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Cooking Uzbek pilaf step by step. Uzbek pilaf recipe - how to prepare the right tasty pilaf. Uzbek pilaf with stuffed sweet peppers

It is believed that Uzbek pilaf must be cooked by a man. That the rice should only be from Karasu, the oil should be cottonseed, the carrots should be yellow, the meat should be one year old, and many other conditions. It is not always possible to meet these requirements. So a logical question arises: “How to cook Uzbek pilaf at home” without breaking traditions? Let’s try to “adjust” the recipe to modern Russian conditions as much as possible.

Traditions and rules in preparing Uzbek pilaf

Of course, it is not at all necessary to wear an Uzbek robe and skullcap to get the “correct” Uzbek pilaf. And it’s not even a matter of strictly following the rules when choosing products. What is important, rather, is the cooking process itself, each stage of it.

As for the role of a woman in preparing an Uzbek dish, today she is the main master in the kitchen, and she is the one to cook. Although men often have a hand in preparing pilaf or other meat dishes. Especially if it is prepared outdoors, for example, at the dacha, at a picnic. In this case, women happily become observers, taking a break from everyday work in the kitchen, where it is quite possible to cook pilaf in a slow cooker with beef, without running after a one-year-old bright one.

Here are some more rules and principles for preparing Uzbek food:

Grind all products only with a knife, do not use a food processor or graters;
carrots and onions are cut by running the knife slightly obliquely along cutting board, less juice is lost this way;
It is very important to thoroughly warm the cauldron before cooking without pouring oil into it. In this case, rice with vegetables will not burn to the bottom and walls of the dish;
It is advisable to rinse the rice before cooking and keep it in salted water for several hours;
Remember that failure to follow the technology at each stage of preparation can completely ruin the finished dish!

Preparation

And yet there are many variations of the Uzbek dish: each chef will offer you his own interpretation of the classic recipe, with his own additives and secrets. We offer one of the options for preparing pilaf in Uzbek style. We will cook for 5-6 people. If there are more guests, increase the food proportionally.

For pilaf you will need:

Meat: about a kilogram of young lamb. You can take it with bones, but make sure there is more meat than bones. Also prepare a small piece of fat tail fat, 100 grams.

Rice: this is the main component; the taste of the finished dish largely depends on it. It is better to use hard varieties. Do not take steamed rice. You will need one kilogram of rice.

Vegetables: onions, carrots, garlic, hot pepper if desired. Onions - three medium-sized heads. Carrots should be juicy. The color is not too important. You will need a kilogram of carrots. You need two heads of garlic.

Oil: cottonseed, olive or sunflower is not very important. It is important that it is odorless and refined. You need about 150 ml. oils

Spices: you definitely need cumin - 1-2 teaspoons, salt. The rest is optional: a little barberry grains, black pepper, etc.

Tools: stove (gas or electric), of course, if cooking over a fire is not possible. You will also need a cauldron, a slotted spoon and a small spatula for stirring the rice.

Let's start cooking.

Before preparing Uzbek pilaf, we cut all the products. Cut the meat into small pieces. At the same time, the bones can be chopped or left if the lamb is small. Cut the lard into small cubes. Leave the garlic heads whole, removing only the top dry husk. Peel the onion and cut it into rings or half rings if the onions are large. It is important that the onion is sliced very thinly and transparently. At the very end, peel the carrots very thoroughly and cut into strips.

Now let's prepare the rice. Sort it thoroughly, remove all unopened grains, pebbles, and other debris. The rice must be perfectly clean. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear. Carefully “wipe” the grains with your hands. It's good if you've already done this and left the rice in lightly salted water.

Heat the cauldron thoroughly before adding lard and oil. Add pieces of lard and render it completely. Remove the cracklings and add oil. We heat it well.

If you cook with seeds, they are added first. It is better to roast the bones until Brown. The color of the finished pilaf will depend on this. Take the bones out of the cauldron, they will come in handy later.

