maximum 1 kilogram;
• chickpeas (another name is chickpeas) - 200 grams (at least half a glass);
• fresh carrots (yellow variety is welcome) - no less than 600 grams and no more than 1 kilogram;
• fresh onions - 150-350 grams (this is 2-3 onions);
• cumin spices (another name is cumin) - 1 teaspoon;
• garlic - 1 clove or 1 head, depending on taste preferences;
• salt - a couple of teaspoons.

Optional but useful additions for variety:

• chili pepper - 1 piece;
• tail fat (combined with hot oil for frying onions) - 100 grams;
• granulated sugar - half a teaspoon;
• cottonseed oil (or any neutral oil) - 200 milliliters;
• spices made specifically for pilaf - 2-3 teaspoons;
• dried fruits raisins - 2 large spoons;
• dry barberry - 2 small spoons;
• cumin - 1 teaspoon.

Step No. 2 - preparing the pilaf base

You will definitely be able to make a good pilaf with chickpeas. The step-by-step recipe continues processing the base ingredients. The chickpeas must first be soaked for 2 hours. The washed rice also needs to be soaked for half an hour. Separating the veins from the meat, rinse it and cut it as desired.

Step #3 - frying the onions

If you use fat tail fat, you must first melt it together with butter and then cook the onions in it. Traditionally, onions are cut into medium rings. You can use a frying pan, but a cauldron works best. Place onion in oil heated to a boil. The rings or half rings should take on a dehydrated appearance and a brownish-golden hue. The onions should not be overcooked.

Step #4 - processing the meat and adding carrots

Add cubed meat to the fully cooked onion. In this case, it is necessary to maintain intense heat for frying meat, not stewing. It usually takes about 8 minutes to brown meat moderately. Next, carrots are added; they should be cut into large strips. After 5 minutes the carrots become soft.

Step #5 - water and chickpeas with garlic

Fill the dish with water so that the meat is hidden. Garlic and, if required, hot chili pepper are placed in the center. Also at this stage you need to add the desired amount of salt. Place soaked chickpeas in a container. At this time, the dish may seem over-salted, but in the end everything will return to normal, since the addition of rice is ahead. Continue cooking for another 10 minutes in boiling mode. If necessary, water can be added.

Step No. 6 - the key final stage

Remove the pepper and garlic. Place the soaked rice in a container and leave it to cook; no need to stir. It is advisable to pierce the entire mass of pilaf in several places for normal release of moisture. It is necessary to wait until the broth has almost completely evaporated, while the rice should be slightly damp. Then you can return the pepper and garlic. If necessary, add a little cumin, raisins, barberries, spices, and sugar. At this stage, pureed cumin is added. Further cooking lasts about half an hour. At the end of the whole process, carefully mix the dish and eat it hot along with salad and tea.

Interesting facts about Uzbek pilaf with chickpeas

Medieval gourmets were familiar with the recipe for pilaf. Hearty meat pilaf, prepared according to the classic recipe, was positioned by our distant ancestors as a means to restore the strength of warriors. The medicinal and nutritional properties of this dish were noticed because rice is rich in amino acids, and chickpeas contain a whole range of microelements. It is also known that the dish supplies the body with polyunsaturated fatty acids, valuable B-group vitamins and impressive portions of lysine. Real pilaf exudes a pronounced, recognizable aroma created by the perfect union of beef and cumin spice.

The appearance of a rice and meat dish ensures a good appetite, a festive mood of the soul and maintaining a positive attitude during the meal. To prepare real pilaf with the correct consistency and rich taste, you should use a thick-walled cauldron or a special pan. If pilaf is consumed infrequently and in small portions, then the dish fits well into the dietary framework. If desired, you can use chicken fillet instead of animal meat.

Rabbit and turkey are good alternatives. Today, a vegetarian variation of pilaf is popular. To fill a meat-free dish with healthy proteins, you need to increase the volume of chickpeas.

Culinarily, Uzbekistan is a country that can be divided into several different culinary regions. Ancient Khorezm, brilliant Tashkent, most fertile Fergana, magnificent Bukhara, exotic Surkhandarya and the sweetest, most fragrant of Uzbek cities - Samarkand.

Believe me, I'm telling the truth! Everything in Samarkand is special - the air itself, the water, the people, the history. How could it be that Samarkand did not have a unique culinary experience? Could it be that the ancient crossroads of trade routes, the meeting place of all surrounding civilizations, would not become a haven for the most talented chefs? Could it happen that Samarkand did not give birth to something unique in culinary terms? It couldn’t - it’s completely understandable! And will it be a revelation for you if I say that the main culinary heritage of Samarkand is Samarkand pilaf?

In fact, at least three types of pilaf are prepared in Samarkand. But today we will talk about only one of them, because this type of pilaf seems to me to be quite simple in execution, but very effective. People inexperienced in cooking will say: Well, what is there? Pilaf is pilaf! Meat, onions, carrots and rice - what new can be invented here? Don’t subtract or add, no matter how you cook it, it will all turn out the same! Can you guess how wrong people are with such a simplistic approach? When comparing the ingredients for a dish with the notes, can you imagine how many different melodies you can put together from them? And, of course, anyone more or less familiar with cooking is well aware that completely different dishes can be prepared from the same products. So let's get started?

Let's first decide what we need to prepare this pilaf.

