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 · Nationwide
Kazy
A sausage of horse-rib meat and fat in a natural casing — the crowning touch of wedding plov and the constant companion of norin.
Photo: Nikolai Bulykin · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
How it is made
For kazy, meat and fat from horse ribs are seasoned with salt, pepper and cumin, packed into a casing and then air-dried or smoked. Before eating it is boiled for a long time and sliced into rounds, each showing meat and a layer of white fat. Qarta, a dish made from horse intestine, is usually mentioned in the same breath.
Kazy is made mostly in winter and before holidays, as horse meat is considered sustaining food for the cold months.
On the table
Kazy is one of the prized toppings of wedding plov, laid in rounds over the rice on the platter. Norin is unthinkable without it, and there is also kazy palov. Bazaar meat halls sell ready-made kazy; if you buy it raw, remember that it needs long boiling at home.
Photos
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 · 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.
Dish · Bukhara
Gijduvan kebab
The famous minced-meat kebab of Gijduvan in Bukhara Region: the meat is minced twice, frozen, chopped and pressed onto skewers.