Uyghur lamb lagman. Uyghur lagman: recipe

It was Friday evening, my friends and I came to a cafe to watch the Zenit game (I’m in St. Petersburg, and, of course, a Zenit fan). We sat, watched football, rejoiced at a good and beautiful game. We discussed the menu and talked with the waitresses. The conversation turned to asian dishes(the menu included manti, chebureki, shurpa). Our conversation was joined by the “owner” of the cafe, who had just arrived to check if everything was fine there.

So, word by word, we came to the conclusion that many people love tasty and proper Asian dishes, but there are few places where you can eat them... The “hostess” said that she has a good Uzbek cook, and that she makes an excellent lagman.

Well, I said - let's have a competition!? Whose lagman will be tastier and more interesting!?

Deal! - said the “hostess”, - even tomorrow!

And we, together with our friends, decided to arrange a “friendly competition” in cooking lagman.

Yes, yes, a simple lagman. What can you compete in here, those who have never eaten lagman will ask. Well, you know very well that lagman can be different, both in taste, and in the type of preparation, and even in the method of serving.

So, the cook of our cafe (originally from Samarkand) made the classic Uzbek lagman, and my friend (originally from Andijan) made the “Uighur” lagman. I myself and several other people were “in the wings” for him, that is, they did minor auxiliary work - cleaning, cutting, etc.

And although the “competition” cannot be called completely fair - because we initially agreed to make both lagmans in parallel, and the cafe cook prepared both the vaja and the noodles before we arrived, but the result can be called fair - because both lagmans turned out well. True, most of the “judges” who tasted them gave our lagman a higher rating for the quality of the noodles themselves (they were thinner and tastier). But this is not important - the important thing is that it turned out to be a good friendly party, with delicious food and in good company!

So let's get started!

As I already said, the “Master” that evening was a guy named Hasan. His brother was not there, but this did not spoil the dish at all. Why am I talking about a brother you know nothing about? Yes, it’s very simple - in Uzbek families the name Hasan almost always goes “paired” with the name Khusan - this is what twin or twin brothers are called. Therefore, if there is Hassan, then most likely there will be Husan, and vice versa. But I digress.

In the morning I went to the neighboring city (Pushkin). Next to him, on a farm, I bought half a fresh fat-tailed lamb (almost 8 kg worth, of which, in the end, there was practically nothing left), in the afternoon we bought the necessary vegetables and herbs at the market, and by 17 o’clock we arrived at the cafe and started cooking.

To prepare Uyghur lagman for a company of 8 people (although in the end there were 19 of us), we used:

For the test:

Flour - approximately 2.5 cups,

Egg - 1 piece,

Vegetable oil - about 1 cup,

Water - it's hard to say exactly, about 1.5 cups.

Salt - a handful, small.

For the vajji (gravy):

Approximately 600 grams of lamb + 100-150 grams of chopped minced lamb,

Onions - 2 medium onions,

Radishes - regular, red, round - 1 bunch - 6-8 pieces,

Carrots - 3 pieces, medium size,

Potatoes - 2 medium potatoes,

Bell pepper - 2 pieces,

Tomatoes - 2 pieces, medium size,

Green beans - approximately 100 grams (frozen),

A couple of stalks of celery

A small bunch each of green onions and parsley (large enough - we need the stems!)

Garlic - one head.

Salt and oil for frying.

Initially, Hasan began preparing the noodle dough:

To do this, he mixed water, eggs, and salt in a large cup (by the way, the photo shows the remains of the dough that the local chef prepared)

and, gradually adding flour, began to knead a dense, elastic dough:

Having kneaded the dough thoroughly, he packed it in cellophane, then in a towel and left it for 20 minutes to “rest.”

And we started preparing the ingredients for the gravy - vajji.

To do this, all the vegetables were washed, peeled and prepared for cutting. Then we cleaned a bunch of parsley from twigs and leaves and cut its stems into small sticks, 5 centimeters long, and chopped a bunch of green onions.

The carrots were cut into small strips, a little thinner than for pilaf.

The radishes were peeled and cut into medium cubes, bell pepper, potato, onion- also cut everything into medium-sized cubes.

The garlic was crushed and finely chopped, the meat was cut into small slices, a little larger than for beef stroganoff, and minced meat was finely chopped from a small part of it.

The result is this set:

Oh yes. I almost forgot! Tomatoes - they were cut into halves and all the liquid middle was taken out of them (it then went into the salad):

And the remaining parts after that were cut like bell peppers - into medium pieces.

