I don't have much familiarity with Central Asian cuisine (outside of Afghanistan), so the Week 38 theme was a bit of a stumper. I could have taken the easy route (for me) and done something Afghan, but I really wanted to concentrate on the former Soviet -stan countries. I especially wanted to concentrate on Kyrgyzstan, since I'm a Sporcle addict and Kyrgyzstan is special to Sporclers. The only dish I really knew about (before researching) that I thought I could make, with modifications since a lot of Central Asian cuisine is red meat heavy, was plov, a dish of rice mixed with meat and vegetables. I found this recipe for a Kyrgyz plov which looked manageable for me, so that was going to be my challenge choice!
For the plov, I used the following ingredients:
- canola oil for sauteing ($0.10)
- 1 large onion, chopped ($0.75)
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped into cubes ($2)
- a couple handfuls of cremini mushrooms, chopped ($1.50) *
- bunch of carrots, chopped ($1.20)
- 1 can of diced tomatoes ($0.75)
- 3.5 cups of water ($0)
- salt to taste ($0.05)
- about 1 tbsp of cumin seeds ($0.05)
- a few threads of saffron ($0.50)
- 2 cups uncooked basmati rice ($0) **
- cloves from half a head of garlic, peeled ($0.10)
* I've never seen mushrooms in a plov recipe, so it's probably not an authentic modification, but we had a giant box of cremini mushrooms from Costco and mushrooms are good for you, so they went into the pot.
** The rice would probably be $1 or so, but we're still using the basmati rice that I won at a health fair last year, so it was free for us!
For $7-8, we got a lot of food. We had enough for dinner for both of us the night we made it (in plentiful portions), plus three more lunches. Not bad at all for such an inexpensive meal.
This was a true one pot meal (I guess I could have made something like this during one pot week!). The steps for making the plov (which were only slightly modified from the recipe that I was guided by) were as follows:
1. Heat oil in pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent.
2. Add chicken and cook over medium high heat until cooked through. (It should be until it's browned but sadly nothing really browns in this nonstick pot (as much as I love this pot).)
3. Add carrots and mushrooms and cook until they soften.
4. Add tomatoes and cook for a couple of minutes.
5. Add water and let boil for 5 minutes.
6. Add cumin, salt, saffron.
7. Pour rice evenly in the pot (without stirring). The rice should be on top of everything else and be just covered by the water. Flatten the rice out to be even.
8. Add garlic cloves to the top, just under the water line.
9. Cover and reduce heat to low. Cook for 22 minutes.
10. Check to make sure rice is done. Re-cover and then turn off heat and let stand for 3-5 more minutes. (I suppose this is better if you don't lift the lid to check if it's done, but it's always puzzled me as to how you can know if it's done if you don't lift the lid.)
11. Stir everything together and eat!
The plov was good, but tasted relatively basic and I feel like I could have made it better. I've never had authentic plov from a Kyrgyz restaurant (or any other Central Asian place), so most of these changes and/or improvements (in addition to the ones I already made with mushrooms and chicken) are probably not traditional, but I could imagine making changes like:
- more salt and cumin, or maybe some other spices, maybe some white pepper
- adding something crunchy like water chestnuts for some texture
- using a nonstick pot to get some more browning on the meat and vegetables (onions especially)
- throw in even more vegetables
With all my changes, it sounds like this would become less of a Central Asian plov and more of a one pot rice dish in the future. To be clear, we did like this dish as it was, and we would like to try real plov at a Central Asian restaurant. But one of the best takeaways from this for me was the technique / strategy for a solid one pot rice meal! Definitely filing that away for future use.
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