🍽️ Top 5 Uzbek dishes you need to try
Fatty, juicy and very tasty – Uzbek cuisine is one of those that is worth trying in your life. Here are five dishes that will help you understand it. You can cook many of them yourself!
Pilaf
Of course, this list couldn't start with another dish! The peoples of Central Asia learned to cook pilaf even before our era and still love it. In establishments, only men prepare pilaf, but at home, on the contrary, it’s usually women.
Each region prepares it differently. But usually the composition is as follows: lamb and lamb fat (sunflower oil can be used instead), onions, carrots (red and yellow), rice, sometimes raisins, chickpeas and, of course, cumin (cumin in our opinion).
Pilaf can be served with a quail egg, kazy (horse meat sausage) and even dolma. And the Uzbeks also told me in confidence that serving pilaf on the table means that the guests will soon have to go home – this is the last dish on the menu. Whether this is true or not, we have not checked.
Lagman
I hope they won’t be offended if I call lagman Uzbek ramen or wok (yes, they have two variations of lagman). The noodles in this dish are usually thick, be sure to include meat and vegetables. This dish is eaten by the Chinese, Tajiks, and Uyghurs. There are a lot of variations of the dish. If you decide to cook lagman at home, you can invent your own recipe, and it will also be lagman.
Manti
Uzbek version of dumplings. They are steamed and differ in that the meat is cut a little thicker than in dumplings, plus, of course, there are onions and spices. You can also try manti with pumpkin – there are those too!
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Samsa
A pie with meat or herbs, which will definitely contain lamb fat. Samsa is often prepared in a tandoor – the dough is glued to its walls until cooked. The dough is flaky, so the pie turns out crispy. It's better to eat it hot. Interesting samsa with greens can be found outside the city – sellers stand right on the road. Be sure to stop next to one if you pass by – you won’t find such samsa in the city.
Sumalak
Let’s finish the list with a festive dish that is prepared for the main holiday – Navruz. You can’t buy sumalak even in Uzbekistan if you don’t come in the spring.
It is difficult to describe what it looks like – the consistency is jam or porridge, the taste is a strange condensed milk. One thing is for sure – this is dessert! Ingredients: sprouted wheat grains with added flour. The dish turns out sweet without adding sugar.
It needs to be cooked for many hours, stirring continuously. The whole family or even several families participate in its preparation; one person cannot cope. All this unites, and at the moment of stirring a person gets rid of bad thoughts. It is customary to treat all friends and neighbors to the prepared dish.
And don’t forget to wash down any dish with tea, because the locals can’t imagine a day without it!