But while the process of preparing the vegetables was underway, Hassan wasted no time. He busied himself preparing the dough for making noodles.

To do this, he rolled out, or more correctly, kneaded the dough with his hands into a fairly thick layer.

Then he poured vegetable oil into large flat plates:

And he began to cut strips about two centimeters wide from the sheet of dough:

Then roll them out into long sausages:

And place them in plates with oil, so that these “sausages” are completely covered in oil

Once the dough was prepared, plated and set aside, the process of making the gravy began. Considering what was cooked in the cafe, on standard electric stove and in regular frying pan with a Teflon coating (there was no cauldron with a flat bottom at hand), the cooking process looked like this.

Heat vegetable oil in a large deep frying pan:

The oil must be heated to such a temperature that the pieces of meat begin to fry in it immediately (here we made a small mistake - we did not take into account the fact that the temperature of the stove was still too low and our oil did not heat up properly). Pieces of meat were gradually dipped into it and fried:

The meat was lightly salted and fried:

And although the meat should have been fried very quickly, for us it (due to the rather weak heating of the stove) was stewed a little...

Then, when the meat was already covered with a small crust, chopped minced lamb was added:

We waited a little longer until the minced meat was fried, but barely “set”:

Add salt, simmer...

Then the radishes:

Then bell pepper:

Lightly fry again, add potatoes, fry, carrots, celery, a little salt and garlic:

Followed by beans, tomatoes, parsley stems and green onions. At the same time, don’t forget to add salt and garlic:

In this lagman, food is not fried too much. They must retain their taste and aroma. Should be beautiful and bright. No liquid is added to it - there is already enough juice.

When everything was ready, the frying pan was set aside, on a warm stove, so that the gravy did not cool down, but rather even simmer slightly. At the same time as preparing the vajji, we put a pot of water on to boil and prepare to cook the noodles for us to make lagman.

While we were preparing the vegetables, the girls from the cafe, seeing such fresh, tasty and good lamb meat, could not stand aside and quickly fried lamb ribs. Just like that, with onions:

And although I can’t resist this delicious thing, aromatic meat It was very difficult, but we still held on! The final was ahead! Cooking noodles and... to the table!

Here we come to the most interesting moment of preparing lagman. Anyone - Uzbek or Uyghur. As I already said, our master, Hasan, received the “highest score” for his noodles - he had them tasty, thin, and moderately elastic.

While the gravy was being prepared, the dough (in the form of those long sausages) lay in the oil.

Now Hasan began to take each sausage out of the plate and pull them out with his hands one by one:

So that each time they became thinner and longer:

Having stretched it, he wound the resulting noodles between his two hands, like one winds yarn or thread:

And he began to beat it on the table, gradually stretching it to the thickness he needed:

When the noodles reached the desired condition, he folded them again and handed them over to cook:

The noodles were dipped into boiling water, 3-4 minutes - and they were ready. You can take it out, put it on a plate or colander, rinse it and put it in a cup. These noodles will not stick together either in a pan or in a cup.

I won’t tell you much about how the further tasting went. I’ll just say a few words about the company that tried it all - lagman - Uzbek and Uighur, fried lamb ribs, fresh salad achik-chichuk and the remaining lamb quickly cooked with onions, garlic and potatoes (because there were a lot of guests, but they were originally cooking for a small company)

First of all, these were the employees of the cafe, as well as the “owner” and her daughter - the director, my Uzbek friends with whom we prepared all this, your humble servant (who was not included in the frame anywhere, since no one else was taking photographs, but I I won’t give you my camera), two priests (they just came to visit), managers and the director of a nearby store and several acquaintances who could not deny themselves the pleasure of a delicious meal and pleasant conversation.

The whole process took almost an hour and a half, although you couldn’t tell from the description and photographs.

In general, everything turned out, although not quite as planned, but the main thing is that it was tasty, healthy and fun. Everyone liked it and therefore a general decision was made to organize such evenings regularly.

Lagman, before he began his victorious march through our cities and towns, the Uighurs were “brought” to Central Asia in a variety of, sometimes bizarre, forms. It was so long ago (about a hundred years ago for sure) that in the most Central Asia Lagman managed to transform into his own, Central Asian version, which is mostly known to us. Moreover, it has transformed so much that, in fact, all that remains from the Uyghur lagman is the method of preparing noodles, which are pulled from dough blanks. If the Central Asian Uighurs themselves had not remained adherents to this day, so to speak, of the original lagman, we probably would not have had the chance to try it, not to mention the fact that this dish would have been formalized in the form of a clear recipe or materialized would be in a beautiful culinary blog of a food photographer. In this regard, I cannot help but thank the Uyghur friends of my parents, who not only greet me with their signature lagman every time I visit Tashkent, but also who dedicated especially to its preparation.

