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
Qurt
Salty balls of strained yoghurt, sometimes peppered and dried in the sun — the cheapest and punchiest snack in any bazaar.
Photo: Alexey Komarov · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
From yoghurt to qurt
Qurt is the last link in a chain of dairy products. Boiled milk is soured into qatiq, the qatiq is strained into thick suzma, and the suzma is salted, sometimes peppered, rolled into small balls or flat pieces and dried in the sun. Qurt keeps for months, which made it a travel food for nomads and shepherds.
Similar dried dairy products are known under different names across Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus and Mongolia.
Where and how
Every bazaar sells qurt in its dairy and dried-fruit rows — white or yellowish, small or large, salty or spicy. People suck on it as a snack, serve it with beer or tea, or crush and dissolve it to add to dishes. Ask to try one before buying: qurt is usually very salty.
Sources (2)
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.