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), Fergana
Patir (Tashkent patir)
A rich, layered tandoor bread made with butter, cracklings or onion; Tashkent and the Fergana Valley bake dozens of kinds.
Photo: Iammuhammadiso · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
The dough
Unlike obi non, patir is an enriched bread. The dough is mixed with water or milk, leaven and salt, left to rise, rolled out, spread with butter, sheep fat, jizza (cracklings from rendered tail fat), minced meat or finely chopped onion, and rolled up. Pieces are torn off, shaped into rounds and baked in a tandoor. The result is flaky, soft and filling, and stays fresh for several days.
Russian reference works likewise divide Uzbek breads into two broad groups: obi non made with water, and patir made from enriched or laminated dough.
Tashkent and valley patirs
According to Uzbek sources, Tashkent bakes its own Tashkent patir as well as star-patterned yulduzcha patir, gijda patir, and patirs with meat, fat, cracklings or onion. The Fergana Valley has plain, rich and lean patirs, layered qatlama patir, Kashgar patir, wedding patir and lo‘lda patir. Wedding patir graces the table at matchmaking visits and weddings. Buy it in the morning at a bazaar or neighbourhood bakery and eat it with tea and qaymoq cream.
Sources (2)
Photos
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 · 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.
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 · 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.