However, lagman is probably good because there are many more liberties in its preparation than there are rules that the cat cried for. And the features of one or another version of it are focused mainly on practicality and variety. For example, how to more deftly pull out noodles. Or - in what sequence and in what combination should you add (or even separate) other components so that the dish shines brighter in every sense. There is reason to take a closer look at these features, if only in order to expand your own horizon of ideas about lagman, which, I repeat, no one has ever tried to install in any reinforced concrete installations, except for the proliferation of home-grown myth-makers who “know” what kind of lagman “ real” and which one is not. It’s the peculiarities of the Uyghur lagman that we “dance” over, like a stove, noting how it differs from the Central Asian one:

1. First of all, the “gravy”. I put this word in quotation marks, because in the Uyghur version it does not exist as such. That is, if the Central Asian gravy in a combination of stewed meat and vegetables contains relatively a large number of sauce, which makes lagman semi-liquid, there is practically no liquid in the Uyghur version, except for the fat and juice of meat and vegetables. In addition, the components of lagman are not stewed, but quickly fried.

2. The Uyghur “gravy”, unlike the Central Asian one, is called not “vaja”, but “sai” and the point, of course, is not only the difference in names. Vaja is a “gravy” that, although multi-component, is, so to speak, monolithic; you cannot divide it according to your taste. Uyghur lagman rarely does without two or three different sais, which are served separately with the noodles and either mixed with the noodles in a portioned bowl as you like, and in any proportions, or added to the noodles separately.

3. Noodles for Uyghur lagman are prepared, as a rule, by stretching the dough. In Central Asian versions, in addition to pulled noodles, chopped noodles are widely used.

To feel the difference in practice, let's take 2-3 full servings of lagman following products, the proportions of which can be changed at your discretion, something added, something subtracted, etc. (I provide a list of products that are used “as a rule”):

1. 150-200 grams of flour for dough
2. 200-250 grams of lamb or young beef. If you use beef, in order not to miss, it is better to take a little tenderloin or pulp from a thick or thin edge.
3. Two to three medium onions
4. Half a medium radish (either green Margilan or daikon)
5. Half a medium eggplant
6. Five to six green beans
7. Two or three stems stalk celery, or a bunch of leaf celery
8. Half a medium bell pepper, preferably red
9. Two or three medium tomatoes or 6-7 small ones, such as cherry tomatoes (out of season, cherry tomatoes, like tomatoes, are more adequate)
10. Three to four cloves of garlic
11. A tablespoon of chopped cilantro (optional)
12. Pod hot pepper(optional)
13. Two teaspoons of ground coriander, salt to taste.

First, let's tackle the most time-consuming process - preparing noodles. The traditional Uighur dough composition couldn’t be simpler: flour, salt and water. True, this simplicity has its own zest. If everything is done correctly, the noodles from such a dough can be easily pulled out, which, in general, is important for those who do not have special skills in this matter. The question of taste remains, since the dough is based on water and, for example, on chicken eggs, despite the fact that it is more capricious when pulled out, is not quite the same thing. This is true if we abstract from the fact that lagman is a multi-component dish, and this fact alone already affects the taste of the noodles. However, if you consider that the main advantage of pulled noodles is its unique consistency, which is radically different, for example, from sliced ​​noodles, then it becomes clear why in the Uyghur version they are not particularly smart about the composition of the dough.

Let's not split hairs either. First, add a couple of pinches of salt to the sifted (be sure to sift!) flour and add as much warm water so that when kneading the dough becomes quite stiff.

Then knead the kneaded dough on a floured table. And the more carefully and longer we do this, the better the result will be.

Roll the thoroughly kneaded dough into a ball, wrap it in a clean napkin or film so that it does not dry out, and put it in a cool place to proof for an hour and a half. This is an important moment, since our dough is intended for lagman, and not for pies, for example.

Knead the dough thoroughly again, dusting it if it is sticky, work table a small amount flour. Then, holding the dough with our palms, we roll it into a rope as thick as, say, Krakow sausage.

We cut the tourniquet into pieces no thicker than a finger and, again, using our palms, we “twist” thinner ropes from each piece - about the size of a pencil.

