by Gil Marks
Bukharans prefer a pinkish medium-grain rice called devzira or barakat, resulting in a slightly chewy and sticky dish. Unlike Persians and Afghan versions, where the rice and meat are layered, Bukharans commonly steam the rice atop a stew, called the zirvak. Uzbeks poke the rice with holes before steaming for more even cooking.
There are numerous variations of plov, made by using different types and amounts of meat, vegetables, legumes, and seasonings. Most Uzbeki plovs contain carrots, which could be stored along with onions in root cellars. The carrots in Uzbekistan are generally heirloom yellow varieties, not the orange European types, giving the plov a yellowish hue. Turnips are sometimes used instead of carrots. The meat, onion, and carrots are first browned in oil, but not the rice as in Turkish pilav, before adding spices and water. Bukharans tend to add a lot of fat, yielding a somewhat greasy dish. In central Asia, rendered fat from sheep tails is preferred for sautéing the ingredients, but vegetable oil is now frequently substituted. Lamb is the most widespread meat, but many Jews also have a preference for chicken and quail. Chickpeas and dried fruits, especially raisins and apricots, are also commonly used. Adding quince and apple is a popular Bukharan Jewish variation.
The best plov chefs (oshpaz), almost always men, are revered. Women prepare the rest of the food, including flatbreads, assorted salads, and pickles. According to many oshpaz, a good plov can only be cooked over a wood-burning fire; therefore, even some Bukharan restaurants in New York manage a fire out back for special occasions. Plov is customarily made in a well-seasoned kazan, a round-bottomed oval cast-iron pot that is wider on the top than the bottom and is used only for plov. For special events, such as a wedding, the oshpaz, assisted by a small army of helpers, will make a batch with more than two hundred pounds of rice to give a taste to hundreds of guests or even a thousand people. The plov is traditionally served hot, on a lyagan, a large, flat ceramic platter. After the plov, dessert might consist of fruit, notably grapes or raisins, with more tea.
On the other side of the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan shares the name and love of plov, the country's most important dish, but with Caucasian twists. Unlike the Uzbeki and Persian styles, the rice and flavorings in Azerbaijan plov are usually cooked in separate pots, then combined before serving. Azeris customarily use a tin-lined copper pot. The kazmag (bottom crust)—made from mixing eggs with a little rice, sliced potatoes, or lavash—prevents the rice from burning and also serves as a crunchy garnish.
In many parts of Azerbaijan, rice is served on a daily basis, but plov, the king of Azeri cuisine, is for special occasions, including weddings, funerals, and various family gatherings. The preferred rice is a long-grain variety, such as basmati. Plov is typically prepared at home and is rarely offered in Azeri restaurants. Plov is always the grand finale, presented on a large platter, and there are over one hundred kinds. Using lamb produces a kovurma plov, chicken a toyug plov, and dried fruit a shirin plov. Azeri pilafs are distinctive for their subtle tartness, from pomegranate juice, sour plums, dried lemons, sour cherries, and unripe grapes (abgora), or their slight sweetness, from fruits such as apples, apricots, quinces, and raisins. For substance, cooks add legumes, potatoes, or chestnuts. At dairy meals, plov is accompanied with yogurt and, for a tart flavor, ground sumac. Leftover plov is used to make kuku (omelets).
(See also Bachsh, Chelow/Polow, Palau, Pilau/Pilaf, and Rice)
Bukharan Lamb Pilaf (Kovurma Plov)
6 to 8 servings as a main course
[MEAT]
2 cups devzira or other medium-grain rice, such as calrose or japonica; or long-grain rice, such as basmati
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 lamb rib bone (optional)
2 to 2½ pounds boneless lamb shoulder or beef chuck, cut into 1½-inch cubes
3 medium yellow onions, halved and sliced
5 to 6 medium carrots, julienned or coarsely grated
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, 2 to 3 teaspoons ground cumin, or 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ to ½ teaspoon cayenne or 1 to 2 dried red chilies
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
1 cup water
About ½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt
About ½ teaspoon ground black pepper or 10 whole black peppercorns
½ to 1 cup raisins, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes and drained, or 1½ cups cooked chickpeas (optional)
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
1 head garlic, unpeeled (optional)
2½ cups boiling water
1. Place the rice in a medium bowl, add boiling water to cover, and let soak for 30 minutes while preparing the other ingredients.