If the seeds are not used in the pilaf, add the onion and fry it until golden brown. Stir the onions well while frying so that they don't start to burn.

Now it’s time to pack the meat. Now you don’t need to fry it until cooked, just stir for 10 minutes so that it becomes covered with a fried crust.

Add carrots, mix the contents of the cauldron thoroughly. Fry for 10 minutes, the carrots should soften a little.

Prepare zirvak: pour in cumin and pour in warm boiled water. You need about a liter of water. It should be about one and a half centimeters higher than other products. Leave until it boils.

Add whole heads of garlic and, if necessary, whole hot peppers.

Add salt. Boil for 30 minutes over low heat.

Place rice in a cauldron. It is convenient to do this with a slotted spoon, evenly distributing it over the surface. Do not mix rice with other products. You can only slightly move it with a spatula from the walls of the cauldron. When the zirvak with rice boils, gradually reduce the heat. Make sure that the boiling does not stop completely.

When the rice is ready, add the fried seeds to it. Close the lid tightly. You can additionally wrap it with a towel. So the pilaf rests for about 10 minutes. It is important at this stage that the water from the pilaf is completely evaporated.

Turn off the heat and leave the pilaf untouched for half an hour.

Ready! Now you can open the pilaf, remove the heads of garlic and seeds from it. Mix the contents of the cauldron thoroughly. Place the pilaf on a wide dish. Start your meal.

Uzbek beef pilaf

It is not at all necessary to cook Uzbek pilaf with lamb. There are many cooking options. For example, you can use poultry, rabbit, pork, beef... You can prepare pilaf without meat at all, with raisins, for example. The most traditional meats for us are pork and beef. Therefore, we suggest you learn how to cook Uzbek beef pilaf.

Required Products:

Meat – young beef – 500 grams.
Rice – 500 grams.
Carrots – 300 grams.
Onions – 150 grams.
Zira – 1 teaspoon.
Vegetable oil – 100 ml.
Garlic – 1 head.

You can proceed to the process:

Prepare all ingredients as in the previous recipe.
Heat a cauldron over high heat, pour in oil and heat.
Heat a small onion in oil until brown, without cutting it. Throw it away.
Fry the meat until crusty, about ten minutes.
Add onion. Fry it well.
Add carrots, fry, stirring.
Pour water to cover the meat. Simmer the beef until almost done. The water should completely evaporate.
Add some salt. Add garlic.
Add cumin to zirvak. About half a teaspoon is enough.
Rinse the rice well and add to the meat. Level with a spatula or slotted spoon.
Add water twice more rice, that is, liter. We are waiting for it to boil. The water should completely boil away.
Reduce the gas, tightly close the cauldron with a lid and leave for 10 minutes.
Turn off the gas. Let the pilaf brew for about half an hour. Ready. You can try.

These are just two recipes for preparing Uzbek pilaf. Be sure to try other options. For example, Uzbek pilaf with chicken is very popular. It's more economical option, and it cooks quickly. The main condition for preparing any dish is a good mood. And to eat this dish - good company. We wish you bon appetit, good mood and great company during your meal.

Pilaf is one of several varieties of a wonderful dish masterfully performed by Central Asian chefs. The culinary heritage of Uzbekistan is prepared from ordinary products, but the result is amazing. It turns out that there are little secrets of technology that we want to tell you about.

Although pilaf is considered an international dish, in each country it is prepared differently, with the addition of various spices, using certain types rice and meat.

There is even a saying in Samarkand: “If the wedding pilaf turned out well, then the holiday was a success.”

Uzbeks usually serve pilaf at the end of the feast, as if signaling that the evening is coming to an end and it’s time to leave. And the more desirable and expensive the guest, the later this hot delicacy is served, as if making it clear that they would like to extend their time together.

Traditionally in Central Asia, this dish is prepared from lamb, but recipes with the addition of beef are also quite common. And for Russians this meat is the most accessible and preferred, so I suggest purchasing it.