Place the “pencil” bundles on a suitable dish and generously sprinkle them with vegetable oil, coating each bundle individually with the same oil. Let the dough rest for about another half hour, turning the bundles over from time to time so that they do not dry out.

After half an hour, we check how ready the dough is for stretching by experimenting with the tip of one of the strands. If the dough becomes stubborn and the tip threatens to come off the rope, let’s not rush to pull out the noodles - let the dough rest a little more. If the dough stretches easily, you can get down to business. The main thing is not to rush and not try to pull out the noodles of the desired section at once.

So, we begin to pull the tip of the tourniquet with the fingers of our right hand, holding the tourniquet with the fingers of our left hand about ten centimeters from the pulled out tip. They pulled and retreated another 10 centimeters from the elongated area. And so on along the entire length of the tourniquet, leaving the noodles still relatively thick.

Now, in the same order, stretching the noodles to a thinner section, we follow in the opposite direction.

Usually such a tourniquet is stretched one and a half to two meters in two or three steps - it all depends on the cross-section of the noodles that you like. The main thing to remember is that when boiled, the noodles increase in volume, and the thinner you can pull them out, the better. After pulling out two or three strands, you manage to get used to this process so much that you can deal with the remaining dough much faster than it might seem. The main thing is to do all this directly above the plate where the bundles are located, placing the finished noodles on the same plate. Moreover, laying it so that you can grab the tip of each rope stretched into noodles when the time comes to boil the noodles.

Noodles for lagman are boiled in advance - in a large volume of rapidly boiling salted water. The noodles reach the correct, that is, al dente state quite quickly, after which they need to be removed from the pan either with a colander or with a slotted spoon and poured over cold water, then sprinkling with vegetable oil and stirring. We don’t throw out the water in which the noodles were cooked; it will come in handy later. And the finished lasha can be transferred to a suitable bowl and covered for the time being with a lid.

It is rare that lagman is not served with a special seasoning intended only for it, made from a mixture of garlic, hot ground pepper and coriander (it is called laza-jan or laza-chang). If you want to prepare this seasoning, then it is better to do it immediately after preparing the noodles, since all other lagman actions will take place quite quickly. One of the ways to prepare laza chang is as follows. Mix two or three chopped cloves of garlic with two or three teaspoons of hot ground pepper, two or three pinches of ground coriander or the same amount of chopped cilantro and lightly salt. Then, in a suitable container, heat three to four tablespoons of vegetable oil and pour it into the prepared mixture.

Mix the mixture quickly and thoroughly and set aside to cool. Laza-chang is ready.

Now you can start preparing (cutting) products for sai, or more precisely, for two varieties of sai, which we will conventionally call white and red sai. They are prepared almost the same way, but with a different set of products, although, for example, meat, garlic and onions are used in both. White sai, as it should be, is softer in taste than red sai. Red, as a rule, is prepared by deeper frying of foods, and is also sharpened to a reasonable extent with pepper. Products for both sai are cut arbitrarily - as you like. The exception is meat, which, due to the fact that it is subjected to short heat treatment, is preferably cut into thin slices.

In any case, the prepared products need to be placed on an auxiliary plate or board so that they are at hand and so that it is clear which components are intended for white sai and which for red (meat, onions and garlic will be divided equally for each sai).

Let's start cooking with white sai, for which we heat two or three tablespoons of vegetable oil in a cauldron or wok and lightly (2-3 minutes) fry half the prepared onion with a clove of garlic cut into plates and green beans.

Add a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground coriander, followed by pieces of stem celery (if leaf celery is used, then it is better to add it chopped at the very end of preparing this type of saya). Stirring the food with a slotted spoon, continue frying for another 2-3 minutes.

Now the meat. For white sai, take exactly half of the prepared slices of meat. And again, stirring the food, set aside the same two to three minutes for the meat.

Season the sai again with a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground coriander and add the sliced ​​eggplants and radishes to the cauldron. Here, during subsequent frying, the main thing is to ensure that the radish softens.

We finish preparing the sai by adding a ladle of “broth” in which the noodles were cooked and which we kept in reserve. Its main function is to deglaze the cauldron, that is, to remove from the walls and dissolve in the sai everything that was fried on the walls of the cauldron while the sai was being prepared. Let the released moisture boil, mix everything well and transfer the contents of the cauldron into suitable dishes, covering it with a lid or covering it with foil so that the sai does not cool down.

