Grandpa’s Mashkurda (Машхурда)

After a long but unintentional absence from the blog, I have a recipe to make up for the absence.  I don’t know if this recipe is “authentic Uzbeck”, but this is how my grandpa does it, so that’s how I made it.  Having been making this for ages and ages, he wasn’t really clear on all the quantities and such, so I had to improvise a little and guess at times as well.

Ingredients:
1.5-2 lb of lamb (diced into large-ish pieces since the meat will shrink during cooking)
1 large onion
2 medium carrots (cut thinly into half or quarter moons)
1.5 cups of mung bean
3/4 cup of rice
1-2 TBSP of each: ground cumin, ground corriander, corriander, cumin (yes, I used both ground and whole)
Salt, pepper to taste.
6.5-7 cups of water (depending on how well done you like the beans and rice and how “liquidy” you like the dish)
Olive oil

Lamb pieces cut up

Lamb pieces

Steps:
1. In a dutch oven, brown the meat and cook for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the onions and cook till they’re translucent. Reduce heat to medium or medium-low.
3. Add water, carrots, and mung. When adding the water, I added it about a cup or so at a time. Mainly so I would know how much I’d need since I didn’t get a measurement for it from grandpa. So just keep adding water to keep things pretty moist, so things don’t dry out and stick to the pan. Cook this until the mung starts to “split” or get really soft. For me, it took about 5-6 cups of water.
4. Add rice. You might need to add more water at this point, so the rice can cook.
5. Place a lid and reduce to low. Cook for about 10-20 minutes. Depending on how “wet” or “soft” you want the final dish. I think I cooked it just a few minutes too long when I set it to 20 minutes. But hey, this is my first attempt.

Lamb, Mung, Carrots

Lamb, Mung, Carrots, Rice

Nearly done

Done!

*IMPORTANT NOTES*
1. When I got the meat home, I salted it before sticking into the fridge. I think it makes it much more tender and flavorful when cooking.
2. Season the meat after cutting it up and let it sit for a bit and absorb the cumin and corriander.
3. Season the dish as you go along. I add spices, salt, pepper throughout the cooking process.

Mung Bean

Mung bean and chicken

My dad tells me that we ate this on occasion when my grandfather would make a dish featuring this bean. It took ages for me to remember what my dad was referring to. In Uzbek cooking, this bean is called “mash” and my dad was referring to a dish called “mash-kichiri”. I can’t believe I forgot about this little gem. Apparently, this bean is extremely healthy in many ways. I wasn’t able to find it at my local grocery store, but did find it in bulk at the healthy/organic food store (Outpost, for those in my neck of the woods). Also, I bet Indian food stores would have it since it’s popular in Indian cuisine and is known as dal or dahl.
Since I don’t really have any recipes for what to do with this bean, I decided to improvise. Here is what I came up with.

Ingredients:
2 large Carrots
1 large Onion
1 cup uncooked Rice (I used brown rice)
Chicken stock
1 cup uncooked Mung beans (I soaked the beans overnight and the 1 cup uncooked looked more like 2-3 cups)
Spices (to taste): salt, pepper, cumin

Soaked Mung Beans

Carrots and Onions

Cooking Mung Bean

Mung bean and Rice

Steps:
1. Dice the carrots and onions. Cook rice according to package directions, stopping about half way through.
2. Sautee the carrots and onions on a low heat for a few minutes until a little tender. Season to taste.
3. Add the beans and rice and chicken stock. Just enough chicken stock to continue cooking the rice.
4. Cover the pan and let cook over a low heat until all the liquid is gone, about 20 minutes.

I served this with the Updated Roasted Chicken.