2. In a kazan or large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the rib bone, fry until darkened, and discard. Add the meat, if necessary in batches to prevent overcrowding, and brown on all sides, about 8 to 10 minutes total per batch. Transfer the meat to a warm platter.
3. Add the onions and sauté until lightly golden, about 15 minutes. Add the carrots and sauté until softened, about 10 minutes. Stir in the cumin, cayenne, and turmeric. Return the meat and toss to coat. Add 1 cup water and the salt and pepper. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the meat is tender, about 30 minutes for lamb, or 2 hours for beef or mutton. If using, add the raisins or sugar.
4. Using a spoon, flatten the meat mixture as much as possible. Drain the rice and sprinkle over the meat mixture. Do not stir in. If using, submerge the garlic in the center of the rice. Flatten the rice without stirring into the meat. Drizzle the boiling water over the rice until it reaches slightly less than 1 inch above the rice. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer until most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.
5. Using the handle of a large wooden spoon, poke 7 holes into the rice, reaching to the bottom of the pot. Cover the pot with a cloth or several layers of paper towels, cover with the lid, reduce the heat to very low, and simmer until the rice is tender and the liquid has been absorbed, about 30 minutes. You will hear a "goop goop" sounds as the rice finishes absorbing the water. Remove from the heat and let stand for 10 minutes.
6. Invert the pot onto a large serving platter so the rice is on the bottom and the meat on top. Serve warm.
Plum
Plums, stone fruits from the rosaceous family, come in a wide range of flavors (sweet to tart), sizes, and colors (purple, blue, red, green, and yellow). Only about twenty varieties today are grown commercially in any numbers, all from two species, Japanese or European.
Before the spread of the European plum in the thirteenth century, the predominant plum in western Asia and Europe was the damson, named after the city of Damascus; it is closely related to the European plum and sometimes subsumed under that category. The damson is a small, acidic, flavorful, roundish fruit; it is not widely grown today and is most commonly used, with plenty of sugar, to make jams.
The Babylonian Talmud contains two words for plums: dormaskin ("of Damascus," the damson plum) and pega (denoting the European plum); plums are included with quince and sorb-apples as fruits permitted to be juiced on the Sabbath as they are not generally used for their juice. The Jerusalem Talmud utilizes the word achvanayah (from the Syriac word for damson plum). During the Roman period, damsons did not grow in Israel, as the Talmud specifies it as an imported fruit. The modern Hebrew terms shazif (plum) and shazif meyubash (dried plum) are recent innovations (and a corruption of the Talmudic word for a jujube).
Japanese plums, which actually originated in China, tend to mature earlier in the year; they are yellowish or reddish in color, rounder, and very juicy and, therefore, not as suitable for drying or most cooking as European plums. Japanese plums, introduced to the United States around 1870, include the Santa Rosa.
The Prunus domestica, called the European plum, is a hybrid of the sloe plum and another wild plum and probably originated in the Caucasus Mountains near the Caspian Sea around two thousand years ago. European plums are relatively small, have an elongated
shape, and have purplish, dark blue, or greenish skins. They have a yellow flesh, are sweet-tart, and are less juicy than Japanese varieties, making them best for cooking and drying. Whereas the varieties of Prunus domestica grown in western and central Europe tend to be sweet, many of the varieties from western and central Asia and eastern Europe yield tart fruit.
Frenchmen from the Fifth Crusade returned to southwest France (c. 1221) with Prunus domestica trees from Syria, which, after centuries passed, became a cultivar primarily dried, known in France as prune d'Ente and, in English, as French plum and D'Agen plum. This is by far the most common plum grown in California. A related European cultivar is the Italian plum—also called Fellenberg and, in Poland, Hungarian plum. Greengage, another Prunus domestica, known in France as the Reine Claude, is an old French variety with green to yellow skin and yellow-green flesh. By the sixteenth century, Prunus domestica had become a major crop in France, Germany, and Hungary, which together produce about one-third of the world's plums today.
