Photo: Tiffany Converse Photography
Okay this next thing is cool. He basically made lamb cracklin's with the lamb fat. Or maybe they're more like bacon bits. Fried animal fat.
The process flavors the oil, in turn the rice, and makes for a good little appetizer or cook's snack. 
This next picture is his steam vent trick. Read more about it in the recipe. Very little of the rice is sitting in water because he uses less water than the 2:1 ratio, we cook some of it off w/o a lid, and then the narrow bottom of the walk keeps most rice above what little water remains. The steam vents and the lid help the existing moisture in all the meat and veggies soften the rice over two hours and fifteen minutes of slow cooking. 
1. Prep. Soak rice in warm water in a mixing bowl. Slice the onions into crescent moons, cut a 3 x 3” swath of lamb fat and cut in to bite-size thin strips, and lamb meat off the bone into bite size nuggets. Slice carrots into matchsticks with a knife, mandolin, or buy them pre-cut.
2. Saute. In a wok on high, fry the lamb fat pieces in the olive oil. When brown and crispy, remove with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towel, sprinkle generously with salt and serve as an appetizer. Brown onions in the oil (about 5 min) then add lamb meat pieces and bone. Add salt and sear lamb until a slight crust forms on pieces or they look cooked. Add carrots. When they’re wilted, just cover the contents of the pan with water, add a garlic head (left whole, skin on), and bring to a boil.
3. Slow cook. Drain the rice and refill, repeating until the water remains clear. Drain rice and add to wok, stirring until liquid disappears. Make a smooth mound of the half-cooked rice mixture, and sprinkle the top with raisins and cumin seeds. Create steam vents by poking through the mound to the bottom with the back of a wooden spoon. Repeat all over every 1-2 inches. Gently push the top layer of rice over the holes, and cover contents with a metal mixing bowl or lid. Turn heat to low and cook for about 2:15 without lifting lid until meat is tender. Serve with a salad of fresh tomato, onion, and cucumber with salt and pepper, and garnish plates with one or two roasted garlic cloves.
Please let me know how this recipe is working for you! lindsay@lindsaysterling.com
Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010
A friend told me I had to cook with her friend, Momen Abdullayof. He’s from Uzbekistan, a country I would have been really lucky to fill in correctly on a geography test. Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan and four other countries I can’t rattle off, all ending in –istan. Momen says his homeland is about the size of Maine, an 8-10 hour drive border to border. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Here we cook with olive oil. There they use cottonseed. His brothers, recently visiting the United States for the first time, ogled at all his pots and pans and his water faucet. Where they live houses have just one pot and no running water. Momen recalled his brothers guffawing as they opened his cabinets and drawers. “What do you need this -- an electric slow cooker?” “You live a hundred years advanced from us.” “This house is beyond my imagination.”
He shows me just what kind of magic Uzbeks can do with a single pot they call a kawzan, a large cast-iron wok with a lid. He calls his favorite dish osh: a slightly chewy mixture of lamb nuggets and white rice flavored with fried lamb fat, browned onions, lamb bone, cumin, raisins, a head of garlic left whole, and a huge pile of julienned carrots. He cooks by eye, scooping rice with a pint glass, not even measuring the rice water. You can make this vegetarian, or use chicken or beef, he says. Already, I see the number of dishes I can make with just one pot multiplying.
Momen corrects my impression that he and his brothers suffered for their lack of what I consider necessities. “Suffering is no food to eat, no clothes.” So they didn’t have a telephone. They’d run to their aunt’s house to invite her to dinner, and have tea with her before returning. So they didn’t have a car. “Horses, donkeys, bicycles, that’s fine.” The photographer and I look at each other thinking: sounds kind of nice. But then Momen tells us Uzkbekistan is one of the top five most dangerous places to go. I don’t think Momen’s brothers entertained the idea of living here so one day they could use an electric slow cooker. Organized crime is rampant in Uzbekistan, and as Momen said, “you cannot question the government’s decision.” I balked at asking what would happen if one did.
When he arrived here as a twenty-two year-old refugee in 1987, Momen did not know A from B, and owed $400 dollars to the organization that bought his plane ticket here. He took English classes at Portland Adult Education and got his first job at the gas station, Cumberland Farms. After that he measured beans at the B & M Baked Beans factory. Today, he’s a pharmacist at Rite Aid, a husband and father, and living in a house that’s enviable by my standards. “You can do it.” He says, “You have to have determination to work hard to make things better.” But what is “better?” we wonder after the meal, as our country is divorcing, depressing, stressing, and blimping out. A long walk to an aunt’s house sounds about right, while texting healthy criticisms of those in power.
Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010
