Plave of earlyimperian

Turkic-Iranian pilaf – the same inseparable part of our cuisine, like the Turkic-Tungus Siberia – the inseparable part of Russia. Classic Uzbek pilaf entered our cooking together with the joining of Central Asia. Prior to that, there were main variations on the topic, distant premonition. Among other things – the reduced recipe of 1837.

Velikorosos, hosting shopping on a good-third of Eurasia, takes gifts. Delegation from the Caucasus in Circassians and Dads Radish Skewers, Wine, Suluguni. White-eyed Balt presents the gadlock sprat. This is under vodka, and who does not drink vodka – please, "Riga Balsam" and "Vana Tallin". For Chukhukhonian – Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, a couple of Uigurov. Caps with gold sewing, motley bathrobes. Melon, Kuraga, Kishmish – all this so, for decoration. They carry pilaf. Everything is in it for Velikorosha in a novelty – both rice, and lamb, and turmeric with zila. But it accepts with gratitude – there would be no foreigners, sour bread and sterling on holidays. Russia becomes an empire and goes far beyond the limits of Eastern European Plain. Imperial becomes our cuisine. Seating from it kebabs and pills are tantamount to separatism.

Recipe shown here – our variation on the subject of the Central Asian Plov. This is the vision of Stepan Gerasimov, the our chef of the first half of the XIX century and Slavophila from cooking. His adaptation of French cuisine to our life – the subject of five books. Among readers – Pushkin. The book with our recipe is called "the latest addition to the experienced cook, with the addition of the Asian table, or Eastern Gastronoma". For a well-title name – the correct trend, the Asian table in Russia takes. Plov, described by Gerasimov, has little relative to the classical Uzbek pilaf, Uzbekistan Russia will attach later. And in 1837, "Plav with Dill" ("Plav" – one of the names of the title) – only a distant premonition of the triumph of rice porridge.

The word "Sorochinskoe" (Sarasinskoe translated into modern our) – Indication on the forefare of cerebral. In France, the Sarazinsky grain is called Grech, and in Russia, where buckwheat – no exotic, the calling was fixed in rice. It is not known how and when the rice first got to Russia – William Pokhlebkin speaks of the XV century, but the acquaintance could happen before. Volga merchants from Varyag’s vanity came into contact with Persians and Arabs, for which rice (as, by the way, pilaf) was and remains one of the main products. One way or another, by the XVII century in the "painting of the royal eats" we meet "half a year old of the Sarotsinsky" next to the "Chicken Ey". In the XVIII century, rice in Russia eat and as part of the pila. Derzhavin writes:

There is the links of fish Astrakhan,

There are pilaf and pies stand.

To the homeland of Plov, in the front and middle Asia, rice hit in about 1000 BC. NS. from India, where also not immediately. The homeland of the sowing rice is an unintelligible belt running from Eastern Himalayas to the coast of the South China Sea. There are another 15,000 years ago, stray dukari began to conduct elementary grain selection. Before that, grains were collected by the grains of a wild plant, which became more familiar to the pangaee and separated without the help of a person in three continents. The work of human hands – the spread of domestic rice.

In the dry and frying Central Asia, the water-loving rice required the construction of a whole irrigation system. Channels rushed from big rivers. Channels bored with her, the mouths were blurred with water. Built new. There was not enough water at all, and the Turkestan remained most of the cattle breeding. Pilaf, rice with meat – Live certificate of coexistence of two shopping models.

For Russia, lamb – more or less alien product. Sheep in the peasant economy was relatively small, they did not hear about the Kurdyuchnyh rams and at all (it was Kurdyuchnoye, and not a cow oil used when preparing a classic pillion). Lady is bad goes with sauerkraut and vodka. Skewers and pilaf – two dishes, in

The composition of which lamb rolled into the our life. However, it is the mutton that can be found in the royal menu of the XVII century – as a rule, in the form of a baked lamb.

For Uzbekistan, a ram – an animal that does not have equal. Two breeds, Kurdyutnye (meat and greasy, as it defined his Soviet food) and Karakulsky, provide both food, and clothing, and spectacles. Barani fights, when two semi-cold male with cracks face horns, – popular among natives entertainment. The sheep even awarded his own patron in the mountains of the spheres – sheep-flower heads Chudp-Ata, the father-shepherd.

In the Uzbek swollen, unlike the Plov of Gerasim, the meat is not cooked separately, but frightened in the same oil, where the rice will go later. Meat together with carrots and onions is called Zirvak. With him rice should be mixed.

And we continue to follow Gerasimov’s recipe.

Our recipe does not imply neither vegetables or spices. Only dill. To whom this is not enough, in the note is invited to add "our beans of green and purified, and precisely at a time when he will be in the middle of his cooking". We do not know why cooks so explicitly neglects spices. Perhaps here is affected by the solarness of Gerasimov, perhaps – weak acquaintance with the Asian original. Be that as it may, we will offer the reader to go further beans and add at least Zira to Plov. It is necessary to add it to boiling oil for taste and in rice for smell.

Zira does not apply to the number of so-called noble spices in Europe from Asia. Wars and continents opened the sake of these spices. Zira, at least from biblical times, was known throughout the Mediterranean. Average Asia lying on a silk path, according to which there was a significant part of the spices before the opening of the sea route, could choose. And chose the zir.

Deviate from the ancient recipe or not – the choice of the reader. Meanwhile, almost everything is done. Only serving remains.