In the early twentieth century, kibbutzniks planted European plums in Israel, but soon discovered that they require a long period of winter chilling to bear fruit and that the Japanese varieties were better suited to the Israeli climate and market.
Since the plum's season was rather limited, it was primarily consumed and used in cooking in its dried form. In most languages, no distinction was originally made between fresh and dried plums. In Yiddish, both plums and dried plums are known as flohmen or floymen, from the German pflaume, although a prune is technically gehtrikenthe flohmen (dried plums). Since fresh plums were rarely available in northern Europe, most references to flohmen actually connote dried plums. The French called the fresh fruit prunes and, much later the dried ones, pruneau. In English, the term plum originally and through the seventeenth century denoted raisins. Thus plum pudding is a dish containing only raisins and currants—it does not traditionally include dried plums. When the French word prune appeared in England in the fourteenth century, it initially retained the meaning of fresh plum. However, since most dried plums were at the time imported to England from France, the term prune eventually switched to specify a dried plum and plum was utilized for the fresh fruit. Since around 2000, American prune marketers have used the name "dried plums" for prunes.
Persians, Georgians, Bukharans, Indians, eastern Europeans, and people from many other cultures prefer sour dried plums in cooking. Sour dried plums, typically an intense violet-brown color, are made from tart red plums, which have a significant amount of sugar in addition to a large amount of acid, adding a slight tang as well as sweetness to dishes. A most important Georgian sauce (tkemali) is made from a tart variety of plum. Bukharans pickle tart plums, which they even add to their Sabbath stew (oshi sabo) and to salads like pakhtakhor. There are also yellow sour dried plums from Turkey and some other Middle Eastern areas. Old-fashioned Ashkenazic appetizing stores once sold sour dried plums, which were popular in tzimmes, compote, fruit soups, farfel, pot roasts, and other traditional dishes, but as these establishments disappeared, the sour types became harder to find and are now primarily available in Middle Eastern and Indian markets and specialty stores. Sephardim enjoy sour dried plums in salads, fish sauces, and stews. Greeks use them in red lentil soup and poyo con prounes (Greek stewed chicken with plums), while Syrians cook them with okra and, in the Maghreb, they are used in tagines. Persians add tart dried plums to many stews, such as gundi barangi (meatballs in tomato sauce) and khoresht carafs (celery stew). Algerians enjoy lahm lhalou (lamb with dried plums), a dish now popular in Israel as well.
In Ashkenazic cuisine, European fresh plums and dried plums are used in preserves, salads, soups, tarts, and cakes as well as to stuff dumplings and fill kreplach, and to make pálenka/slivovitz (plum brandy). Dried plums were the most common fruit of eastern Europeans, used in jams (lekvar), pastries (hamantaschen), tzimmes, compotes, and liqueurs. European plums come into season relatively late in the summer, typically around Rosh Hashanah, leading to their role in areas like Hungary, Germany, and Austria in traditional holiday dishes. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the European plum crop is used either as preserves or in the dried state.
(See also Lekvar and Pálenka/Pálinka)
Plumba
Plumba (from the Late Latin plumba, "lead") is a tag affixed to a food, certifying that it is kosher. In 1888, the Association of American Orthodox Hebrew Congregations appointed Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Vilna, Lithuania, as the first (ultimately only) chief rabbi of New York City. He instituted a practice in which a metal plumba bearing the name of the kosher supervisor was attached to the wing skin of each properly slaughtered chicken. Today, most kosher chickens in America have a plumba attached. It may specify the slaughterhouse, kosher supervising agency, and date of slaughter.
Pogaca
Pogaca is a group of sweet and savory breads and buns.
Origin: Turkey
Other names: bogaca.
