Tasting the Silk Road : Bukhara, Tashkent and Samarkand ... A first look at the cuisone of Uzbekistan, the former Soviet republic that is the culinary capital of Central Asia.

People in striped robes sit under aspen trees, drinking tea dosed with black pepper and eating shish kebab sprinkled with curry-type spices. But they don’t eat curries; they tend to flavor stew in the Persian fashion, with fruit instead of spices. They also eat steamed dumplings, lamb with noodles and other spicy dishes from western China--those remote western provinces that Chinese regional cookbooks ignore. They like quinces and pomegranates, dill and basil, red pepper, puff pastry, horse-meat sausage and yogurt.

Above all, they honor pilaf. One of their cookbooks gives no fewer than 60 traditional pilaf recipes.And they’re famous for their pizza-shaped breads, which they tend to cover with intricate geometric patterns of crimping and punch marks. For that matter, they often carve melons in geometric shapes.

This is the cuisine of Uzbekistan, which has long been popular among the sophisticates of Moscow. Now that Uzbekistan is an independent republic, developing its own contacts with the outside world, we may get a chance to taste its cuisine ourselves.

Uzbekistan is the wealthiest, most populous republic in Central Asia. It contains the area’s longest river, the Amu Darya, and is a major producer of cotton. There are about 14 million Uzbeks, and Tashkent was the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union. For this reason, and because of the ancient wealth and cosmopolitanism of the great medieval caravan cities of Bukhara, Tashkent and Samarkand, Uzbekistan has the richest culinary heritage in the region. It also happens to be the best-documented cuisine.

To get an idea of what’s going on in Uzbek cuisine, it may help to imagine Central Asia--the vast plain to the north of Iran and Afghanistan, extending from the Ukraine to the borders of China--as the shared back yard of the major Eurasian civilizations. It’s not part of China, India, Europe or even the Near East, but a great expanse of deserts and grasslands--broken here and there by rivers supporting tracts of irrigated farmland--that separates them.

Those surrounding civilizations have often spilled over into Uzbekistan. Samarkand was once known as Alexandria Maracanda, after Alexander the Great, who did some conquering around there. In the early centuries of our era, Christian missionaries from the Near East competed with Hindu and Buddhist missionaries from India; Bukhara gets its name from a Buddhist monastery ( vihara ) once located there. China dominated the area in the early 7th Century until it was defeated by Muslim armies from Arabia.

Most invaders, however, have been nomads from the steppes. Until the 9th Century, everybody in what is now Uzbekistan--not only the farmers and Silk Road merchants but even the nomads--spoke languages related to Persian and had cultural contacts with Iran, though the area didn’t fully come into the Iranian cultural orbit until after it had become converted to Islam.

Ironically, though, at the same time that the Muslim farmers and city people were starting to speak proper Persian, their cousins, the Iranian nomads of the steppe, were being replaced by Turkish nomads from western Mongolia. Turks started moving there in appreciable numbers during the 9th Century, first offering their services as soldiers to the local rulers and then setting up kingdoms of their own. Eventually some of them reached and conquered what is now Turkey.

Most of the Turkish tribes, however, remained nomads. In the 13th Century they formed the local troops of the Mongolian Empire, and after its fall, competing Turkish nomad chieftains such as Tamerlane--all claiming descent from Genghis Khan--continued to rule the steppes. Around 1500, Muhammad Shaibani rallied a confederacy called the Uzbeks and went on to conquer most of Central Asia (defeating a rival of his named Babur so soundly that Babur gave up on Central Asia and went off to conquer India, founding the Moghul dynasty there). Shaibani made Bukhara his capital, as Tamerlane’s had been Samarkand.

During the 17th Century, the Uzbeks abandoned the wandering life and became farmers and city dwellers. By the time the area was conquered by the Russians in the 19th Century, most people in Uzbekistan spoke Uzbek rather than Persian.

But by then, the Uzbeks had almost totally adopted the culture of the original Iranian inhabitants, who are known as the Tajiks (most present-day Tajiks live in the neighboring republic of Tajikistan, however). Uzbeks and Tajiks dress in the same colorful ikat fabrics, with their distinctive stripes of random length. Their languages have even come to resemble each other.