For this second dish, it is advisable to choose meat from mature animals, but if you take it too young, during the frying and long stewing process it will turn out to be overdried, tasteless, and will disintegrate into fibers.

You should not spend money on premium cuts - tenderloin or loin. Tenderloin is good for steaks and chops, but it is not suitable for preparing pilaf, as the result is dry. You don’t need to take the knuckle (muscle fibers from the animal’s shin) either, it contains a lot of tendons, and is preferable for cooking broths and jellies. The most successful choice is the juicy flesh of the shoulder blade, or meat from the upper part of the hind leg, or ribs.

Ingredients:

beef meat - 500 g
steamed rice - 2 cups (220 g each)
fresh carrots - 2 pcs.
onion (large) - 1 pc.
garlic - 1 whole head and 3-4 cloves
vegetable oil - 100 ml
bay leaf - 2 pcs.
salt - to taste
spices for pilaf (turmeric, barberry, cumin) - 1 tbsp. l.

How to properly cook beef pilaf

We wash the beef well, cut it into large pieces and lightly dry it with kitchen paper towels.

Peel the onion and chop it large.

Carrots must be cut into large cubes. If you cut it finely, it will simply boil and turn into porridge.

It is better to take carrots and garlic for pilaf when they are ripe, not young.

Young carrots are more tender and watery; when stewed for a long time, as required by the recipe for Uzbek pilaf with beef, they will boil and turn into mush. Ripe carrots have the richest flavor. it retains its shape better during cooking.

Ripe (old) garlic has a distinct taste. which means that the dish with it will turn out richer and more aromatic than with a young vegetable.

It is advisable to cook beef pilaf at home in a thick-walled saucepan, or better yet, in a cast-iron casserole so that the ingredients do not burn when frying and stewing (I cook in it).

Cookware with non-stick coating in in this case- not a very good option, since such a coating does not tolerate high temperatures and begins to crack and fall off. The non-stick coating does not withstand mechanical stress when stirring the dish with a spoon or spatula.

The ideal option is to take a cast iron cauldron. It holds heat perfectly and allows the dish to simmer slowly. In aluminum cookware, on the contrary, heat is poorly retained, so it will not be possible to bring the dish to condition by simmering. To ensure that the pilaf is cooked evenly throughout the entire volume, take a cauldron that is spherical rather than flat. A spherical cauldron is heated evenly by fire from all sides. The lid of a good cauldron should tightly cover the pot.

Choose the size of the cauldron based on the number of servings and taking into account the fact that rice increases in volume when cooked. Our pilaf is designed for 6 servings, so a 7-liter cauldron would be optimal.

Pour vegetable oil into the cauldron and heat it well over high heat.

Carefully place the chopped meat into the bubbling oil and stir immediately. Otherwise it will stick to the walls of the cauldron. In addition, boiling water “seals” the meat fibers, preventing them from losing their juiciness. Fry the meat for about 10 minutes.

Add coarsely chopped meat to the meat onion. Mix.

After a minute, add the chopped carrots.

Next, lay out all the prepared spices and add salt. In the list of ingredients for the recipe crumbly pilaf with beef, we indicated the most popular spices used in Asia - turmeric, cumin, barberry. However, you can add other spices that perfectly highlight the taste of beef - red chili pepper, coriander, allspice and black pepper, mustard seeds, ground nutmeg, thyme.

Pour two glasses of water over the meat and vegetables. Cover the cauldron with a lid, reduce the heat and simmer the meat and vegetables for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, put well-washed steamed rice into the cauldron. The better you wash the rice, the more starch you remove from its surface (starch helps the grains stick together when cooked). Starch is ideally washed off if you pour grains hot water and drain it immediately. The procedure is repeated several more times (4-5) until the drained liquid becomes clear. Many chefs claim that for proper preparation rice for pilaf, it must be soaked in cold water for 30-40 minutes.

Professional chefs say that the type of rice chosen directly determines how tasty and crumbly the pilaf will be.

