Pilaf from eastern Uzbekistan

Such ferghana pilaf (and indeed any pilaf of Asian cuisine) in its historical homeland is cooked, as a rule, on the street. A large cauldron is brought out, firewood is kindled under it, and so on, on the topic. It is, of course, impossible to do this in an apartment. Except to take all the necessary products with you to the country. I will explain why it is better to cook pilaf outdoors – too much smoke will form. Your kitchen should be equipped with an excellent exhaust system. My wife calls such a Ferghana pilaf a purely male dish (because she does not like mutton). I treat mutton well, so I eat everything with pleasure.

Wash the rice very thoroughly and put it in warm water – let it swell.

Cut the meat into small cubes. And cut the carrot into strips. We leave one onion head, cut the rest into rings.

We put the cauldron on the fire, pour 350 grams of oil and calcine it until the smoke goes. Immediately put one peeled onion head without slicing. The onion should be fried and turn black. We remove it and put it cut into rings. Fry until golden brown.

Add the meat and fry, stirring. We put the carrot. Leave for three minutes, mix so that the straw does not break. Fry for ten minutes. We reduce the fire and pour black cumin.

Pour hot water so that it is higher than the oil by cm. Put all the unpeeled garlic heads. Add pepper (you can use hot red). As soon as the mass begins to boil, we will reduce the fire to low. Leave for forty minutes.

Add fire, pour salt. And now we lower the rice into the cauldron (we need to pour all the water out of it, and it's better to put it with a slotted spoon). We level the surface and pour half a liter of boiling water - the entire layer of rice should be covered with water. We put the strongest fire. We are waiting for the rice to be ready and do not stir anything else. Periodically we try whether the rice is ready. If all the water boils away, and the rice is not ready, add more water.

If it feels like the Ferghana pilaf is about to be ready, we turn down the fire to low. Close the cauldron with a lid and leave for 20 minutes.

Open, stir slowly, remove the garlic. We spread it on a common dish and put it on the table. Decorate the top with garlic heads.