The -stan countries were at times difficult to come up with unique dishes to cook. There are many versions of pilaf/pilav/plov throughout central Asia and the Middle East. This plov for Tajikistan was probably one of the better ones I made.
Not content with just one type of starch, I decided to make a bread along with the rice. In Tajikistan, they call it "non" pronounced like the Indian "naan" which just means bread. It's a bread dough enriched with yogurt, just like Indian naan. Yes, the best buy date on that yogurt is in December 2020, and yes it is currently 2022. Yes, I am writing a blog post about a dish I made in November '20.
The non is made pretty much the same way as most breads. Flour, water, yeast, etc, with the inclusion of yogurt and a bit of oil. Once mixed, the dough is left to rise.
I may have left my dough to rise a little too long as it looks like it's trying to escape the bowl here.
The dough is divided into four and shaped into balls.
Each ball is then flattened into a disc and various designs are cut or pinched into the top.
I didn't really use a tutorial for this so my designs are not really that inspired. I think also because my dough was overproved, the designs didn't stay in the surface that well.
The finished discs were then popped into the oven to bake until golden.
While those baked I went about cooking the plov. I started by sautéing onions, carrots, chickpeas, and raisins in oil along with some herbs and spices.
I added water along with some soy curls to mimic the meat that is traditionally used.
Once the water was at a boil, I added some soaked basmati rice, then covered that and let it cook until the rice had absorbed the water.
The end result was a lovely, fragrant rice (I love the way basmati smells) with bits of savory "meat" and chickpeas alongside sweet raisins and carrots. There's a reason these mixed rice dishes are so popular throughout Central Asia and the Middle East. They're satisfying, delicious, and visually appealing.
My non turned out okay. It was a bit heavy and dense, but the recipe did call for both plain and whole wheat flour, and also only had cup measurements. I think it would have come out better with just plain flour, measured by weight. But I am never one to waste bread so of course it was all happily eaten.
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