The most suitable cereal is one that can well absorb liquid, fats, taste and aroma of the spices used. Real rice for pilaf should hold its shape perfectly, not boil over, and not stick together into a mass. After all, we are not planning to cook risotto; the ideal pilaf is crumbly.

Therefore, chefs advise in this case to purchase long brown rice or red rice, which has undergone minimal processing (steaming, polishing) and retains the maximum useful substances. It cooks for an average of 25-30 minutes. Known rice varieties are Rubin, Samarkand and Devzira, bred by breeders directly for cooking pilaf. White steamed rice of an elongated shape (such as Jasmine or Basmati), which has a golden-transparent color, is also good.

You can buy a mixture of two types of cereals in the store - steamed and wild rice. As a last resort, take elongated, polished white rice. But keep in mind that it is inferior to brown and golden parboiled rice in terms of the content of valuable substances, and you only need to cook it for 15 minutes.

Make sure that the rice in the package you purchase is whole and not split, so that there are no debris.

In any case, give preference to long-grained cereals, and set aside round (for example, Krasnodar variety) or crushed cereals for cooking porridges, soups, and Italian risotto.

Spread the rice evenly over the surface, add a little more salt. Place a bay leaf, insert a whole head of garlic into the middle, and stick the peeled cloves around the edges. Pour in water, its level should exceed the rice by 2 cm.

According to cookbooks, the optimal ratio should be: 1 part cereal, 3 parts liquid.

Close the cauldron with a lid and cook the pilaf over low heat until done. Typically, direct cooking lasts 20-25 minutes from the start of boiling water (depending on the type of rice). After this time, the rice should completely absorb the water.

Then turn off the fire and leave the dish to simmer in a hot cauldron for another 15-20 minutes. During this time, the slightly harsh grains of the cereal will acquire the desired consistency, but will not boil. If you continue to cook the rice until cooked over the fire, avoiding simmering, the grain may lose its shape and become too soft.

In Uzbekistan there is a word “shavlya”, which disparagingly refers to a sticky porridge with rice, which only vaguely resembles real pilaf, cooked in a cauldron.

Since the rice cooks faster in the middle than at the edges, every 5-7 minutes you need to open the lid slightly and collect the rice from the edges to the middle. This will ensure the rice cooks evenly. But do not mix the dish too thoroughly, so as not to destroy the integrity of the grains.

That's it, now you know real recipe pilaf with beef and you can cook it yourself at home. Hurry up and invite your family and guests to the table!

In the homeland of the dish, it is customary to serve it this way: rice with carrots are laid out on the bottom of a large dish, and pieces of meat are placed on top. The garlic is left whole, and very large pieces of meat are cut into portions. You can sprinkle the top of the dish with chopped herbs - dill, parsley, green onions.

In Central Asia, a large plate of greens is always placed on the table next to the pilaf. It is also combined with a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, seasoned a small amount vegetable oil.

If the dish turns out to be very fatty (for example, if it was cooked with lamb and fat tail fat), then you should simply serve chopped vegetables without greasing them with oil. Uzbeks eat pilaf with national flatbread.

At the end of the meal, hot food is placed on the table. green tea(without sweets) - this drink goes optimally with fatty and hearty foods such as pilaf.

After fatty pilaf (especially with lamb), you should absolutely not drink very cold water. It promotes the solidification of fat, which will lead to poor digestion and heaviness in the stomach (cooled fat is poorly broken down by gastric juice and enzymes, resulting in food stagnation).

Note to the hostess

Delicious pilaf can be prepared not only from beef or lamb, but also from pork or chicken.

In some recipes for this second dish, carrots are replaced with pumpkin, and at the end of cooking, a handful of raisins are added for taste. Sometimes the list of ingredients is expanded by adding chickpeas.

The calorie content of beef pilaf depends on the fat content of the meat pieces, as well as on the type of rice chosen. A brown rice dish has lower calorie content because brown rice contains less starch compared to white grains. On average, the calorie content of a dish is 220 Kcal per 100g.