Now we take on the red sai, which is cooked in the same cauldron as the white one. Reheat two or three tablespoons of vegetable oil and fry the meat in it first. Fry more harshly than for white sai - that is, until a light golden brown crust forms.

Season the meat with a pinch of salt, a pinch of ground coriander and add the other half of the reserved onion with a chopped clove of garlic and as much hot pepper, if used, as suits your taste and the taste of your guests. To determine the spiciness of a pepper, cut off a thin ring near the upper tip of the pod, where the seeds are concentrated, and evaluate its spiciness by tooth. I think it will be clear in what quantities to dose it for sai.

Fry the onion, garlic and pepper for the same two to three minutes.

There is a line for slices of sweet bell pepper. Another two to three minutes of intense frying.

Finally, coarsely chopped tomatoes, from which, if necessary, you must first remove the skin. We will fry the products with the addition of tomatoes just enough so that the juice released from the tomatoes is almost completely reduced.

Then season the sai with another pinch of salt and a pinch of ground coriander, add chopped cilantro, although ideally and if you have it, it’s better to add chopped jusai and repeat the trick with deglazing the cauldron by pouring in a small scoop of the broth from the noodles. Boil the sai, mix and transfer from the cauldron to a suitable container with a lid.

Before serving the lagman, let’s revive the noodles by pouring them in a colander with either highly heated remains of the noodle broth or boiling water.

Uyghur lagman, as I already said, is served differently from Central Asian, when the noodles are immediately poured with one or another amount of gravy. Everything is placed on the table separately, in deep bowls or large bowls - both noodles and certain varieties of sai. The guest decides for himself how much noodles to put in his portion bowl and what to do with the sai. This procedure is very entertaining. After all, a small amount of noodles can be mixed first with white sai, then season it a little with the hotter red one. Or vice versa, compensating for the lack of spiciness in taste by adding laza chang. There are a lot of options here, the main value of which is that the Uyghur lagman allows you to play with flavor tones and halftones. Sometimes before meals true connoisseurs Uighur lagman is served in bowls with hot noodle broth, which is also not without its originality. For example, I like this accompaniment to the lagman. How you like to deal with pilaf not with a spoon, but with your own palm. And you decide for yourself what to do :)

And if we add gravy prepared according to the Uyghur recipe to it, we will get a real Uyghur guyru lagman. Uyghurs cook guira sai in a frying pan shaped like a Chinese wok, or more precisely, it is probably a modification of a wok with a handle, or vice versa... This is how they cook it in cafes, 1-2 servings at a time.

But if you don’t have such utensils, you can easily cook guira sai at home in a very simple cauldron. Of course, it’s more convenient to do this in a spherical Uzbek cauldron and in small portions, but now at a master class from the Romantika restaurant they will show us how to prepare a similar gravy and in large quantities, this is when you need to serve several eaters at once. And yet, “experts” claim that real Uyghur lagman cannot be prepared without special spices and herbs. But let's move away from all these stereotypes and cook from what is available. And let those “experts” themselves sit and “wait by the sea for the weather.”

I also won’t tell you what proportions of products to take, because it’s a matter of taste and availability, take more meat, a little less of everything else and cook to your taste.

We will need lean lamb or beef. It is cut into small pieces, I would cut it into rectangles with sides 2-4 cm and thickness 3 mm.

Lightly marinate the chopped meat. Add salt, ground coriander, haju (Chinese pepper), a little ginger, soy sauce, mix and set aside.

Meanwhile, chop the vegetables. The pepper can be cut into petals slightly larger than in the photo. It turns out beautifully and tasty in a combination of red and green bell peppers. If you really like it spicy, then chop some more hot pepper.

Dunga radish or daikon is also chopped.

Onion in half rings, quarters.

We call it Korean cabbage.

All we need from it is the hard core, which we also cut into petals. The soft leaves around the edges can be used in salads.

We separate the leaves of the celery and cut the stems into 2-2.5 cm long. We will use the leaves for sprinkling. ready-made dish.

Chop the garlic finely.

We also need janda ( green beans), jusai (can be replaced with garlic feathers, wild garlic), tomatoes. And a whole set of Chinese-Uighur spices, which you probably don’t have, so we make do with salt, ground pepper, coriander, ginger.

We arrange the chopped products into cups and place them in a convenient place near the cauldron.

Heat the cauldron strongly, pour in a little vegetable oil, by eye, so that the meat and onions can be fried in it. The fire should be as high as possible. At the end of the post you can watch the video of how the process of preparing the gravy goes ideally.

