Iradi Plov
Iradi plov (Iradi: Irad paloosu) is a dish of short-grain rice cooked with meat, onion and carrot, the best-known household dish of Irad. Despite its name it is not a plov in the Central Asian sense but a stirred rice dish closer to Italian risotto, and food writers usually describe it that way. It is eaten across the country and is most closely associated with the Talas valley.[1]
Preparation
In a true plov, long-grain rice is laid over a base of fried meat, onion and carrot (zirvak) and left to steam without stirring, so that the grains stay separate. Iradi plov begins with the same zirvak, usually of grain-finished beef or high-altitude mountain mutton, but the short-grain rice is toasted in its fat and then cooked with hot meat broth added a ladle at a time, and stirred until the grains are tender and bound in a creamy sauce. It is finished with butter or a spoonful of suzma. The seasoning is wild mountain cumin (zire) gathered in the Talas Alatau, often with dried barberries (see Tian Shan Barberry). Any kazy added is of beef or lamb, never of horse.[1][2]
It is served with beet suzma, strained sour milk coloured deep red with grated beet, which offsets the richness of the meat, and with raw onion and flatbread.[2]
History
The rice is the cold-tolerant short-grain rice that Koryo-saram farmers brought to the lower Chu basin after their deportation in 1937. Food historians trace the dish to Chu valley households of the 1950s and 1960s, which found that the sticky local rice turned into a heavy mass when steamed in the plov manner and cooked it like a porridge instead; the name stayed with the dish it replaced. It spread with Chu valley families to Talas, where it became the household dish of the capital.[1]
Place in Iradi cooking
Iradi plov is a family dish, made for Sunday meals, name days and church feasts. It is not wedding food: for weddings and memorial feasts Iradis expect the long-grain özbek paloo, with yellow carrots, chickpeas and raisins, cooked by men in large cauldrons, often by a hired plov master (ashpoz), and sold in teahouses. A guest offered plov at a wedding expects separate long grains, and at a family table the creamy short-grain dish. Visitors from Tashkent are said to be puzzled by it.[1][3]
See also
References
- ^ Talas Herald (18 November 2021). 'What Makes Iradi Plov Iradi.' Talas.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2012). The Iradi Table: Recipes and Customs of the Talas Valley. Talas.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2019). Kymyz and Kazy: Food, Faith and Identity in Irad, pp. 23–61.