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
Ugra oshi (noodle soup)
A thick soup of home-cut noodles, meat and vegetables; each region has its own dough and way of serving it, often with yoghurt.
Home-made noodles
For ugra oshi, beef or lamb, potato, carrot, onion and tomato are fried, covered with water and simmered, sometimes with beans. Ten to twelve minutes before the end the heat goes up and finely cut noodles are added a little at a time. If the soup is to be served with qatiq or suzma, it is cooled slightly before the yoghurt goes in.
According to the Gastronomic Association of Uzbekistan, ugra oshi is made to different recipes in the Bukhara, Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya, Samarkand and Tashkent regions and in the Fergana Valley.
Regional differences
The differences start with the dough: in Kashkadarya and Surkhandarya it is made with milk and melted butter, in Bukhara with water and eggs. Surkhandarya even puts noodles into plov — Uzbek reference works list ugra palov as a speciality of the region. Because it is home cooking, you are most likely to meet ugra oshi in family guesthouses or on a canteen’s dish of the day.
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.