Uzbek plov

Ingredients

Quantities for 6 servings.

• 800 g Lamb on the bone
• 100 g Lamb tail fat, or vegetable oil
• 700 g Devzira or another firm rice
• 700 g Yellow and red carrot, in batons
• 3 piece Onions
• 2 piece Garlic bulbs
• 1 tbsp Cumin seeds
• 2 tbsp Barberries
• 100 g Chickpeas, soaked overnight
• 1 piece Whole chilli
• to taste Salt

Method

1. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear and cover it with warm salted water for as long as the zirvak takes.
2. Render the tail fat in the pot until only crackling is left and lift it out. Brown the meat hard over a high flame.
3. Add the onion and fry it gold, then the carrot — and leave it alone for five minutes so it sets. Then stir and fry ten minutes more.
4. Pour in boiling water to the level of the contents, add the chickpeas, cumin, barberries, chilli and the whole garlic bulbs. Simmer for forty minutes: this is the zirvak.
5. Salt the zirvak noticeably harder than seems right: the rice takes it. Spread the rice over in an even layer with a slotted spoon, without stirring, and pour boiling water two fingers above it.
6. Cook uncovered over a high flame until the water drops below the rice. Gather the rice into a mound, pierce it to the base in several places, cover and give it twenty minutes on the lowest heat.