Gourmets say that real pilaf should be cooked in an oven or in a pot, only in this case can the ideal taste, aroma and structure be achieved.

How to cook tasty beef pilaf if you don’t have a cauldron? Resourceful housewives do a good job using a slow cooker or a thick-walled frying pan (saucepan) with high sides and a lid. The method of preparing lamb pilaf in a slow cooker is described in one of the recipes.

Uzbek pilaf in a cauldron - we bring to your attention classic recipe with photo. Eastern cuisine has given the world many delicious dishes, among which the aromatic and crumbly Uzbek pilaf occupies a worthy place. This dish of rice, vegetables and lamb has long been loved by our housewives, and it is difficult to find a family whose menu does not include this dish.

Of course, in city apartments it is quite difficult to observe all the nuances of preparing pilaf, and Uzbek chefs carefully guard the secret of its recipe. However, if you have a cast iron cauldron and the opportunity to go out of town, you can easily try to make it amazing yourself tasty dish. You can also cook pilaf in a cauldron at home; the pilaf will taste virtually no different.

Ingredients

To cook Uzbek pilaf in a cauldron, you will also need special products. These include:

Leg of lamb on the bone weighing approximately 1200 grams;

1 kg of carrots (preferably yellow Uzbek);

4 onions;

20 grams of dried barberry;

1 head of garlic;

1 kg of special rice for pilaf (can be replaced with rice for risotto);

10 grams of dried saffron and cumin;

400 ml vegetable oil.

Step-by-step recipe for preparing Uzbek pilaf

Step 1. Before you start cooking the pilaf, prepare the meat. To do this, cut the lamb flesh from the bone and divide it into small pieces. Place the bones with a small amount of meat on them in a separate bowl, place the lamb fillet in another container (as shown in the photo with the ingredients).

Cooks always put a lot of carrots in real Uzbek pilaf. Of course, it is advisable to purchase real yellow carrots, called “Uzbek”, for this dish, but if you fail, you will have to use the traditional orange vegetable.

Carrots for pilaf should be washed, peeled and then cut into large strips.

Step2. Also peel the onions and cut into large rings.

Step 3. Heat the cauldron on the fire to high temperature and pour vegetable oil into it. When it boils, throw the bones into the container and fry them until golden brown.

Step 4. Then add the onion and, stirring, fry the food until the onion rings turn brownish.

Step 5. Now place the lamb fillet cut into pieces into the cauldron.

Step 6. Stir the products and keep them on the fire for 15 minutes, and then add the chopped carrots to the cauldron.

Step 7. Stir the meat and vegetables again. Fill the contents of the cauldron with water so that it completely covers the food, and place a head of garlic in the middle. Salt the dish and simmer it over low heat for 40 minutes.

Step 8. It is better to buy rice for pilaf at the market; in extreme cases, you can replace it with products for making risotto. If you want to cook classic oriental pilaf, never use steamed rice - it will not absorb required quantity moisture.

Before using, rice should also be prepared - soak it in salted water for 40 minutes. When zirvak (the so-called meat, onions and carrots cooked in a cauldron) is stewed, add seasonings to it.

Step 9. Stir the ingredients and place a layer of rice on top.

Keep the dish on the fire until the cereal is ready. Every 10-15 minutes, the rice needs to be stirred gently, while the zirvak should remain untouched, that is, you only need to stir the rice.

Step 10. When the rice becomes soft, turn off the heat, cover the cauldron with a lid and leave it for 10 minutes. Then mix all the products in a cauldron and serve the finished pilaf on the table.

Bon appetit!

Watch the video step-by-step preparation Uzbek pilaf:

Everyone loves pilaf, but few know how to cook it correctly. Often pilaf looks like porridge, which is why both the appearance and taste of this wonderful dish suffers. Even the most inexperienced cooks can prepare real Uzbek pilaf using this recipe.

Real Uzbek pilaf is a rich, high-calorie and fatty product, very difficult for the stomach, which must be taken into account by people with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.

