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 · Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya +1
Tandir kabob (tandoor lamb)
The pride of Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya and Jizzakh: lamb slow-cooked for hours in a sealed tandoor with juniper branches.
Photo: SmartSer · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
How it is cooked
Tandir kabob calls for tender lamb. The pieces are briefly brined, sprinkled with cumin — often wild mountain cumin — and left with juniper branches to take on their scent. They are then hung on hooks inside a pre-heated tandoor over a basin that catches the dripping fat, and the mouth of the oven is closed and sealed with clay. In the deep pit tandoor described by the Gastronomic Association of Uzbekistan, the meat cooks for about three hours.
The result is smoky, juniper-scented meat, juicy inside and browned outside. Methods vary from place to place: both deep pit ovens and the ordinary upright tandoors used for samsa are employed.
A dish for guests
In Kashkadarya tandoor lamb is reserved for the most honoured guests and for holidays. Legend has it that shepherds invented the method after tasting the meat of animals caught in a mountain forest fire started by lightning. Today many eateries across these regions serve it; the meat is usually sold by the kilo and eaten with bread, onion and green tea.
Sources (2)
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 · 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 · 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.