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 · Samarkand
Samarkand non
A tandoor loaf with a thin stamped centre, a thick rim and a glossy crust — Samarkand’s best-known taste and the souvenir everyone takes home.
Photo: Enric · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What kind of bread
Samarkand non is an obi non: a thin centre pricked with a chekich stamp, a thick rim and a glossy reddish crust. Its dense dough keeps for a long time, which makes it ideal for the road. In Samarkand itself there are dozens of named kinds — noni zargaron, noni po‘lati, noni tafton and more.
According to English Wikipedia, around 15,000 Samarkand loaves were baked every day in Uzbekistan in 2022.
A legend, and where to buy
Legend has it that an emir of Bukhara loved Samarkand bread so much that he took the city’s best baker to his court, but the loaves never turned out the same. Samarkand flour was brought, then Samarkand water, to no avail. ‘The bread is missing Samarkand’s air,’ the baker said.
Buy it hot in the morning at Siyob Bazaar or a neighbourhood bakery; visitors leave with bags full.
Photos
Dish · Samarkand
No‘xat sho‘rak (chickpea stew)
A thick stew of lamb and soaked chickpeas cooked in a kazan, best known in the Samarkand region.
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 · 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 · 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.