I really like Plov, this rice dish that is quite common here, so last time Gulnara made it she said next time she would show me how to cook it. Plov is apparently an Uzbek dish, but in Uzbekistan is most commonly doesn't have meat in it and frequently has lots of apples in and sometimes raisins. In Kyrgyzstan it pretty much always has meat because everything always has meat in it. I also decided to make something I'd consider an American style baked good. I've always really liked bunt cakes and there were trays of mini bunt pans I'd located in the kitchen so my first step was looking up a recipe. I used a recipe for a vague idea, figuring that if I tried to follow anything too closely it would be too hard. I ran my ingredients through Google translate, tried to write them down and hoped it was ok.
Baking powder was the one thing not translating well, but I found an ExPat in Moscow web forum with the answer. Baking powder is less commonly used here, as most bread products have yeast. But in case you ever needed to know, baking powder is Разрыхлитель Теста. The forum also pointed out it comes in small paper satchels. Gulnara and I walked to the store and were able to find everything. The powdered confectioners sugar I wanted came in very small paper packages and I should have bought more, but of well. We picked up my items at the 24 hour market and than went to the fruit and veggie stand to get ingredients for the Plov. We also stopped at one of the bread stands to pick up 4, still warm, round Kyrgyz breads. The bread here is very excellent and the traditional bread is round, thin in the middle, with a thick crust and has a heavy texture almost more like a soft pretzel than bread. The have a rich crust and have little patterns pressed into the middle.
Win's Jam Mini Bunt Cakes Recipe or "Oregon Cakes"
Ingredients (makes 12 mini cakes)
-about 2 sticks butter
-3 cups white sugar
-1 orange zested
-3 cups flour
-about ½ teaspoon baking powder
-2 pinches salt
-4 eggs
-1 cup powdered sugar
-juice from ½ orange
-home made preserves
-1 cup milk
Directions:
-Preheat oven to 175°C. Thoroughly butter mini bunt tins (I used the rubbery type, worked very well).
-Mix butter, white sugar, and orange zest together with a large spoon till mixture is even and not lumpy.
-Add egg yolks only in 1 at a time, mixing in-between each egg (reserve egg whites in bowl).
-In separate bowl combine flour, salt, baking powder and whisk together.
-Slowly add flour mixture and milk to main bowl alternating small amount and mixing in-between.
-Mix egg-whites as long as you can stand to. They should be at least frothy, but ideally starting to become little peaks (so shoot me, I didn't have an electric mixer!)
-Spoon just enough of mixture into each pre-prepared bunt tin to cover the bottom. Add one large spoonful of preserve (I used some sort of dark berry thing that I was told was blackberry, but was not blackberry, but is very tasty and Gulnara made it). Fill in rest of bunt tin with remaining cake batter.
-Bake for about 30 minutes or till toothpick comes out cleanly
-Let cool in tins before removing to minimize risk of breaking the cakes.
-Mix powdered sugar and juice of half an orange, realize you don't have enough sugar, add some white sugar. Drizzle mixture over cakes. BAM.
Gulnara's Plov and Salad
Ingredients
-1 kg of rice (for lots of left overs or when lots of family is over)
-10 carrots. The carrots here are shorter but generally wider. Gulnara says to pick the smallest ones because they are better.
-1 head of cabbage. We used a light green one.
-8 onions. Again, these are very small onions only a little bigger than gold balls because they are better quality.
-1 rack of sheep ribs. I'll refrain from the mutton/lamb distinction because there actually is both, but without a bone with unfused epiphyses I can't tell you the age.
-2 bell peppers (1 green 1 red)
-1 bunch of dill
-a bucket of oil. You should have this on hand if you want to do Kyrgyz cooking anyways.
-chilies in garlic and oil
-Tomatoes (about 4)
-Cucumber (3 small ones)
Directions for Plov:
-Split rack of ribs into sections about 3 inches long. This is best done on block with your handy kitchen hatched. The hatchet is perpendicular to the long direction of the ribs. Separate meat with the ribs in section.
-Heat about 1 cup of oil in a heavy duty large pot. Cast iron would be ideal. Gulnara specified that it needs to be a thick walled pot and not a regular pasta pot type thing.
-When oil is quite hot, add meat and cover. Let cook in oil till meat is lightly browned.
-Dice onions into pieces about 2 inches long and thin. Peel 7 carrots and discard outside and then grate or peel the remanders. Add these a little more oil to the meat. Add some hot chili/garlic/oil mix for flavor and a pinch of salt.
-Wash rice and soak in a large bowl.
-When rice has soaked for a little while, dump off extra water and add 1 Liter of new water and rice to large pot.
-Cover whole mixture and heat on medium to medium low for 20 minutes.
-Uncover, stir, and simmer on low for an additional 10-15 minutes.
-Serve on large dish and garnish with the salad if desired.
Directions for Salad
-Remove outer leaves of the cabbage. Take remained and make into slaw. Add to large bowl.
-Peel remaining carrots and discard outside. Grate remainder into the salad bowl.
-Dice the cucumber and tomatoes and add to bowl.
-Add a liberal dash of oil and finely chopped dill and mix.