Lagman in Uzbek - recipe and secrets of making a delicious dish

Lagman is a very popular Central Asian national dish. It is believed that it owes its origin to China. In the future it became widespread in other countries of Central Asia. It is prepared in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. It is also popular among the Crimean Tatars and Uighurs.

This is both the 1st and 2nd dish. It is incorrect to consider this dish a soup. Lagman can be prepared with a larger amount of broth, or maybe with a small amount, so called “dry lagman” among the Uyghurs.

What makes this dish special is that it is made mostly of lamb, vegetables and homemade stretched noodles.

And another distinctive feature will be that this is the most delicious dish. Lamb in combination with vegetables gives just a cool fireworks of taste.

Now I will share with you the recipe for how it is prepared in Samarkand, the town of my youth. This thick soup is prepared there and is superbly tasty. And not only at home, but in any cafe, restaurant and even just in the park in an outdoor dining room for 2 tables. Everywhere you will be served such a dish with the most delicious flatbread that you will be able to forget about everything in the world until your plate is empty.

Well, do you want to learn how to cook such lagman? Then go ahead! And don't think that this is unrealistic. Maybe, and how! Cook it once and everyone will ask you for the recipe.

Lagman in Uzbek - a traditional recipe at home

lamb meat - 300-400 gr.
onion - 2 pcs. (average)
bell pepper - 3 pcs.
carrots - 2 pcs. (average)
tomatoes -2 pcs. (or 50 grams of tomato paste)
potatoes - 2 pcs. (optional)
garlic - 1 - 2 cloves
vegetable oil
spices: paprika, cumin, coriander, dried ginger - 0.5 - 1 teaspoon (mixture)
spicy herbs: cilantro, parsley, green onions - to taste and desire
salt, reddish pepper, dark ground

flour 3-3.5 cups
egg - 2 pcs.
water - 2/3 cup
salt

1. Meat, lamb, and it’s better just lamb, cut into small pieces.

2. Cut the onion into half rings, as thin as possible. Carrots, bell peppers - cubes. You can add potatoes at your discretion. Sometimes they add potatoes, sometimes they don’t. Both options will turn out delicious.

3. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, remove the skin and cut into cubes. If you are cooking in the winter and you cannot find ripe reddish tomatoes, then we will prepare tomato paste. I make pasta as a preparation for the winter and use it. You can see how to create this and take note for yourself.

4. Chop the garlic and chop the cilantro. Let's start cooking.

5. Pour a little oil into a cauldron or thick-walled pan in which you can fry. Fry the meat and immediately add the onion. Fry over medium heat until the onion is soft. Add tomatoes or tomato paste. Lightly fry.

6. Add cumin, garlic, salt, and don’t forget to add a piece of reddish hot pepper. Pour water to cover the meat and cook for approximately 0.5 hours. Then turn up the heat and let the water evaporate.

7. During this period of time, the meat must be almost ready. We taste it to see if it’s ready, the meat is a little tough, but it’s quite easy to chew.

8. Add carrots, fry for 5 minutes.

9. Add all the vegetables, garlic and remaining spices to the meat along with cumin. The consistency of the spices should be 0.5 - 1 teaspoon. I usually add less than a teaspoon.

Add hot water. If you want a thick dish, add much less water. If you like there to be more broth, then add more. Keep in mind that we will be pouring the watery component onto the noodles. And the dish is bound to turn out quite thick.

10. Cook vegetables for 20-25 minutes.

11. Then turn off the gas and leave it under the closed lid so that everything simmers for about 15 minutes.

How to prepare the dough

1. Knead the dough. Pour flour into a deep bowl, create a depression, and beat in the eggs. Add half the water, salt. Mix with a spoon, slowly adding water. There doesn't have to be a lot of water. Knead the dough, it should turn out thick, like dumplings.

2. Knead the dough well and wrap it in cling film so that the dough spreads and does not dry out.

3. Remove the film from the dough and knead it well again. The dough should be elastic, flexible, but quite elastic.

4. Cut the dough in such a way that it is comfortable to roll out the sausages, as we roll out for dumplings.

5. You should get 3-4 sausages. Each should be rolled out into a rope and placed in a spiral on a large dish. Grease the top with vegetable oil. Cover with cling film. Give a little time to lie down.

6. Open our flagella, take one at a time, and roll them out, stretching them, to the thickness of a pencil. The dough is saturated with oil, it becomes even more elastic and will not tear. Do the same with the remaining flagella. Fold into a spiral again, grease with oil, and cover with cling film.

7. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes, then pull out any “pencil” again and make it even thinner. You should end up with noodles, but still plump. If you have 3 “pencils”, pull out any one and simply arrange it in 3 piles.

Read also: “Vinaigrette “Snack” recipe”

8. We collect the ends of all 3 piles, and begin to wind them on our hands, like grandmothers wound yarn. Now we slowly twist the brushes, thereby stretching the noodles even thinner. You can hit the noodles on the table.

9. The noodles are stretched. Put the water on the fire, let it boil, salt it. Place the finished noodles in boiling water and cook for no more than a minute. Take it out into a separate bowl.

How to serve a dish correctly

Grind garlic, parsley. Chop green onions.
First, the noodles are placed in deep portioned cups, called kosa or kese. Place meat and vegetables on top, and then add broth.
Sprinkle herbs on top and add garlic.

Secrets of making delicious lagman

Lagman is essentially a dish of meat, vegetables and noodles. Therefore, add whatever vegetables you want. Add celery, zucchini, and eggplant to it. Fruits are also added - quince, apples, plums. This is not for everybody. We looked at the traditional recipe for an Uzbek dish.
This tasty dish is largely prepared only from lamb. The lamb is more tender, fattier. Easier to exchange juices with vegetables. Made with beef, this dish will also be tasty, but will not have such a rich and specific taste. From pork... I won't even say it. It's the same as cooking pilaf from pork. All you need is lamb!
When making the dough, make sure that it comes out quite thick, but at the same time plastic and elastic.
So that during the manufacturing process the noodles do not tear, at any step (sausages, flagella, pencils, noodles). When you put the dough to rest, brush it with sunflower oil. Give it a chance to stand, then it will be “obedient” and you can roll the noodles thinner.

If it’s difficult or unclear how to create noodles, then you can create it easier. The same way you roll noodles to make homemade chicken noodles. In other words, knead the dough on the testicles, roll it out and simply cut it.

And don't be afraid to try it. It’s only hard at first, while you’re learning. Everything is done quite quickly. You cook a little, not on an industrial scale. Try it!

Well, if you really don’t want to roll, take ready-made noodles - like spaghetti, but flat. Or find special noodles for lagman. You can find one like this in the store at the moment, it also turns out very tasty.

And don’t look at how much has been written. Just think , since there are a lot, it means it’s hard. Not hard at all. I tried to outline all the aspects, all the subtleties. I really want you to have a tasty, fragrant dish. True, the kind that is prepared in sunny, friendly Samarkand.

Traditional lagman in Uzbek

A hearty and orientally colorful dish, spicy and hot. Both 1st and 2nd at once. Warm noodles, juicy cubes of meat and all this under a thick rich gravy.

Here is a recipe for traditional lagman. There is no single “correct” recipe. Radish, cabbage, and celery are often added to Uzbek-style lagman. Uyghur lagman is prepared using noodle broth, often with the addition of eggplant. Vegetables are placed according to the season. In modern cooking, lagman is prepared with pork and even turkey, but it is still considered traditional to be made with lamb or beef.

For this famous dish, chumza noodles are prepared and the waja meat sauce is cooked separately. Now I will carefully outline how to create a waja for a lagman. See the step-by-step recipe for homemade pulled noodles here.

Ingredients

homemade noodles – 400-500 g
beef or lamb – 400 g
vegetable oil – 4-5 tbsp. l.
onions – 2 pcs. (200 g)
carrots – 1 pc. (70 g)
greenish radish – 100 g
potatoes – 2 pcs. (100 g)
bell pepper – 2 pcs. (80 g)
tomatoes – 2 pcs. (100 g)
tomato paste – 2 tsp.
chili pepper – 1 pc.
garlic - 3 teeth.
salt - to taste
ground cumin (jeera) – 1/3 tsp.
ground coriander – 1/3 tsp.
ground dark pepper – 1/4 tsp.
sweet ground paprika – 1 tsp.
water – 2-2.5 l
parsley and cilantro - 1 bunch.

Manufacturing

Trim the meat from the veins and cut into small cubes 1.5-2 cm. Heat 4-5 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a cauldron (calcinate well so that the meat does not stick and is fried until crusty). Throw in the meat.

Fry over high heat until the meat juice evaporates and the pieces become golden brown on all sides.

Cut the onion into cubes, add to the cauldron, fry a little.