Medieval Ottoman Turks prepared a simple flatbread called pogaca; the name comes from the Italian focaccia, which originated in ancient Rome as panis focacius (bread of the hearth). During the Ottoman control of the Balkans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, pogaca spread to the Balkans. In Serbia, pogaca came to mean a large round flatbread, which was made for special occasions, such as weddings, although it was simpler than large raised loaves. The diminutive of the word, pogacice, denotes a Serbian puff pastry. In the fifteenth century, Serbs and Croats fleeing the Turks brought pogaca to Slovenia, where one version of the flatbread, bela krajina pogaca, which is scored with a net pattern and sprinkled with caraway seeds and coarse salt, became a national dish.
Over the centuries, the pogaca in Turkey evolved into a large variety of breads and buns, both savory and sweet; they are made from a basic yeast dough (labne peynirli) commonly enriched with thick Turkish yogurt and eggs, which gave it a yellowish tint. Mahlab (ground cherry pits) is sometimes added. With the addition of sugar to the dough and filling, the bread evolved into a sweet bun, still called pogaca. Zeytinli pogaca is a loaf containing olives. Small breads rolled like a croissant are called kolav pogaca. The most popular of these is peynirli pogaca, which is filled with feta or other white cheese; when dill is added, it becomes a dereotlu peynirli pogaca. Sometimes a meat filling was used (kiymali pogaca), but Jews obviously could not use the yogurt and butter dough with this version. The classic way of filling a pogaca is to fold it like an empanada, so the filled bun resembles a half-moon.
In modern Turkey, both savory and sweet versions of pogaca, typically sprinkled with sesame and/or nigella seeds, remain popular. There is even a quicker baking powder adaptation. All types are common for breakfast and snacks accompanied with black tea.
(See also Bougatsa and Pogácsa)
Turkish Cheese Buns (Peynirli Pogaca)
makes 28 small rolls
[DAIRY]
Sponge:
1 package (2¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast or 1 (0.6-ounce) cake fresh yeast
½ cup warm water (105°F to 115°F for dry yeast; 80°F to 85°F for fresh yeast)
1 teaspoon sugar
½ cup (2 ounces) bread or unbleached all-purpose flour
Dough:
3¼ cups (1 pound) bread or unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt or 2 teaspoons kosher salt
1¼ cups (2½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
Filling:
2 cups (10 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley or dill
Egg wash (1 large egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water)
Sesame or nigella seeds for sprinkling
1. To make the sponge: In a medium glass or ceramic bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water. Stir in the sugar and let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in the flour, cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm, draft-free place for 30 minutes.
2. To make the dough: I
n a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the sponge, butter, and eggs and stir to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, 10 to 15 minutes. Cover with a large bowl or pot and let stand for 30 minutes.
3. To make the filling: In a medium bowl, combine all the filling ingredients.
4. Punch down the dough. Divide into 28 equal pieces, shape into balls, cover, and let rest for 15 minutes.
5. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease the sheets. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough balls into 3½-inch rounds. Spoon 1 tablespoon filling into the center of each round, fold over an edge to form a half-moon, and press the edge to seal. Place the pogaca on the prepared baking sheets, leaving 1 inch between, cover, and let stand for 15 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
7. Brush the pogaca with the egg wash and lightly sprinkle with the seeds. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Pogácsa
Pogácsa is a slightly sweetened, fat-enriched scone.
Origin: Hungary
Other names: pogacha, pogachel, pogatchke.
When the Turkish bread pogaca reached Hungary in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, it developed into a small, round, savory yeast flatbread made with schmaltz (non-Jews typically used lard). The bread then evolved into an array of round scones, all known as pogácsa. Plain ones made from only flour, fat, yeast, and salt are egyszeru pogácsa. When goose gribenes (cracklings) are rolled into the flaky dough, it becomes a liba töpörtyus pogácsa. Many versions are enriched with the addition of túró, the Hungarian version of quark cheese. A sajtos pogácsa contains grated hard cheese and a juhtúrós pogácsa includes brinza. Adding poppy seeds results in mákos pogácsa. Mézespogácsa are sweetened with honey. In the nineteenth century, plebian cooks substituted mashed potatoes for the butter and túró for some or all of the eggs, producing a heavier but less expensive burgonyás pogácsa.