First throw the star anise into very hot oil. It gives the oil a specific aroma and taste. Fry the star anise until almost blackened, then remove it. Then add the meat and fry it until crusty. Add the onion and fry it too.

Now, with an interval (in our case) of 3-4 minutes, we begin to add one by one, mixing the products - celery stalks, tomato, garlic, ganda, jusai, radish, bell pepper, cabbage.

Stir, add spices, mix again and fill with water or better clear broth. And leave to cook until the food is ready at a medium boil.

The products should turn out not completely boiled, more “alive”. When cooking in a frying pan, in small portions, guiru sai is cooked in 10-12 minutes.

Now let's chop the celery greens. And we invite guests to the table.

We rinse the dough that we have laid out on plates in boiling water so that the plate and dough are hot. We put ours on the dough meat gravy, sprinkle chopped herbs on top. You can also serve the dough separately and the gravy separately with a small amount of broth, it is very tasty. In general, guyra sai can be served as independent dish.

Eat with chopsticks or as a last resort It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to grab such a long lagman with a fork or spoon. When I was writing, I almost forgot about laza-chang, without it lagman, they say not lagman, but don’t overdo it. They also serve vinegar sauce and various other sauces, but you can do without them at home.

Perhaps I missed something somewhere, for which I apologize. It’s just a spectacle that needs to be watched, not written or read. You can see everything briefly in the video - this is a unique spectacle.

Bon appetit!

There is so much I want to tell you that I always forget something. As with the dough, in in this case You can also make semi-finished products/blanks. For example, bell peppers, chopped for placing in a dish, can be packed in portions in flat plastic bags and place in layers in the freezer. At the right time, take it out, defrost and use it for its intended purpose. Now everything seems...

Lagman. Lately, this name in Tashkent increasingly refers to the Uyghur version of this dish. Although there are more Uzbek options, they are served less and less in local restaurants. Dough for Uzbek lagman In most cases, it is used sliced, in strips, and the gravy, unlike the Uyghur version, consists of other components, is cut differently and is subjected to a longer culinary processing. It must be admitted that in terms of presentability, the Uyghur lagman is superior to the Uzbek one, and apparently that is why it has become more widespread.

Today we will try to briefly tell you how Uyghur lagman is prepared in one of the restaurants in Tashkent. The options for its preparation and the ingredients used may vary slightly among different chefs, but the general technology is almost the same.

First you need to knead the dough. To do this, add enough water to 200 grams of sifted flour so that when kneading you get a fairly stiff dough. Sprinkle a little flour on the table and knead the dough. And the more carefully and longer we do this, the better the result will be.

Knead the dough with your palms on the table into a plate 1.5-2 cm thick. Cut the rolled out dough into ropes of the same thickness, oil your palms, grease each rope with vegetable oil, and cover with film, let rest for about 30 minutes. Step-by-step proofing of the dough is very important to obtain the elasticity of the noodles.

Now we will stretch the strands into even thinner strands, twisting them with our palms and at the same time stretching the dough on the table. You should get ropes about 5-7 mm thick. That's not all.

Lubricating the bundles again with oil, carefully roll them into a spiral onto a large plate. Cover with film and let it rest again.

In the meantime, you can start preparing a thick gravy for lagman - sai.

For this we need:

A little vegetable oil
- 200 grams of lamb or young beef pre-marinated in soy sauce and black pepper. The pulp is cut into petals approximately 3 x 3 x 0.3 cm.
- one medium onion, chopped along the meridian,
- a little hard part Korean cabbage, cut into petals,
- a little giandu, in its absence you can use green bean pods,
- two or three stalks of stalk celery,
- bell pepper, for the beauty of the dish you can use three colors - red, green, yellow. It needs to be cut into petals,
- a couple of medium tomatoes in small slices,
- 2-3 cloves of garlic,
- a little chopped cilantro (optional)
- a pod of hot pepper (optional),
- ginger, stars or ground star anise, soy sauce, black pepper, salt to taste.

Let's put it all into cups and put it aside for now. Our recipe makes about 2 servings of the dish.

Now it's time to finish stretching the noodles. This is perhaps the most difficult part of preparing Uyghur lagman, requiring some dexterity and skill. But if you try a little, everything will work out.

The noodles are twisted between the fingers of both hands and carefully begin to be pulled into thin flagella. When all the noodles, about 3 mm thick, have been pulled out, they are wrapped around two hands, much like when playing “with strings” in childhood.

And tapping a little on the table, they spread their arms, pulling out thin noodles.

