Dish · Tashkent (city), Tashkent Region
Tashkent plov
The capital’s style of plov: everything is fried first and the rice is mixed into the base; wedding plov adds kazy sausage, chickpeas, raisins and sometimes quail eggs.
Dish · Tashkent (city), Tashkent Region
Norin (naryn)
A Tashkent speciality of horse meat and thin noodles cut into fine shreds, served cold with kazy or in hot broth.
Photo: Прикли · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The art of the knife
Norin is made from horse meat and dough, and the skill lies in the knife work. The dough is rolled almost paper-thin, boiled, dried and cut into strips 2–4 mm wide and a few centimetres long. Boiled horse meat, kazy or qarta is shredded just as finely, mixed with the noodles and seasoned with black pepper and finely chopped onion.
It is served two ways: dry, as a cold starter topped with rounds of kazy, or wet, in the hot broth in which the meat was cooked.
On the Tashkent table
Norin is most closely associated with Tashkent cooking; the Gastronomic Association of Uzbekistan lists it among the dishes of Tashkent city and region. At a traditional feast it comes after the samsa and before the plov. Before weddings and holidays women spend hours slicing it together, and ready-made norin is sold in the meat sections of Tashkent’s bazaars.
Photos
Dish · Tashkent (city), Fergana
Patir (Tashkent patir)
A rich, layered tandoor bread made with butter, cracklings or onion; Tashkent and the Fergana Valley bake dozens of kinds.
Dish · Nationwide
Plov (osh)
The centrepiece of any Uzbek meal: meat, onions and yellow carrots are cooked into a rich base in a kazan, then rice is steamed on top. UNESCO-listed since 2016.
Dish · Samarkand
Samarkand plov
A layered plov in which nothing is stirred: the rice stays pale, and the carrots and meat are served on top of it.
Dish · Bukhara
Bukhara plov and oshi sofi
Bukhara’s own plovs: oshi sofi, made with separately boiled and drained rice, and plov cooked with mung beans.
Dish · Fergana, Andijan +1
Fergana plov
The dark plov of the Fergana Valley: a bone, meat, onions and carrots are fried long and hard until the zirvak turns deep brown.
Dish · Khorezm
Khorezm plov
Khorezm’s plov tradition, including suzma palov, in which the rice is boiled separately and drained before it meets the zirvak.
Dish · Nationwide
Samsa
Flaky pastries baked on the inner wall of a tandoor, filled with hand-chopped lamb, tail fat and onion — or wild greens in spring and pumpkin in autumn.
Dish · Jizzakh
Jizzakh samsa
Jizzakh’s culinary calling card: a large dome-shaped samsa made from three layers of dough, packed with lamb and tail fat and dipped in sunflower oil.
Dish · Nationwide
Kabob (shashlik)
Skewered meat grilled over embers — lamb, beef, meat with tail fat, liver, minced qiyma (lula) kabob — served with onion, vinegar and hot bread.