Monday, February 18, 2008

Dimlyama


This is a great and versatile one-pot dish, made with meat and large cuts of layered vegetables. Dimlyama has it origins in Uzbekistan. My friend, who used to live there, gave me this recipe, and I tweaked it a bit. But the beauty of dimlyama is that you can tweak it endlessly, and it would still work great.

To make dimlyama, you'd need a cast iron dutch oven with a lid, meat and vegetables. In Uzbekistan, lamb is considered the only "real" meat, but you can use chicken thighs, as I did, or even fish (never tried that). As for the vegetables, potatoes and carrots are the staples; bell peppers, cabbage, eggplant, yam all work beautifully, too. If you have fresh dill, use as much as you can. If you have Italian parsley on hand, use it, too. You can use almost everything, doubling the ingredients you like more and leaving out something you don't care about.

The original recipe suggests topping the dish with tomatoes for their juice and flavor, but since there is a belief that cast iron doesn't agree with tomatoes, I skipped them and never regretted it.

Ingredients (make 4 big servings in a 5-quart dutch oven):

1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 lb chicken thighs, cut into pieces
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, chopped
1 big potatoe, cut into wedges
1 big yam, cut into wedges
1/2 small cabbage head, cut into stripes
3 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
5-6 sprugs of fresh dill, chopped
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
Salt

Spices:

Ground black pepper
Ground cumin
Freshly ground coriander
Herbes de Provence

Method:

Prepare the vegetables.
Using high heat setting, preheat vegetable oil in the dutch oven. Add meat and cook for couple of minutes, stirring constantly, then add onion and spices. Cook, stirring, until the chicken is no longer pink. Reduce heat to low, and add the vegetables - layer upon layer. Every two layers, add salt, spices, and dill. Mince garlic clove between some of the layers.
Bell peppers, as the juiciest of them all, go on top. Again, add salt and spices, pour lemon juice, put the last sprug of dill. Cover, and cook for at least an hour. The exact cooking time depends on the stove: it took an hour and 20 minutes on mine. Use chopstick to check vegetables for doneness; don't stir.

To serve, lay out on a big plate. Let everyone take their share and appreciate this fragrant and flavorful food.

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