Perhaps try cleaning your lens before taking the photo?
I’ve found that when my photos are sometimes out of focus that remedy works for me.
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I’ve eaten plov many times, but this was my first time making it. I used this recipe as a jumping off point, and felt it has a lot of potential. Here’s what I will do differently next time:
For the amount of rice shown (3 cups), double or perhaps triple the meat. I cut mine into very small 1/2 cubes, because that is how I recall the dish being made. I used lamb shoulder steaks, which worked well. Next time I will add the larger bones to the pot for cooking (but remove them before serving).
The garlic flavor didn’t really come through, despite the visual appeal of cooking the head whole in the pot. Next time I’ll add chopped garlic to the onions and carrots once they’ve softened. I can still stick a head in the pot if I’m trying to impress.
I felt the dish needed some tomato. As a save, I added some paste at the end and stirred it in. Next time I will add some to the carrot and onion once they’ve softened, and cook it a minute or two before adding the rice. I will take the authors advice and add a bit of cumin with the rice next time, as well (she mentions the cumin just briefly).
Last, I will measure the water. The recipe calls for 1" above the rice, which is what I used. All the water cooked off, but I felt it was a bit too much and the rice came out a bit soft. Next time I’ll go with my normal rice to water ratio.
Finally, it hardly took 40 minutes once the water was added. Using boiling water over the rice really speeds things up. Next time I’ll try simmering the rice for 15-18 minutes + and extra 10-12 minutes to steam.
I made 2/3 of the recipe (2 c. rice) with a pound of lamb. For two people, this gave us a TON of leftovers. We’ll have it for breakfast under a fried egg for the next two days. Next time I’m going to cut the rice back to 1 cup, and leave the lamb at a pound (including bones). That should make two generous servings for two carnivores.
If you make it, please post your results!
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Dinner tonight is Pasta e Fagioli from Lidia Bastianich. We had the last quart from a batch I made a year ago (yay for freezer finds!). I made the pasta part fresh tonight. When making this recipe last year, I substituted borlotti beans cooked from dry for the cannellini beans and pancetta in place of the bacon. A little olive oil was drizzled over servings once everything was in the bowls.
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Beef soup with vegetables. I made (and froze) a big batch of the soup base prior, with beef barley soup in mind. This was the last of it, and as I had a lot of veggies around which needed to be used up, I tossed them in instead of barley.
Carrots were the last of our 2021 fall harvest. Baby garden peas from the freezer.
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Thank you! It looks fab.
Tonight I made fish taco bowls - breaded cod, avocado, and tortilla crisps over cabbage and carrot slaw dressed with a mix of tangerine juice, olive oil, scallion, cilantro, cider vinegar, cumin, and coriander. Drizzled with a mix of crema, sour cream, mayo, Sriracha, and Scotch bonnet sauce, and sprinkled with Tajín.
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Tri tip stew with carrot, onion, celery, garlic, and mushrooms served over orange cauli/corn grits. Caesar salad.
Cocktail was a tequila blood orange sunrise, actually it should be a sunset since the sun was setting.
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Gorgeous photo!
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BF made risotto with some Carnaroli rice I had, but it came out a little too al dente. I think I normally cook it longer than the recommended 16-18 minutes. It had good flavor, with garlic sausage, shrooms and red bell pepper., and his deliciously sweet zucchini on the side.
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i love that!
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wish I were there for that sunset and cocktail!
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An exhausting day off that included a visit to HMart AND Costco! Ouch! My wallet was begging for mercy. My debit card was smoking!
From HMart, while not dinner I wanted to share. We picked up a few things to cook at home. First was Takoyaki, which are balls made of wheat batter and pieces of octopus. Drizzled with Kewpie mayo and a special Takoyaki sauce, they were very good. The mayo really made the dish. There were also steamed buns with red bean paste (my favorite) and…pizza! I didn’t think I was going to be a fan of that one and I was right (corn in pizza???). One bite was all I needed. But everything else, A+.
Dinner was takeout. I cook a lot of Indian food and while I think I’m pretty good, nothing beats my lifelong love Neelam Exotic Indian Food. After all these years, they are still on top of their game. I had Chicken Tikka Masala (of course), BF had Chicken Kashmiri (not pictured), and mom had Tandoori Chicken. On the side was my own homemade Bhel Puri and there was naan in the freezer from the Indian market.
To drink: Kirkland French vodka from Costco. $18.99 for a Grey Goose replica? F*ck yeah!
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I didn’t even share how much booze I bought at Costco. If you thought my initial post was funny… 
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That relleno looks good, not too much breading.
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Dinner last night was a whole roasted pig. It took days to thaw and about two days to make. We spatchcocked it and then injected it with a Criollo Mojo all over. It was cooked in a Cuban style China Box. The pig is fastened between two metal grates and tied together with metal wires. It is cooked skin side down first, then flipped over for the last 3 hours of cooking to get the skin crispy and delicious. To make sure we could fit an apple in it’s mouth, we used a throwaway onion and then replaced it with a fresh apple for service. We built a tray large enough to serve it over a bed of basmati rice. What you can’t see in the pictures is all the sauces I made to go with it. We made traditional Ssamjang and Momofuku Ssam Sauce, ginger scallion sauce, fish sauce vinaigrette, mustard seed sauce, aji verde, chimichurri sauce, and also had plenty of BBQ sauce in lot so varieties that I bought- because it was exhausting making all the sauces, yo! We had buns, tortilla wraps in taco size, seaweed laver sheets, and lettuce for people to eat it that way, if they wished. The skin got really charred, but was super delicious. And by cooking it skin side down first, all the juices stayed in the pig and it was really moist. My husband is a wonderful human being and talented and made the box and the wooden tray for service himself. He invited a couple of guys over to help with the actual pig. And so, we were hungover for about 3 mights in a row as each night was such a convivial gathering of intrepid and curious minds. It was a group effort and I’m grateful for the good friends who helped make it happen. But I’m not sure if we will ever do it again!
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Amazing WFD!
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That Costco in Edison is a killer!!!
For those outside of NJ - not all Costcos are allowed to sell liquor (damn NJ liquor laws). The particular store that @gcaggiano went to is located in a very central location of the state, with easy access from many directions. It is a destination. There are probably 6 5-6 stores that are closer to me but I still will drive up there in order to restock the liquor cabinet. Well worth the gas (even at current prices) and tolls.
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I’m sure it was a gargantuan effort. Especially for a Thursday night, by which time I’m already tired of cooking for the week.
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