• Rice. Rice for pilaf in Samarkand does not necessarily have to be dev-zira. It is better to take Khorezm starchy, sweeter varieties. Of the ones presented here, I would recommend Avant-Garde or Lazarus as a holiday option. They absorb slightly less water and fat compared to dev-jeera, so instead of the usual kilogram of rice, let's take 1 kilogram 200 grams of rice.
• But compared to Fergana pilaf, you can take less oil - 200 ml of vegetable oil or 200 grams. fat tail fat will be quite enough.
• Three or four onions, a kilogram of carrots, four heads of garlic, three or four capsicums and a glass of soaked chickpeas - that’s what we need in addition to one and a half kilograms of meat, which will contain not only pulp, but also meat on the bone. By the way, from which part of the carcass this meat will be taken is almost not critical, unless you count the horns and hooves as meat :)

1. So, to begin with, we cut the carrots and onions into rings in a familiar way, peel the top husks of the garlic heads, render the lard or calcine the oil if necessary. Here's the meat. We do not cut the meat into small pieces, but divide it into several large parts of 400-500 grams.
2. Place the meat in well-heated oil and let it brown properly and cover with an even crispy and aromatic crust. During this time, salt the meat and pepper it with black pepper. You should add about a third of the amount of salt that you prepared for this dish. Usually for this amount of food I use about two tablespoons of salt with a little top.
3. To the already fairly fried meat, add all the onions and two handfuls of carrots, after which we continue to fry, slightly reducing the heat under the cauldron. Fry until the onion is browned and begins to melt. And during this time the carrots should fry very well, become soft and smell.
4. What changes when we cook meat, frying it in small pieces or large pieces? When cutting finely, in addition to the fact that the meat is fried somewhat faster, the area of ​​contact between the meat and the oil increases. The meat imparts much more of its flavor into the oil, and the oil will subsequently transfer the taste of the meat to the rice. By cutting the meat coarsely, the meat remains juicier, but the flavor of the meat itself remains within it, leaving the rice with its own flavor.
5. At this moment we must have boiling water on hand. Because now is the time to lower the rest of the carrots, level them (but do not mix them), scatter peas on top, distribute garlic and pepper among the carrots, sprinkle everything with cumin, etc. add water immediately. That is, do not wait until this second part of the carrots is fried, but immediately add water. Please note - do not fill it, do not pour it with water, but just add it: move away part of the carrots with a slotted spoon and pour water under it, so that most of the carrots remain on top of the water, and even more so, the peas.
6. Now reduce the heat to less than medium and cover the cauldron tightly and leave it for thirty to forty minutes. During this time, the meat at the bottom will be stewed, and the carrots at the top will be steamed and cooked. You know, it's an amazing thing. Usually, chickpeas, even well-soaked ones, have to be cooked for quite a long time. But after spending some time steaming and then cooking under a layer of rice, these peas cook much faster - an hour, maybe an hour and a half, is enough for the peas to be completely ready!
7. During this time, wash the rice. Did you notice that this time I didn’t encourage anyone to soak this rice? Because you shouldn’t do this with soft varieties of rice. Just rinse in running water until the water is absolutely clean. We also need to prepare about 1.5 liters of boiling water, which we will salt with the rest of the salt.
8. Let's open the cauldron, once again level all the products over its surface without mixing anything and put the rice in the cauldron. Distribute it evenly over the surface of the cauldron and pour in the salted boiling water that we prepared ahead of time. Please note that we only salted the meat, now the rice is salted, but the carrots are almost ready and they were cooked without salt! Pour salted boiling water over the rice, add heat and let the water boil over the entire surface of the cauldron. When the water begins to leave the surface of the rice, we will need to shovel the rice once: carefully lifting the layer of rice (trying not to touch the layer of carrots and peas), turn it over, lowering the top of the rice down, where there is still water and oil. After making sure that almost all the water has evaporated, we collect the rice in a heap and carefully, so as not to pierce the capsicums that are under the rice, we make holes in the rice layer. Let's wait until all the water has boiled away and, reducing the heat to low, cover the rice with a bowl. By the way, with soft varieties of rice it is better not to cook them, like dev-jeera or basmati, almost to the end, but leave them half-cooked, al dente, so to speak.
9. Why do we pour salted boiling water over rice? Because in this pilaf, the rice is not dipped into the zirvak, which contains a fair amount of already salty broth, but the rice is placed on top of the almost dry zirvak - meat, onions and steamed carrots. The idea of ​​this dish is not to mix either the products themselves or their flavors with each other. Therefore, rice should be salted separately. Trying to salt rice with dry salt may result in the rice being over-salted in some places and under-salted in others. Salting with boiling water is a great solution for this situation! In addition, this method will allow you to salt the rice, but leave the carrots with their original sweetish taste. Believe me, this is also very good!
10. After waiting the required thirty to forty minutes, we open the pilaf. and do not mix under any circumstances! Have you prepared dishes for distributing pilaf? Place all the rice among these dishes. After this, lay out the carrots and peas in a neat mound, garnish with garlic and pepper, and place a piece of meat on one side of the dish. Along with each dish of pilaf, a board and a knife for cutting meat are served to the table.

The meat turns out to be quite juicy and soft inside, while remaining a beautiful red color; the carrots are somewhat sweeter compared to Fergana-style pilaf, because it has almost no salt. The rice remains a little drier, but each eater can adjust its fat content individually by adding the required amount of carrots or meat to each spoonful of rice. In general, it must be said that this pilaf is much more dietary and easy to digest, but, nevertheless, in Samarkand it is usually prepared only before lunch - the deadline when you can eat Samarkand pilaf is noon.