The thinner you can stretch the noodles, the better.

The noodles are ready, all you have to do is boil them in a large volume of salted water. The water should be boiling intensely. The dough is rolled onto a long wooden stick and dropped into boiling water. At first it will begin to sink to the bottom, but after a couple of minutes it will float up. This means she is ready. You need to cook until al dente.

Now place the dough in a colander and rinse cold water. Shake off the moisture and sprinkle with oil, set aside for now in a separate cup.

To prepare sai, you will need a special wok with a long handle. This is the most spectacular part of cooking, a real fire show.

The wok itself is first heated over very high heat. Then we begin to lay out the products step by step. Heat the oil and fry the meat. When you throw it up and lightly touch the flame, you get a beautiful flash. Knowledge of safety precautions will not hurt here.

As soon as the meat is browned, add the remaining ingredients one by one. Vegetables in the Uyghur lagman are not fried much; they remain a little half-raw.

This is a dish consisting of two equal parts: noodles (or chuzma) and gravy (vaja). It is the noodles that give lagman its taste and aroma. The preparation process and composition of the gravy may differ significantly from recipe to recipe, but there is no single correct preparation option - each nation and cook prepares it according to its own method.

Secrets of preparing dough for lagman in Uighur style

Since noodles are the basis of lagman, you should be extremely careful when preparing it. It is made by hand from premium flour and homemade eggs. This is the most labor-intensive work in the entire process of preparing lagman and it consists of several stages:

1. Kneading the dough;
2. Processing it with soda and saline solution so that the dough becomes elastic and can be easily stretched into noodles;
3. Forming noodles;
4. Boiling.

The most important point is pulling the noodles out of the dough. The taste of noodles and lagman, respectively, depends on this. The process looks like this:

1. The dough should “rest” a little in the form of a large cake;
2. Coat the entire flatbread with sunflower oil;
3. Cut the dough into wide (5 cm) strips;
4. Punch each strip and roll it into a sausage - gradually stretching it out;
5. Place the resulting pasta in a cup, again greasing it with oil;
6. Cover the bowl with film for half an hour;
7. Afterwards, stretch each strip well on both sides as much as possible;
8. After pulling out the last strip, return to the first one again, repeat the process until the correct consistency and shape of the noodles are obtained;
9. The result should be long pasta, each of which must be collected with an “accordion” and hit on the table 5-6 times;
10. Cook in boiling salted water and drain in a colander.

Usually, the whole family participates in the noodle making process, helping to pull and beat the noodles. Perhaps that’s why the noodles turn out so delicious!

Classic recipe cooking at home

This recipe for Uyghur lagman has long been known in Uzbekistan, where nomadic peoples brought it many years ago. It differs only in the ingredients for the sauce.

1. Prepare the noodles: pour water into a bowl, add salt, then beat in the eggs;
2. Mix with a whisk;
3. Add flour and start kneading the dough;
   
4. When the dough comes together into a ball, wrap it in a damp towel and leave for an hour;
   
5. Knead it periodically;
6. When the dough becomes smooth, take it out;
7. Prepare the solution: mix half a glass of water with soda and salt;
8. Rub the solution into the dough over the entire surface. The dough should become elastic;
9. Pull it into a rope and cut into medium pieces;
   
10. Coat each piece with oil and let it soak for 10 minutes;
11. Pull the pieces into thin sausages and brush with oil again;
    
12. Repeat the procedure several times;
13. Roll pasta into a spiral;
14. Boil a large amount of water with salt;
15. Gather long strings of pasta with an accordion and lower them into water;
16. As soon as the noodles rise, they are ready;
    
17. Peel the tomatoes after dousing them with boiling water;
18. Peel all other vegetables and remove seeds from peppers;
19. Cut everything: tomatoes into cubes, turnips, sweet peppers and onions into thin strips, chop carrots, chop garlic in a press, and cut chili into small pieces;
20. Wash the lamb, remove pieces of film and fat;
21. Cut the meat into strips;
22. Heat sunflower oil in a cauldron or cast iron pan with a thick bottom;
    
23. Fry the meat until golden brown;
24. Throw onions into the cauldron, after 7 minutes - turnips, carrots and beans;
    
25. Stir and throw in tomatoes and peppers;
26. Simmer for five minutes;
27. Throw garlic, herbs and spices into the cauldron;
    
28. After a couple of minutes, add water so that it completely covers all the vegetables;
29. Simmer for about ten minutes;
    
30. Finally, add salt to taste;
31. Remove the cauldron, cover it and leave for 15 minutes;
32. Place the noodles in the cauldron, stir and serve.