Also cut the carrots into cubes, add them after the onions, and fry for a few more minutes. If you add radish (I cooked without it), then you also need to cut it into cubes and add it at this step.

Next is the turn of sweet pepper (cut into cubes) and chili (finely chopped, quantity to taste).

Grate the tomatoes on a large grater, holding them by the skin, and add a couple of teaspoons of tomato paste and chopped garlic. Salt (by eye; later, when everything is in the broth, you can adjust it if it’s not enough), spices to taste.

This is the kind of beauty that should turn out.

Pour in hot water from the kettle - taking into account the fact that you will also add potatoes and after cooking the broth will become less. Cover with a lid and simmer until the meat is half cooked, about half an hour.

Next, cut the potatoes into cubes and put them in the broth. Let simmer until cooked through, about 20 minutes more. As for potatoes, whole “culinary wars” are being waged over this issue. Some categorically do not add potatoes, claiming that Uzbeks have not eaten them since ancient times (in general, this has not been the case for a long time; potatoes as an ingredient have entered the local culinary tradition since the 30s of the last century). Others, including myself, think that it tastes better with potatoes and that the broth is even thicker and richer. So whether to add or not is at your discretion, friends.

In the meantime, cook the noodles for the lagman - you can create it yourself or buy it ready-made in the store. Boil in salted boiling water until tender. Remove the noodles, brush with vegetable oil and stir.

Ready-made vaja for lagman. If it seems to you that there is not enough broth, you can add some broth from the noodles and boil everything together.

How to submit? Place a portion of noodles (if it has cooled down, dip it in boiling water or in the broth after boiling the noodles), top with meat and vegetables and pour generously with liquid. Sprinkle with herbs before serving. Bon appetit!

Lagman Uzbek

Lagman in a slow cooker

My dear cooks, don’t be angry! I understand there are a lot of lagman recipes on the website, but mine is for a slow cooker! Lagman can be prepared in a slow cooker for lunch or dinner; everyone will like this hearty, fragrant dish, and preparing it using technology is easier than usual!

Lagman “For the beloved spouse”

Lagman is a beautiful dish, which is excellent because it can be used as both the 1st and 2nd dish. In addition, lagman can be stored well in the refrigerator for a number of days and becomes even tastier. Well, absolutely, this is a dish for those who are tired of soups and borscht.

Lagman in Central Russian

BUT. with a Central Asian emphasis. And I don’t need to tell you anything about braids. I understand it myself.

Rice lagman

Guruch lagman. My family and I have been in love with Central Asian cuisine for almost 30 years; we lived in Osh (Kyrgyzstan) for 5 years. Then I tried this dish. It was prepared by a Uighur woman, although the Uzbeks and Kazakhs (batta) have the same lagman. This dish is considered a thick soup.

Dry lagman

An Uzbek (Father-in-law) showed me such a lagman without broth! We like him better!

Lagman, Dungan noodles

This may not be a unique recipe, but this is how my father cooks. And he was born and raised in Tashkent. That's what the Uzbeks taught!

Real Uyghur lagman

There are a lot of nationalities living in Central Asia. Naturally, historically their cultures are intertwined, and this affects the kinship of languages, traditions and, especially, culinary arts. Hence, it is sometimes difficult to answer the question about whether a certain culinary masterpiece belongs to one or another civilization. One of such masterpieces of Central Asian dishes is Lagman. For those who are hearing about such a dish for the first time, I will explain - these are hand-pulled noodles with gravy, but unlike noodles, they do not have a thin appearance, but rather the appearance of spaghetti. There is no hesitation that there are many varieties of it, but the real lagman is called that, and is more quickly clarified: Uyghur. I would like to share the secrets of making Uyghur lagman, focusing rather on the technique of making elongated noodles, rather than on the gravy. After all, as mentioned above, gravies - sai - can be different, but there is only one dough - elongated. This skill was passed on to me by my mother, she is a native of the Xin-Jiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.

Lagman with potatoes

A very ordinary LAGMAN recipe! Now I will share with you a recipe for Central Asian cuisine, which combines the beauty of both 1 and 2 dishes!

