The other evening we once again provided home hospitality several state department sponsor visitors. Constant Companion and I have enjoyed participating in this activity even before we married. It has given us and Daughter opportunities to meet interesting people working in many fields from around the world.

Sometimes, following my mother’s lead, I cook simple food, knowing our guests have been on the road for a while and either restaurant or fast food. My go-to meal is broiled chicken, steamed rice, and a green vegetable. Other times, my cooking is more complex and I try to give their palettes a relief from the foreign American food.

This time, our guests were from Tajikistan. The “-stans” have long held a mystique to me. Their cultures and rich traditions have been fascinating, and so far away. Constant Companion reminded me that a while ago I’d prepared a rice dish that comes from that region, plov . Who can remember what my inspiration had been? Our dinner, built around this variation of a rice pilaf, included a small roast leg of lamb, eggplant salad, and a green salad. I was working the day of the dinner so fell back onto a fruit plate for dessert.

The plov recipe came from an old, probably obscure cookbook – Food Traditional of the Jews from the Soviet Union. Printed in 1982, this cookbook was the product of intense interest in multiculturalism in America. Numerous projects documenting the rich and varied heritages in immigrant/ethnic communities emerged across the country in the 80s. The short-lived, grassroots museum at which I honed my skills was among these.

The source of this plov recipe was a family from Bukhara. In my inimitable style, I changed it by cooking the lamb separately, not in the rice.

Plov. First, the preparations for cooking. Dice 3-4 medium onions. Cut 2 pounds of beef or lamb into cubes. Julianne 1 pound of carrots into 1” segments.

Heat ¾ cup of vegetable oil in a dutch oven or heavy pot with cover. Fry the ovens on a low flame for 5 minutes. Add the meat and fry another 10 minutes, stirring often. Add the carrots. Add spices (t tbsp. salt, 1 tsp black pepper, 1 ½ tbsp. turmeric, ¾ tsp cumin) and toast well.* Add 4 cups of rice (I used basmati that I’d washed about 3 times) then water to the level of 2 fingers above the rice. Cover the pot and simmer ½ hour to 45 minutes until most of the liquid is evaporated.

Another ingredient was dried barberries, a frequent ingredient in nearby Iranian cooking. I’d had a box of dried blackberries in the pantry and used them, the black things in the photo above.

Using the handle of a wooden spoon, bore several holes through the rice mixture to allow the rice to continue cooking. Cook another ½ hour. My rice had cooked completely by the 45 minute mark. I turned off the heat and went to work. Shortly before dinner, I followed this step and added a bit more water to heat the rice. Our guest politely complimented the meal, though I’m sure my plov does not shine a light beside his wife’s version!

*Actually, the recipe calls for adding the spices only to the rice.

In the meantime, we had lots of leftover plov. Our family enjoys leftover, but this was too much. I decided to transform some of it into shrimp fried rice the next night. Not a difficult transition.

Shrimp fried rice. Marinate one pound of shelled shrimp with 2 tsp cornstarch and 1 tsp soy sauce. Set aside. Saute the shrimp in a few tablespoons of oil in a work or large skillet. Remove from the pan. Add 1 cup of thawed frozen peas to the pan and sauté. When warmed up, add 2 beaten eggs and scramble loosely. Add 1 ½ tbsp. of oyster sauce and 1 1/2 tbsp. of soy sauce, mix well. Add the leftover rice along with 4-5 thinly sliced scallions and the reserved shrimp; I think I had about 2 cups of plov. Continue carefully gently stirring until all the ingredients are well mixed.