Plov: Uzbekistan’s national obsession

The ingredients of this meaty rice dish may vary but the beloved central Asian dish always comes in massive portionsIn a small, unremarkable restaurant on Firdavsi Street in Samarkand, the plov arrives at our table. At its most basic, plov is rice with onion and carrots, plus either mutton, lamb or beef, cooked slowly in layers. But this is no ordinary plov; this is plov with bells on, and it takes two waiters to carry the lagan (platter) to the table.Atop the lightly oiled rice and matchsticks