Ingredients for pilaf

Main Ingredients

1.5 kg of lamb tail; can also be prepared from poultry, game, pork, fatty beef

1 kg of rice, preferably round, which is preferred by true connoisseurs of pilaf, for example, red rice of the “Dev-zira” variety, it is also called wedding rice for its ability to significantly increase in volume. This recipe used Bukhara rice.

600 g carrots, cut into long pieces, 1/2 to 1 cm wide; carrots should be visible and felt in pilaf

500 g onion, cut into half rings (not too thick)

vegetable oil

Spices and seasonings

cumin (required, gives the pilaf a characteristic taste and smell)

barberry (preferably, if you don’t have it, you can replace it with raisins)

raisins (optional)

turmeric (required) - gives pilaf its characteristic color

paprika (optional)

2 tablespoons chickpeas (optional); it is better to use canned, but not pickled, but semi-finished product, since raw chickpeas need to be soaked for a long time

Dishes for pilaf

It is best to cook pilaf in a cauldron. A heavy, thick-walled antique cauldron was used to prepare this pilaf. self made, made by masters of Central Asia.

Recipe for Uzbek pilaf

1. Pour vegetable oil into the cauldron, bring to a boil and add the meat - either in large pieces, which we chop into the finished pilaf, or immediately cut into small pieces. Fry over high heat; Stir the meat several times until it is well browned on all sides.

2. Add onion, cut into half rings, to the meat and fry it until golden brown, stirring the ingredients with a slotted spoon.

3. Add carrots, cut into strips, mix with the rest of the ingredients.

4. When the carrots become soft and darken, add hot water so much so that it completely covers all the ingredients, since they will cook over high heat for about 35-40 minutes. As soon as “zirvak” (that’s what the base of pilaf with gravy is called in Uzbek) boils, immediately add all the spices and pieces of fat tail (optional).

5. While the zirvak is preparing, rinse thoroughly under running water rice, rubbing it with your palms and changing the water several times. It is very important to wash off the sticky rice pollen so that the finished pilaf is crumbly.

6. Place the prepared rice into the cauldron without mixing with the meat. Level and fill with water 2 fingers from the top (add salt if necessary). If the type of rice you use cooks quickly, then less water is needed; if it takes a long time, then, accordingly, more water is required.

7. When the water has boiled away from the surface of the rice, use a stick to make 5-6 holes to evaporate the remaining liquid.

there is a lot of cooking in Uzbekistan different types pilaf, for example in Samarkand it is prepared with peas and is not very fatty, in Tashkent you can find pilaf with barberry and quince and very coarsely chopped pieces of meat, etc. in general there are many recipes for cooking and they are all *CORRECT* in their own way

I was taught how to cook pilaf by an old Bukharian Jew, I don’t know what type of pilaf I’m preparing for - that’s why I just call it Uzbek pilaf

so let's get started...

we will need

1.carrot -1 kg

2.bow-3 heads

3.2 heads of garlic

4.2 hot green (or red) peppers

5 salt cumin (Cumin)

6. and of course meat - keep in mind that Uzbek pilaf is prepared only from lamb!

we need about 1.5 kg of lamb, preferably with bones

7.and lamb fat (preferably fat tail) -150g,

Fat, of course, can be replaced with sunflower oil (olive oil is not suitable), which is heated until a bluish haze forms.

8.1 kg rice

at the beginning we peel the carrots and onions, as you have already noticed from my previous posts, I am lazy in small things, and where I can make the work easier, I always use all sorts of kitchen gadgets.

In short, I cut the carrots and onions using a special grater

For conservatives, I’m giving you a specially enlarged picture. Look for yourself - everything is perfect

cut the meat and fat into small pieces up to 2 cm

Now comes the stage which, if you have the opportunity, is best done on the street, or with the windows wide open..(.my wife kicked me out onto the roof)

We must render the lamb fat, or if you don’t have it, calcinate the sunflower oil.

heat the cauldron, pour about 100-150 grams of sunflower oil into it, wait until a bluish smoke appears above the oil and add pieces of lamb fat there

fry it until golden brown

remove the resulting greaves onto a plate (they are quite edible, but this is not an acquired taste - for example, I don’t like it...) and fry the bones in the resulting fat until they have a stable golden color. Already at this stage you can add a pinch of salt and cumin when frying the bones stir periodically

we extract the bones from the fat, they have already done their job - they gave their juices to the fat.

