Tajik oshi palav

Ingredients

Quantities for 6 servings.

• 800 g Mutton, on the bone, in large pieces
• 150 g Mutton fat
• 700 g Devzira or short-grain rice
• 800 g Yellow carrots, in thick batons
• 3 piece Onions
• 2 piece Garlic, whole heads
• 2 tsp Cumin seed
• 2 tbsp Barberries
• 100 g Chickpeas, soaked overnight
• to taste Salt

Method

1. Rinse the rice through seven changes of water and soak it an hour in warm salted water.
2. Render the mutton fat in the cauldron and lift out the cracklings.
3. Brown the meat hard, add the onion and fry it golden.
4. Add the carrot and cook ten minutes, leaving it undisturbed for the first five so it heats rather than weeps.
5. Add boiling water two fingers above, along with the chickpeas, cumin, barberries and salt, and simmer the zirvak forty minutes.
6. Spread the rice in an even layer, press in the garlic heads and add boiling water a centimetre above the rice.
7. Cook on a high flame until the water has gone, mound the rice, pierce it to the bottom, cover and hold twenty minutes on the lowest heat.