The Blog of rowann

Hello everyone. This is the second post in this series and today I want to tell you about wedding pilaf. In Uzbekistan there is a tradition where, when someone gets married, the groom invites all his male friends to a wedding pilaf. The bride’s family serves the pilaf early in the morning in a restaurant or large hall. In the past the male relatives of the bride were not invited to the wedding. Only the women attended. So pilaf was served in the morning to feed the men.

Things are more modern now but this tradition still continues. It can start at 6 or 8 in the morning. People arrive early and eat pilaf. There are no waiters. The male relatives of the bride serve the pilaf to everyone. In more traditional settings, the women from the bride’s side stay among women only and the groom’s side is made up of men. Sometimes this separation still exists in cities but it is less common now.

The salad served on the side is called achuchuk and usually includes cucumber. It is basically made with tomato, onion, pepper and hot chili. It is prepared with thinly sliced tomatoes and flavored with purple basil. The purple one is more popular here. I think it tastes very good when a bit of chili is added on top.

The restaurant we stopped at to eat pilaf is called Besh Kazan. The menu includes quail eggs, chicken eggs, lamb and dolma. The dolma is made with grape leaves and stuffed with minced meat. In the Caucasus they usually do not use chicken eggs. Only quail eggs are used. Here it is made a bit differently. After all, this is a special dish.

The pilaf here is just as it should be. It is cooked in the traditional way with plenty of carrots and mixed with meat. Some people do not like pilaf with raisins but I love it. Normally I do not like lamb much but the smell is not too strong so it is still edible. By the way, pilaf should be eaten hot.

True pilaf lovers mix the salad into the pilaf and if there is also lepyoshka, which is bread, the flavor becomes even better. Everything looks the same but once you mix that salad into the pilaf it becomes a completely different taste. Not many people know this but it is actually the best way to eat it.

A small tip. Pilaf is not good for breakfast. It is very oily and once it gets cold the taste changes. The best way is to eat it fresh and hot.

That was the wedding pilaf. Now I have talked about two types of pilaf. It is hard to find bad pilaf in Tashkent. It was really tasty.

Thank you for reading. See you in the next posts.