Lagman with beef

Each housewife has her own lagman. And, as a rule, every sandpiper praises its swamp. I will praise you too. I was taught how to cook lagman by an old Uzbek in Feodosia, who ran a cafe near the beach and served only 2 hot dishes there, these were “Magic pilaf” and “Magic lagman”. Sea, beach, oriental smells, mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Well, we are still quite young, and then, as is understandable, the sky is bluer and the grass is greener. This was almost 25 years ago, and the memoirs are as fresh as yesterday. VERY! fundamentally: we start cooking over high heat, after the meat has “grabbed” into a crust, reduce the heat to medium, after the juice from the vegetables appears, cover with a lid, reduce the heat to a state where the lagman does not boil, but gurgles, then the vegetables remain in pieces, without going “into a mess.” I have about 3 liters of broth for stewing vegetables; I stew the vegetables so that they are stewed rather than boiled, adding broth as needed. Once all the vegetables are ready, I add the remaining broth to them and, immediately after boiling, turn off the heat. And only after that I cover the pan with a lid.

Lagman

My wife and I suddenly remembered how delicious the food is in Uzbekistan! And what a cool lagman we had to try! I really wanted to eat real lagman. Not the kind we love to cook with noodles or semi-finished noodles, but the real one. I wanted to taste the noodles that we tried in Uzbekistan! Well, what’s stopping you from preparing this cool dish?! Nothing! Armed with books, I prepared. It turned out amazing! I decided to share my experience with the cooks. PS: for an untrained cook with no experience in making lagman, preparing noodles turned out to be a harsh and very labor-intensive test! But it was worth it!

Lagman in Uzbek

Ingredients

Beef pulp – 300 g

Sweet pepper – 1 pc.

Hot pepper – 1 pc.

Greenish radish – 1 pc.

Tomato paste – 1 tbsp.

Garlic – 2 cloves

Ground coriander – 1 tsp.

Dry adjika – 0.5 tsp.

Vegetable oil – 3 tbsp. l.

Dry paprika – 1 tsp.

Noodles for lagman – 200 g

191 kcal
1 hour
1 hour

Photo of the finished dish

Step-by-step recipe with photos

I propose to prepare the Uzbek national dish - lagman. It is no secret that there are several varieties of lagman, and even in Uzbekistan they differ, depending on the region of residence. The main thing that you must strive for is the special taste of the dish, because this is not a sauce with pasta at all, the taste of lagman is a little spicy, slightly garlicky, with sourness and the smell of spices.

The essential ingredients for the Uzbek lagman are beef or lamb meat, green radish, peppers, tomatoes or pasta, celery, potatoes or cabbage. Chickpeas are added from time to time. But the Uyghur lagman must certainly contain green beans, jusai grass and no potatoes. The shape of the tenderloin also plays a role in the dish. If in the Uzbek lagman everything is cut into cubes, then in the Uyghur it is certainly only into strips.

Lagman requires special pulled noodles, either prepared and pulled by hand or purchased from special departments that sell ready-made frozen foods. Because it is not always possible to purchase such noodles, I suggest replacing them with very thin and long pasta, with a hole inside. They are very similar in shape, thickness and are most suitable for this dish. I don’t recommend using flat noodles; they don’t hold their shape and fall apart when pressed lightly. Lagman is not prepared with flat noodles in Uzbekistan.

We will need the following products:

Cut the beef meat into small cubes.

Prepare onions and carrots. If you want a very similar national dish to come out, then cut the carrots into cubes and the onions into thin strips, oriental style.

Heat the oil in a cauldron and fry the pieces of meat until lightly browned. Little salt.

Add onions and carrots. Fry for 5 minutes while stirring. Meanwhile, chop the remaining vegetables. For the lagman, you can cut everything in advance, then it will be easier.

Cut greenish radish and cabbage into squares. Chop the celery. You can use celery stems, but you can also use greens. I had young stems with greens.

Dice the peppers and tomatoes. It is usually not customary to remove the skin from tomatoes. I took one hot pepper, we call it Dungan, but maybe it has another name, and a sweet greenish pepper. And you do according to your own taste.

When the onions and carrots are lightly fried, add tomatoes and peppers. Stir fry for 3 minutes.

Then add spices, salt, tomato paste and fry everything together for another 3-4 minutes. Chop the garlic into smaller pieces and add to the vegetables.

Then add cabbage, celery and radish to the cauldron. Mix.

Pour 2-3 cups of water over the vegetables. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Vegetables should not turn into mush. Check for salt. If it is very sour, then add a little sugar (a pinch or a teaspoon).

Boil the lagman noodles separately in salted water. Drain the water and place the noodles into portioned bowls (not bowls, bowls only for tea).

Pour gravy over everything and sprinkle with fresh herbs. Lagman in Uzbek is ready!