They cook alike too. Central Asian cooking is largely a simpler, more rugged cousin of Iranian cuisine, but with a wild, frontier exoticism of its own. Not that it doesn’t have its own sort of subtlety, as in a salad of thinly sliced onions dressed with pomegranate juice and pomegranate seeds, and not that some of its dishes aren’t surprisingly familiar-- sutli dumbil is just about the same as American corn chowder.

In Iran, rich stews are often served on top of rice. This is not the usual custom in Central Asia, where people are obsessed with pilaf: meat, onions, carrots and tart barberries ( zirk ) mixed with rice and steamed together. Central Asians also make a huge variety of small pies and stuffed dumplings called chuchwara (which are boiled), manti (usually steamed) and saamsa (baked or fried). The filling may be meat, morel mushrooms, fried onions (with or without dried tomatoes) or even a puree of squash or garbanzos.

Basically, the Uzbeks seem to have contributed porridges, grilled meats and pastas, while the Tajiks are responsible for the meat soups, stews and pilafs. Both traditions have contributed breads, the Turkish ones often being fried, rather than baked, because the nomads didn’t have ovens.

The Uzbeks found the Tajiks cooking pizza-like leavened breads called naan in clay ovens called tannurs . They resemble the tandoori naan we know from Indian restaurants, but they are always round, rather than oval. Uzbekistan is a land of harsh winters, and folklorists believe the round shape symbolizes the longed-for sun. The breads can be used as plates (their raised edges help), and when ornamented with particular care they may be displayed on hotel walls as art works.

As for the nomads’ cuisine, it was not, as people often think, basically shish kebab and yogurt. The real basis of the ancient Turkish diet was grain foods such as porridges, pancakes, noodles and dumplings. A lot of these nomad dishes have survived. Yupqa , for instance, is still a thin bread or crepe (today often made with onion juice in the batter and served with yogurt).

The great feast dish of the Turkish nomads was noodles. In the 11th Century, they had a legend that noodles had been invented during Alexander the Great’s (mythical) expedition to find the Fountain of Youth. According to the story, his troops complained of hunger, so Alexander consulted Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and other philosophers, and they invented noodles.

His men’s exact words were “ Bizni tutma ach “ (“Don’t keep us hungry”), and this supposedly explains why the ancient Turkish word for noodles was tutmach . These days, the Turks of Central Asia sometimes tell the same story--but in the modern version, Alexander’s advisers invent pilaf, the Tajik specialty that has replaced noodles as the high-prestige feast dish.

The nomads did eat yogurt, of course--and several dried or concentrated yogurt products we’re unfamiliar with. For instance, there’s a dried yogurt called qurt or qurut . One variety of it, called qaara (black) qurut , may be close to pure casein, because modern travelers in Central Asia tell stories of patching leaky radiators with it.

There’s one clear case of a food deriving from the Mongols: a rice porridge called shawla , whose name goes back to the Mongolian sholen. Somewhere along the line some Indian influence crept into the local mix. Uzbeks and Tajiks both cook kichri , the Indian mixture of rice and beans, and a version of chapati bread ( chewati ).

Apart from some inevitable Russian influence, such as making tea in the samovar, the last element to enter Uzbek cuisine was Chinese. In 1862, the Muslim majority of the western provinces of China revolted against the Manchu government. The uprising was finally throttled in 1878 at the cost of millions of lives, and many Muslims fled over the Tien Shan Mountains into Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Their descendants still live there, usually in separate communities where they speak either Chinese or a Turkish language called Uighur.

These refugees brought with them a number of Chinese noodle dishes and steamed breads. The idea of eating noodles with a sauce on top was new in Central Asia, where the traditional home of the noodle was soup. The Chinese dishes introduced a new way of looking at noodles, and the Uzbeks now also serve rice with a sauce on top--they call it guruch laghmaan , “rice a la pasta.”

We could think of Uzbek cooking as caravan cuisine--a land-locked, Inner Asian equivalent of Pacific Rim cuisine. To judge from the way it has picked and chosen from all the influences available to it, it seems to be quite a vigorous tradition. Let’s hope Uzbekistan can beat the food supply problems that plague the former Soviet republics and its cuisine can flourish anew.