Now add the onion cut into rings

a few words about onions - at the beginning it may seem that there is too much of it..., but this is not the case. Strangely enough, in pilaf the onion is not felt at all, it seems to dissolve and is not visible visually

When frying, all the water should evaporate from the onion; the readiness of the onion is determined by its appearance - it should turn golden

at this stage I went down into the house and continued cooking on a regular gas stove. We set the fire to maximum - the fat should boil

pour meat into the cauldron

fry it for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally

add carrots

stirring vigorously, fry it for about 10 minutes. The finished carrots should be soft, if they are hard and have no smell, then you haven’t cooked them through

the moment has come when we add water. This is a very important moment, the fact is that if you pour more water than necessary, you will get rice porridge with meat, if less rice It won't cook through and will be tough.

One of the basic laws of cooking rice says that for one serving of rice you need to take at least one and a half servings of water. But there are many other small important nuances - for example, the variety of rice. Each variety takes on its own amount of water during cooking.

in general, I took 1.2 liters for 1 kg of rice cold water using this device

pour water into the cauldron and let it boil, the water level above the meat should not exceed 1-2cm

Well, we got what the Uzbeks call ZIRVAK

When the zirvak boils, we put garlic and pepper in it.

Before adding, we check the pepper, it must be perfectly whole, otherwise the pilaf will be very spicy, and we peel the garlic a little and remove the rhizome.

reduce the heat and cook the zirvak for 25-30 minutes, the zirvak begins to cook slowly, gaining taste and color.

we have half an hour to prepare the rice

Regarding rice, I can say that in my experience it is better to take pilaf round rice

it absorbs fat better.

the rice must be washed

until the water becomes clear,

pour rice warm water and put it aside

Meanwhile, our zirvak has reached condition

we taste it for salt and add salt so that it tastes too salty. Then use a slotted spoon to remove the garlic and pepper onto a separate plate so that they do not interfere with us.

Increase the heat under the pot to maximum and carefully transfer the rice into it with a slotted spoon, from which the water has previously been drained,

Level the rice, ensuring uniform boiling around the entire circumference of the cauldron.

Attention- Under no circumstances should you mix rice with zirvak!!!

Using a slotted spoon we stroke the rice, making circular movements from the edges to the middle, and we build, as it were, a small hill

Zirvak is gradually absorbed, and there is another important nuance here

As the zirvak is absorbed into the rice, you need to gradually reduce the heat so that the meat and carrots do not burn on the bottom.

when the zirvak has been completely absorbed, it’s a good idea to do one more control check - rake the rice a little and take a couple of grains of rice for testing - the rice should not crunch on your teeth. If you detect the slightest hardness, pour half a glass of hot water onto the surface of the rice, level the mound and collect the rice again from the edge to the middle, giving the water the opportunity to fall inside. After this, dig a “hole” in the middle of the rice layer, carefully place the garlic boiled in the zirvak there and Bell pepper... and carefully bury them, again building a mound of rice. Sprinkle the rice with cumin crushed in the palm of your hand and close the cauldron with a lid, turn the heat to low. Let it cook for another 5-8 minutes, turn off the heat, wrap the lid with a towel and leave the pilaf to cook for another 25 minutes.

When the pilaf has arrived, carefully remove the pepper and garlic, mix everything thoroughly and put it on a dish (lyagan), put the garlic and pepper on top.

If you did everything right, then the rice should look like this

Pilaf is a very fatty food, so you need to wash it down with green tea, and I don’t recommend any cold drinks other than vodka.

Bon appetit everyone!