Mastava: Uzbek rice soup

Mastava with Uzbek nan bread.

This is one of my favorite soups and it’s very easy to make. Mastava is a thick, hearty soup of rice, meat, potatoes, and other vegetables, served with a dollop of sour cream. Like many Central Asian soups, it is first “fried”, then water is added to make it into a soup.

Don’t worry about the exact proportions of the ingredients, just make sure you don’t put in so many things that it doesn’t fit in your pot! You can add in whatever other vegetables you have on hand. It’s a good dish to make a big batch of on weekends if you are too busy to cook during the week, or happen to have a lot of vegetables on hand. It stores well and tastes even better the next day.

I made this Uzbek-style nan bread to eat with the soup. The recipe is very similar to the Uyghur nan bread I posted earlier, although there are some slight differences. The Uzbek nan is generally softer and thicker. I’ll do another post on it soon.

This recipe is from Восточный Пир by Hakim Ganiev.

Ingredients
Meat (beef or lamb) diced into cubes
Onion, diced
Garlic, diced
Carrots, diced into cubes
Potatoes, diced into cubes
Bell peppers, diced into cubes
Tomatoes, diced into cubes
Rice (only a handful, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes) – you can just use regular rice for this as it will get soggy in the soup
Tomato paste
Salt
Cumin
Black pepper
Sour cream (garnish), or smetana if you have it
Cilantro (garnish)

Directions
1. Sautee the onions in oil, on high heat, until they are slightly translucent and golden. Add the meat and garlic and sautee.

2. When the meat is browned, add in the carrots and bell peppers. Cook this for a few minutes on medium heat.

3. Add in a few big spoonfuls of tomato paste and mix well. Add the tomatoes. Mix everything well and cook for a bit.

4. Add the potatoes, salt, and spices (ground cumin, black pepper). Cook for a few minutes.

5. Pour in cold water until you have as much soup as you want. It will be a fairly thick soup in the end.

6. Turn the heat to high until the water has just started to boil. Then turn to minimum heat and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

7. Add in the rice and let it simmer for another 10-15 minutes until the rice is soft.

8. Salt to taste. The soup is done! Serve with a spoonful of sour cream and chopped cilantro.

Uyghur “bagels” (Girde nan)

We covered the iconic round Uyghur nan bread in another post. Another one of my favorite Uyghur breads is “girde nan”, which resembles a bagel, or more precisely, a bialy. It’s shaped like a bagel but the hole doesn’t go all the way through. They cook it in tandoor ovens just like nan, slapping it onto the walls and prying it off with tongs when done.

Making these yourself is actually really simple, and way easier than the big disc-shaped bread because you want it to be thick. The instructions are the same as for nan, but shaping them is much easier. You can put your favorite bagel toppings on them too; I like putting garlic even though that isn’t really common in Xinjiang.

Directions
1. In a large bowl, make a mountain of flour with a hole in the middle. Pour warm water into the middle, add 1/3-1/2 packet of dry yeast, salt, and a bit of sugar. Mix well and let stand for a few minutes. When it has gotten frothy, add the egg in. Then mix everything well, adding water as needed.

2. When you have a somewhat firm mixture, flour a surface and knead the dough for 10 minutes.

3. Oil a bowl and put the kneaded dough ball in, cover with a cloth and let rest for 1 hour in a warm place. Preheat the oven to 500 F at this stage.

4. When the dough has finished resting, punch it down and knead it a bit more.

5. Take a piece of dough and roll it into a ball; flatten it a bit with a rolling pin and use your thumbs in the center to make a deep indentation. Use a fork and poke holes all around the edge of this indent and in the center so it doesn’t rise.

6. Coat the outside with egg or oil, and add your favorite toppings: sesame, nigella seeds, poppy, garlic, onion, etc. Bake on a pizza stone for ~10 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy!