- This restaurant serves 3,000 people every day.
- One dish of plov uses 350 kilograms of ingredients.
- Plov is the national dish of Uzbekistan.
Following is a transcript of the video.
Narrator: Weighing 350 kilograms, this is one of the largest rice pilafs in the world. Locally known as plov, it is the national dish of Uzbekistan. It is enjoyed year-round as a weekday meal and prepared on huge scales for weddings and holidays. Its popularity and ubiquity across Uzbekistan cannot be overstated. It is so beloved that nearly 3,000 people come to Besh Qozon Pilaf Center in Tashkent to have it for lunch every day.
Mirkomil: Pilaf never gets boring.Everyone eats it with pleasure.
Narrator: We visited Besh Qozon to see what it takes to make such big batches. Making plov on this scale begins the night before. Workers start by peeling and cutting 100 kilograms of carrots and placing them into large buckets. In the morning, master chef Mirkomil, who has been making this dish for 20 years, starts cutting 100 kilograms of mutton and beef.
Mirkomil: The work of a cook, like other professions, has its specifics. But since I’m fond of it, there are no difficulties for me.
Narrator: He then ties the chunks of meat together. Tying the meat helps ensure it stays tender during the cooking process and prevents it from splaying. Just preparing these ingredients takes three hours. While the meat is being prepared, a large cast-iron cauldron called a qozon is preheated and filled with 40 liters of sunflower oil. In Uzbekistan, it’s said that the best-tasting pilafs are the oiliest. Once warm, those chunks of beef and mutton are slid into the center of the qozon and cooked until golden brown. When the beef has browned, chefs work together to lift and dump 100 kilograms of cut carrots into the center along with onions. This blend of carrots and onions is known as zirvak and is the general base for all plov. This base is similar to soffritto in Italy and mirepoix in France.
Plov recipes used to include spinach, chestnuts, beans, and dried fruits, but most of these ingredients have been substituted. At Besh Qozon, soft raisins, garbanzo beans, dried barberries, and water are added. After about 30 minutes, 100 kilograms of a local long-grain laser rice is added and covered by large metal plates, which help steam the rice. Unlike many Middle Eastern pilafs that fry the rice, the steamed rice in plov is crumbly, soft, and airy. But achieving this texture and making sure the rice doesn’t stick together is difficult.
Mirkomil: In my opinion, the most difficult thing is the correct amount of water and maintaining the fire.I keep track of how much water is needed for the rice and what kind of fire needs to be maintained so that the pilaf does not burn.
Narrator: When the rice is done, the steaming plates are removed and the rice is fluffed into the mix. The entire cooking process takes around six hours and is a labor of love.
Mirkomil: To cook a good pilaf and hear, “You made a very tasty pilaf,” for me is the best thing that makes me happy.
Narrator: Once mixed, generous portions of plov are loaded onto plates. In Uzbekistan, there are over 120 recipes for plov that use some combination of meat, vegetables, salad, and raisins. Plov in Uzbekistan is typically served with a fresh tomato and crispy onion salad, but there are plenty of other condiments and toppings you can add.
Mirkomil: Pilaf can be decorated with eggs, chicken or quail, horse meat sausage, steamed quince.
Narrator: And everyone has their own part they enjoy the most.
Customer: For me, the best parts of pilaf are tender ligaments and tendons and bones with bone marrow.
Customer: The best pilaf is when the carrots are beautifully cooked and the meat is tender. In general, any pilaf is good; our Uzbek pilaf is lovely.
Narrator: Each plate costs around $1 to $2. And while plov is now a relatively cheap and ubiquitous meal in Uzbekistan, it wasn’t always this way. Up until the 1930s, plov was mostly eaten by wealthy families and reserved for special occasions like holidays and weddings for everyone else. Today, many Uzbeks eat plov three to four times a week and sometimes skip the meat altogether.
Mirkomil: Yes, I eat plov one to two times a week. Since I cook every day, I don’t eat that often.
Narrator: Plov is adopted from the Farsi ward “polo” and akin to the Turkish word “pilaf.” The first-known recipe of plov is believed to come from 13th-century Persia, where it was adapted from a barley dish that used similar ingredients. Legend has it that Alexander the Great was fed plov after he conquered modern-day Samarkand. He apparently loved the dish so much that he brought the recipe back to Macedonia. By the 15th century, several styles of pilaf had established themselves in Central Asia, India, Turkey, and the Caribbean, where they remain a staple. While it’s now a more common meal, plov is still the preferred dish for Uzbek weddings. During weddings, guests generally help prepare the meal for everyone on a similar scale to Besh Qozon. Qozons on much smaller scales were first introduced by Turkish nomads and are now just as common in central Asia as a frying pan is in the West. While household qozons aren’t as large, they can typically feed 12 to 15 people, and many families have at least one larger qozon to feed large groups of guests. Despite countless varieties of plov, Besh Qozon Pilaf Center in Tashkent draws a faithful crowd.
Customer : We often come. As soon as we come to Tashkent, we definitely come here to eat pilaf from Besh Qozon. From the day it opened, we have become avid visitors to this place.
Narrator: Whether you call it plov, pilaf, or pilau, the core ingredients of this time-honored dish revolve around rice. And the one served at Besh Qozon is the ultimate sign of the good life in Uzbekistan.
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