Note: The Uzbek language has six vowels--a, e, i, o and u, which resemble the vowels in Spanish, plus one more that sounds like the English sound “aw.” However, in the Russian alphabet, “aw” is spelled o and “oh” is spelled as a u with a special mark on it. Translators often follow the Russian spelling, and this is why the people who call themselves Ozbeks are known to us as Uzbeks, and why some translators call the fried dumpling samsa and others call it somsa. Now that Uzbekistan is independent, however, we should start spelling Uzbek words more systematically. In this article the “aw” sound is spelled aa because it was originally a long a . There is a convenient precedent for this, because aa is how “aw” used to be spelled in Danish and Norwegian.

Uzbekistan has a continental climate of hot summers and freezing winters (traditional houses often have two clay ovens, one indoors for cooking in winter and an outdoor one for summer use). As a result, Uzbekistan tends to have a summer cuisine and a winter cuisine, and the winter cherry soup given below may be a little too hearty to cook just now. Though we have generally used meat from leg of lamb for these recipes, beef could be substituted for most of them--the Uzbek cookbooks only occasionally specify a particular kind of meat.

This may not be exotic in flavor, but it definitely doesn’t come out looking like your average white bread. The Uzbeks have a special utensil called a chakich for making the concentric circles of punch marks.

OI NAANI (Uzbek Home-Style Bread)

3 1/2 to 4 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 package yeast

1 1/2 cups milk

1 egg, beaten

Combine 1 cup flour, salt and yeast in large bowl. Heat milk to hot (125 to 130 degrees) in saucepan, then stir into flour. Add enough flour to make moderately stiff dough, 2 1/2 to 3 cups. Knead 10 minutes. Let rise, covered, in warm place until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours.

Punch risen dough down and divide into 6 balls. On 3 lightly greased baking sheets, flatten balls with hands into round pizza shapes 7 or 8 inches in diameter and 1/4-inch thick in center, with 1-inch-wide raised edges about 1-inch thick. Using ice pick or head of brad, cover flat center of bread with decorative holes in concentric circles. Cover loaves with cloth and let stand 10 minutes.

Brush loaves with beaten egg. Bake at 400 degrees until browned, 15 to 20 minutes. Makes 6 flat loaves.

Each loaf contains about:

311 calories; 436 mg sodium; 40 mg cholesterol; 3 grams fat; 59 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams protein; 0.18 gram fiber.

This dish, also called ayraan, is the Uzbek combination of two widespread Asian ideas, the drink of yogurt diluted with water and the yogurt-and-cucumber salad. It can serve either as a refreshing summer drink (in really hot weather, Uzbeks will sometimes put an ice cube in it) or as an appetizer.

CHALAAP (Yogurt Drink)

1 (32-ounce) carton plain yogurt

3 1/2 to 4 cups water

2 cucumbers, chopped

1 bunch radishes, trimmed and chopped

1/2 bunch cilantro, minced

1/2 bunch parsley, minced

1/2 bunch green onions, minced

1 sprig basil, minced

Salt, pepper

8 whole basil leaves

Dilute yogurt with water in large bowl. Add cucumbers, radishes, cilantro, parsley, green onions and minced basil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with whole basil leaves. Serve cold. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

86 calories; 121 mg sodium; 7 mg cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 11 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams protein; 0.59 gram fiber.

A hearty winter soup.

AALBALI MASTAWA (Cherry Soup)

1 (8-ounce) bag dried cherries

1 1/2 onions

3/4 pound ground lamb

Salt, pepper

1 carrot, peeled and diced

2 small potatoes, peeled and diced

1/2 cup rice

Fresh mint or cilantro leaves, minced

Place dried cherries in 8 cups boiling water and simmer 10 minutes, skimming surface. Mince 1 onion to make 1/2 cup and mix with meat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Make about 28 small meatballs, 1 generous teaspoon each.

Slice remaining onion into rings and place in pot with cherries, meatballs and carrot. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add potatoes and rice and cook until rice is done, 20 to 25 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Thin soup with water as needed. Garnish with mint or cilantro. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

229 calories; 57 mg sodium; 19 mg cholesterol; 6 grams fat; 36 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams protein; 0.33 gram fiber.

This is the style of pilaf native to the Ferghana Valley, a fertile agricultural area just off the Silk Road. The longer the meat mixture simmers before the rice is added, the more flavorful the pilaf will be. Tart dried barberries are sold at Iranian markets as zereshk; currants might be substituted.

