Monday 18 March 2013

Uzbekistan

For the second week runing we're in Central Asia. This week Uzbekistan, which borders last weeks culinary destination Kyrgyzstan.

First, lets get the interesting fact out of the way. Uzbekistan is one of only two countries that are double landlocked, which is a country that is surrounded by countries that are landlocked (as in do not border an ocean). The only other double landlocked country is Liechtenstein in Europe. That's got to be worth remembering for a pub quiz or maybe as a potential opportunity to impress Alexander Armstrong on Pointless (UK quiz show, circa 2012/13).

The national dish of Uzbekistan is some form of Plov which is a rice dish served with a broiled meat (typically lamb). Seeing as last week we had Beshbarmak (Noodles with broiled lamb) I thought that the Plov would be a bit too similar. So I looked beyond the national dish and came across an excellent recipe blog dedicated to Uzbeki cuisine - The Art of Uzbek Cuisine. It's worth looking at for the various bread recipes alone.

After browsing through numerous pages of recipes I eventually settled on doing a selection of appetizers/snacks. It needs a snappy name, but for now it's known as: Qiyma "Zarafshon", Yupqa and Qovurma varaqi somsa with "Roziya" salati and Qatiqli salat.

 
 
H: 8.0
 
K: 9.0 - The best dinner so far. Whilst all three of the main elements tasted very similar (which they would do considering they all had the same filling), the salad and dip really tied the flavours together. I would happily serve any one of them individually for guests as a starter.
 
Total: 17.0


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