How to cook Uyghur lagman with beef

Beef is considered more healthy meat than lamb because it is less fatty. But this does not affect the taste of lagman at all - it turns out just as satisfying and appetizing.

Products:

• ready noodles - 400 g;
• beef tenderloin – 0.3 kg;
• potato tubers – 2 pcs.;
• medium blue;
• pepper – 1 pc.;
• tomato;
• black radish – 100 gr;
• parsley - a bunch;
• oregano – 1 tsp;
• salt and seasonings to taste;
• fat - 50-60 gr.

Time spent: 1 hour.

Calories: 250.

1. Grind the meat into pieces of 2-3 cm;
2. Melt the fat in a cauldron and fry the meat in it;
3. Pour water over the meat and simmer for five minutes;
4. Peel all vegetables;
5. Throw the potatoes into the cauldron;
6. Grate the radish, cut the potatoes into strips, the eggplant and tomato into cubes, and the pepper into thin strips;
7. When the potatoes become soft, add radish and eggplant;
8. Fry the tomatoes and peppers separately and throw them into the cauldron 7 minutes after the radishes;
9. Finely chop the greens and add to the cauldron along with all the seasonings at the end of stewing;
10. Remove the cauldron from the heat and let it brew;
11. Mix the sauce with the noodles pre-cooked in salted water and serve!

How to cook Uyghur lagman without noodles

The most difficult thing about lagman is preparing the noodles. Therefore, if you want to enjoy the taste of this dish, but don’t want to bother with noodles, then you can safely prepare only the gravy.

• beef fillet – 0.6 kg;
• sunflower oil - 30 ml;
• potatoes – 2-3 pcs.;
• onion - 50 gr;
• garlic cloves - 3 pcs.;
• pepper - 50 gr.;
• carrot;
• radish (optional) - 50 g;
• tomato puree- 40 gr;
• spices and salt (to taste) – 5 g;
• broth - 1 l;
• greens for serving.

Time required: 1 hour.

Calories: 275.

1. Cut the fillet into medium pieces;
2. Heat oil in a deep frying pan or saucepan and throw meat into it;
3. Fry until golden brown;
4. Peel the carrots and onions and chop them into cubes;
5. Peel the pepper from the seed box and cut into strips together with the radish;
6. Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes;
7. Add vegetables (except potatoes) to the meat one by one and stir them constantly;
8. Chop the garlic, throw it into a cauldron and simmer;
9. If the saucepan is still deep, then you can continue cooking in it; if not, put everything into a saucepan with a thick bottom;
10. Add potatoes and tomato puree to meat and vegetables;
11. Pour in the broth (you can use plain water);
12. Simmer for 40 minutes, reducing heat to low;
13. Chop the greens and sprinkle with lagman when serving.

Like any National dish, Uyghur lagman has its own cooking characteristics:

1. To prepare lagman you need the right dishes: a thick-walled cauldron, thanks to the shape of which the dish is stewed evenly. The cauldron can be replaced with a cast iron pan with a thick bottom;
2. The correct noodle dough should be stretchy and very elastic; for this, cooks advise mixing different varieties flour in equal proportions;
3. In the process of kneading dough for lagman, not only eggs and water are often added, but also soda and vinegar. This is not in original recipe, but these products will help a beginner cope with the test;
4. It takes many people up to three hours to pull out the right noodles. Chefs of Asian restaurants recommend initially cutting the dough into pieces and rolling them into flagella. To prevent the noodles from drying out during the process and tearing, each bundle should be generously lubricated with oil;
5. Noodles can be replaced with high-grade spaghetti. Boil the pasta according to the instructions and pour in the sauce;
6. You can use any vegetables for the sauce: tomatoes, zucchini, zucchini, carrots and onions, radishes, potatoes, peas, celery and others;
7. Lagman is prepared with any type of meat, so you should choose according to your taste. Lamb and pork are very fatty, therefore, it will be necessary to reduce the amount of oil. Mixing several types of meat (beef + lamb) is also popular;
8. The following spices are usually used: ginger and star anise flowers, turmeric, all types of peppers, cumin, ground coriander;
9. Traditionally, lagman is decorated with greens when serving. This could be: basil, cilantro, parsley, dill, arugula, wild garlic, jusai onion.

Lagman has long taken its place among hearty main courses and everyone will be happy to try it!