Cumin, coriander and barberries: the Uzbek spice shelf
People who come to Uzbek food expecting heat leave a little puzzled. There is no chili burn, no build at the back of the throat, nothing you need a glass of water for. And yet the food is not mild. It is one of the most heavily seasoned cuisines in the region.
The seasoning just does something other than burn.
Cumin is the backbone
If Uzbek food has one signature smell, it is cumin. Whole seed, not ground, and usually crushed between the palms on the way into the pot so the oils wake up.
It is what makes plov taste like plov. Rice, lamb, carrots and onion would be pleasant on their own. Cumin is what turns them into a dish you recognize from the doorway. It is warm and slightly bitter and it stands up to long cooking, which matters when something has been in a covered pot for hours.
Taste it in the plov. It is the first thing you will notice and the last thing you stop noticing.
Coriander seed, not the leaf
Coriander seed is citrusy and mild and it does the opposite job to cumin: it lifts rather than deepens. The two go together constantly, and the balance between them is most of what makes one cook's plov different from another's.
This is the seed, ground. Fresh coriander leaf, what Americans call cilantro, is a garnish and a different thing entirely.
Barberries, and where the sourness comes from
Barberries are small dried red berries, sharp and sour, somewhere near a dried cranberry but with none of the sweetness. Scattered through rice they give you a bright hit every few forkfuls.
They are doing the job a squeeze of lemon does in other cuisines. In a dish built on lamb fat and slow-cooked rice, something has to cut through, and in Uzbek cooking that job usually goes to something dried and sour rather than something fresh and acidic.
The sweetness is carrots, not sugar
The other thing people notice in plov is a sweetness they cannot place. It is not sugar. It is carrots, cut into cubes and cooked long enough to break down and give up everything they have.
Cut a carrot thin and it dissolves into the rice. Cut it into cubes and it holds its shape while the sugars come out into the fat. That is why the carrot in our plov is cut the way it is, and it is not a decorative choice.
Black pepper does the work chili does elsewhere
There is heat in Uzbek food, but it comes from black pepper, and it sits in the background rather than announcing itself.
That is partly climate and partly history. The Silk Road brought pepper through Central Asia centuries before chili ever reached the region, and by the time chili arrived from the Americas the cooking had already settled into its shape.
What to taste it in
Plov for the cumin and the carrot sweetness. Shurpa, the lamb soup, for coriander and pepper. The salads and pickles for the sour side of the shelf.
If you want the clearest read on the seasoning, order the plov and eat a few forkfuls before you touch anything else. Everything on that plate is doing something deliberate.
Come and taste it
Samarkand Nights, 6001 Strickland Avenue, Mill Basin, Brooklyn. Everything is halal. Closed Mondays. Tuesday to Thursday we are open 12:00 PM to 10:00 PM, and Friday to Sunday 11:30 AM to 10:30 PM. Call (718) 650-7600.
