🇹🇯 Tajik Cuisine

Oshi Tupa

Birthday Pilaf

Prep Time 1 hour

Servings 8

Difficulty Hard

Calories 475 kcal

A festive lamb and rice pilaf cooked with chickpeas, raisins, and quince, prepared for birthday celebrations and special events.

Ingredients

600g lamb on the bone
500g long-grain rice, soaked
3 carrots, julienned
2 onions, sliced
200g chickpeas, soaked overnight
100g raisins
1 quince, sliced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp turmeric
100ml vegetable oil
Salt
1L water

Instructions

1 Heat oil in a kazan until smoking. Brown lamb on all sides. Remove.
2 Fry onions until golden, add carrots, cook 10 min.
3 Return lamb, add chickpeas, cumin, turmeric, salt, and water. Boil 30 min.
4 Layer raisins and quince slices over the meat.
5 Drain rice and spread evenly over everything. Add water to just cover rice.
6 Cover tightly, cook on lowest heat 30-40 min until rice is fluffy.
7 Gently mound rice on a platter, arrange meat and carrots on top.

Did You Know?

At Tajik weddings, the oshi tupa is cooked in a kazan so large it can serve 500 guests, and the head cook (oshpaz) is a position of great honor.