QAAWURMA PALAAW (Fried Pilaf)

1 cup oil

4 to 5 small onions, chopped

1 pound lamb leg meat

3 to 4 lamb bones

5 large carrots, peeled and cut julienne, about 3 cups

Salt, pepper

5 cups rice, rinsed

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup barberries (zereshk)

Green onions, cut julienne, for garnish

Heat oil in large sauce pot. Add and fry onions until browned. Add meat and bones and fry until lightly browned. Add carrots and fry until slightly browned. Add 1 quart water. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer 50 to 60 minutes. Skim excess fat. Add rice, cumin, barberries and 8 cups water. Bring to rapid boil and simmer over low heat until liquid is absorbed, about 10 to 15 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Scoop meat and rice into heavy pot. Using long-handled wooden spoon, poke vent holes to bottom of pot. Place small dampened dish towel or cheesecloth over pot and set cover on top. Simmer over very low heat 20 to 25 minutes. Fluff rice and serve, garnished with browned bones and green onions. Makes 10 servings.

Each serving contains about:

548 calories; 62 mg sodium; 21 mg cholesterol; 25 grams fat; 70 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams protein; 0.55 gram fiber.

A typical Uzbek variation on the basic pilaf idea. The name “ soaked pilaf” probably refers to the soaking of the rice.

IWITMA PALAAW (Garbanzo Pilaf)

1/2 pound dried garbanzos

5 cups rice

3/4 cup oil

3/4 pound lamb leg meat, cubed

2 large onions, sliced in rings

2 1/4 cups diced peeled carrots

Salt, pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup barberries

Soak garbanzos in water overnight, then drain. Soak rice in warm salted water 2 hours.

Heat oil in large saucepan and brown meat. Add onion rings and cook over low heat until onions are browned, about 30 minutes. Add carrots and garbanzos. Barely cover with water and simmer 1 hour, or until garbanzos are tender. Season to taste with salt, pepper and cumin. Add barberries.

Drain soaking water from rice. Strew rice over meat and add 1 quart water. Bring to hard boil, uncovered. When water boils off, pile rice and meat into pot and poke vent holes to bottom with long-handled wooden spoon. Cook covered over low heat 20 to 25 minutes. Serve pilaf on plate with meat arranged on top. Makes 10 servings.

Each serving contains about:

510 calories; 122 mg sodium; 16 mg cholesterol; 19 grams fat; 73 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams protein; 0.72 gram fiber.

For lamb shish kebab, the meat would be marinated the same way as the beef in the following recipe. However, lamb is cut in chunks, rather than strips, and it is traditional to add a chunk of lamb fat to every skewer of meat. In the city of Kokand, in the Ferghana Valley, the traditional kebab is a skewer of lamb, another of liver and a third of kidneys, cooked on a special three-pronged skewer.

CHOPAAN KABAAB (Beef Shish Kebab)

2 pounds top sirloin, cut in thin strips

2 to 3 onions, chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

4 teaspoons vinegar

Pita bread

Siced onions, cucumbers or tomatoes for garnish

Marinate meat with chopped onions, salt, cumin, coriander, cayenne and vinegar 4 to 24 hours. Arrange meat on 8 skewers and grill or broil until done, about 10 minutes. Serve 2 skewers on piece of pita bread. Garnish with sliced onions, cucumbers or tomatoes. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

343 calories; 842 mg sodium; 100 mg cholesterol; 11 grams fat; 21 grams carbohydrates; 40 grams protein; 0.67 gram fiber.

BEHI DIMLAMA (Lamb Stewed With Quinces)

1/4 cup oil

1 pound lamb leg meat, cubed

2 cups onion, chopped

2 quinces, each cut in half, seeds removed, sliced

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 quart water

Salt, pepper

Heat oil in saucepan. Add and brown meat. Add onion, quinces, cumin, water and season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer, covered, until meat is tender and liquid is reduced to stew-like consistency, 50 to 60 minutes. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

288 calories; 132 mg sodium; 54 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 14 grams carbohydrates; 19 grams protein; 1.31 grams fiber.

This saamsa uses a rough Central Asian variety of puff pastry made by an unusual method. The name “button samosa” may refer to the spiral pattern on the bottom that results. The Russian text of the recipe calls for cottonseed oil because Uzbekistan is a major cotton-growing area.

TUGMACHA SAAMSA (Button Samosas)

2 ounces beef fat, diced

1/4 cup oil

3 cups flour, about

1 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

Meat Filling

Render beef fat in oil. Remove browned bits. Let fat cool.

Combine flour, water and salt and knead on lightly floured board, sprinkling with more flour as needed until no longer sticky. Roll out to 18x12-inch rectangle. Brush with melted fat and roll up dough from 18-inch side in tight roll. Cut into 1 1/2-inch lengths.

Set dough slices upright on board, flatten with thumb and roll out, 1 at time, to 5-inch circles. Place 1 tablespoon Meat Filling in center of each. Moisten edges of dough and gather up to seal over top. Lightly brush dough with remaining fat. Bake at 400 degrees until browned, about 20 to 25 minutes. Makes about 14 dumplings.

Each serving contains about:

192 calories; 206 mg sodium; 20 mg cholesterol; 8 grams fat; 21 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams protein; 0.1 gram fiber.

Meat Filling

1 pound lamb leg meat

1/2 cup chopped onion

Salt, pepper

Grind meat. Mix with onion and season to taste with salt and pepper.

A dish brought to Uzbekistan in the 1870s by Muslim refugees from what is now Xinjiang Province, China. Maanpar is the Uzbek pronunciation of the Chinese mian piar, “sliced noodles . “ The technique consists of taking walnut-sized lumps of dough and rolling them between the hands into thick, pencil-like rods, which are then stretched out about a foot and a half long before being sliced into reasonable lengths. For convenience, we substitute the usual Italian linguine method. Oddly, the sauce (waaju) tastes rather Italian--except in winter, when a mixture of tomato paste and chopped daikon is used in place of fresh tomatoes.

MAANPAR (Lamb With Noodles, Xinjiang-Style)

4 cups flour

1 egg

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon warm water

1 teaspoon salt

Waaju

6 eggs, fried sunny side up

1/2 bunch dill, minced

1/2 bunch cilantro, minced

Combine flour, egg, water and salt. Knead on floured board. Let stand 20 minutes. Using pasta machine or rolling pin, roll out and cut into linguine-width noodles.

Add noodles to boiling salted water. Return to boil and simmer 1 minute. Drain in colander. Serve with Waaju and garnish with fried egg, minced dill and cilantro. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

671 calories; 565 mg sodium; 284 mg cholesterol; 28 grams fat; 75 grams carbohydrates; 29 grams protein; 1.27 grams fiber.

Waaju

1 pound lamb leg meat

1/2 cup oil

1 cup chopped onions

1 head garlic, peeled and minced

3 sweet red peppers, cut in half and sliced

5 tomatoes, chopped

Salt, pepper

1 bay leaf

2 tablespoons vinegar

Cut meat into 2-inch slices. Heat oil in skillet and brown meat. Add onions and garlic and saute until tender. Add sweet peppers, tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, bay leaf and vinegar. Cover and simmer about 25 minutes. Makes about 6 cups.

A walnut sweet served with tea.

YANCHMISH (Walnut-Raisin Balls)

1/2 cup oat flour

1 pound walnut meats, about 5 cups

4 cups seedless raisins

1/2 teaspoon rose water

Powdered sugar

Toast oat flour in skillet. Roast nuts in 350-degree oven until raw smell disappears, about 5 minutes. Grind or mince walnuts and raisins together. Mix in toasted oat flour and rose water. Form into walnut-size balls. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Makes 44 balls.

Each serving contains about:

116 calories; 3 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 15 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 0.68 gram fiber.

A whiff of the West: a Near Eastern or Indian sort of sweet flavored with vanilla where you’d expect rosewater.

SABZI MURABBAASI (Carrot Preserves)

2 1/4 pounds carrots

2 cups water

5 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Peel carrots and slice thin. If large, make 4 to 8 score marks with knife along length before slicing. Place in saucepan with water. Bring to boil. Cover and simmer until tender, 20 to 25 minutes, removing scum. Add sugar and simmer until liquid is thick and syrupy, 45 minutes to 1 hour. When cool, add vanilla. Makes 10 servings.

Each serving contains about:

429 calories; 37 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 fat; 110 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 1.04 grams fiber.