Beef lagman - an oriental tale in your kitchen

2023 Author: Alfred Shackley | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 13:14

Difficulty Medium Publication author Natalya Batolina NB

Some dishes of the national cuisine of other countries have firmly established themselves in our country. One such dish is beef lagman. It's actually beef soup with vegetables and noodles.

But cooking a seemingly simple soup actually requires a careful approach and skillful conducting.

How beef lagman is prepared

The inhabitants of Central Asia shared the recipe for beef lagman with us. The recipes for this first course, like many other traditional dishes, for example, cabbage soup and borscht, may differ from each other, but in general it is quite simple to prepare such a soup, you just need to have all the necessary products in your arsenal.

Ingredients:

• beef - 300 - 400 g;
• flour - 200 g;
• eggs - 2 pcs.;
• potatoes - 2 pcs.;
• onions - 2 pcs.;
• carrots - 2 pcs.;
• bell pepper - 1 pc.;
• black radish - 1 pc.;
• green beans - 200 g;
• eggplant - 1 pc.;
• tomatoes - 2 pcs.;
• vegetable oil - 100-150 ml.

The spices you need are cumin, star anise, red and black pepper, garlic, coriander, and paprika. The Uzbeks also add onion-jusai, which has a peculiar garlic-delicate taste. It can be replaced with wild garlic or young garlic feathers.

In Uzbek cuisine, traditional lagman is cooked in a special cauldron over a fire, and in modern cuisine, you can cook this dish in a multicooker. The main ingredient in the soup, apart from beef, is homemade noodles.

Lagman has three components: noodles, pouring (waja) and sauce (laza-chang). They all have their own characteristics. Let's see which ones.

Noodle recipe

Lagman noodles are special because they are complemented with an original roast with a specific set of Central Asian spices.

The Uzbeks consider this dish to be both the first and second. The Uzbek name is "chuzma-lagmon", which means "pull". This original name appeared because the noodles made by Uzbeks can be up to 5 m long. It is coated with oil, wrinkled in water and stretched.

However, nowadays many supermarkets sell ready-made pasta called "Lagmon", and you can buy them, so as not to mess around too much. Other pasta like Italian pasta or spaghetti are also suitable for this soup. Lagman is a democratic dish and allows for cooking variations.

Although if you still decided to follow all the technologies and make noodles with your own hands, then listen to the following recommendations.

Anyone who is familiar with the recipe for making homemade noodles or Italian pasta knows that in order to make it right, not so many products are needed.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs;
• 200 g flour;
• 1-2 tbsp. tablespoons of olive (or other odorless vegetable oil);
• 1 tbsp. l. ice water.

Cooking method:

1. 

2. Stir the eggs well, add flour, gradually adding oil and water, knead the dough well.
3. This should be done until the dough stops tearing and begins to stretch.
4. The dough is pulled, beaten on the table, hands are moistened with water or oil, and when it is already sufficiently stretched, it is wrapped in a film and left for an hour.
5. After that, roll out the dough into a layer no more than 5 mm thick, then roll the layer into a tube and cut the noodles.
6. Set aside the boiled noodles and start making the sauce.

Making the sauce

Lagman is very fond of the Chinese, Japanese, Tatars, Uzbeks, and these peoples attach particular importance to the taste of the sauce. It is very important to properly prepare the sauce (laza-chang) for this soup. Making beef lagman without the right sauce would be pointless.

Since the symphony of the dish must also form the right notes, one of which is a wonderful sauce. The recipe for this seasoning is aimed at the fact that the gravy should be colorful and have a characteristic oriental accent.

Probably, every housewife sometimes made rice porridge instead of pilaf. So, so that it does not work out exactly the same with this soup, and you get the necessary consistency and taste, you must strictly observe the exact cooking technology.

We will separately prepare the lagman seasoning (laza-chang).

Ingredients:

• Garlic;
• coriander;
• ground pepper;
• broth from noodles.

Cooking method:

1. Crush 2-3 cloves of garlic with a pinch of ground coriander.
2. 1 teaspoon ground pepper and sauté for 3 minutes.
3. At the same time, add 3-4 tbsp. l. broth from noodles.
4. Then add a little salt, pour in half a teaspoon of wine vinegar and pour the finished mixture into a separate jar.

Vegetables and meat

Another secret of how to properly prepare beef lagman is that this dish is very rich and contains a large amount of vegetables and meat.

Ingredients:

• eggplant;
• tomatoes;
• onion;
• potato;
• bell pepper;
• black radish;
• green beans;
• carrot.

Cooking method:

1. 

2. You can cut vegetables in your own format, there are no hard and fast rules for cutting vegetables.
3. As for meat, beef is traditionally used, but lamb is also used by many. You will need 300-400 g of meat.
4. Also in your arsenal should be salt, pepper, herbs, vegetable oil.
5. Cut vegetables, eggplant, radish, onion, carrot, potato into cubes and meat into strips.
6. Scald the tomatoes with boiling water, and then immerse them in cold water.
7. After that, free them from the skin and cut them into cubes too.
8. Cut the bell peppers into strips, and the green beans into slices about 3 cm long.
9. Put pieces of meat in the heated oil and fry over high heat, stirring all the time.
10. When the fat becomes transparent, add the onion there, after it is browned, lower the radish, carrots, potatoes and beans.
11. After stewing for 10-15 minutes, add the tomatoes, bell pepper, a little garlic, chili or ground red and black pepper.
12. After that, fill the mixture with water so that it covers it by 1-2 fingers.
13. Add an star anise.
14. Simmer for 10 minutes, add jusai or garlic feathers, spices, bay leaf, salt.
15. When 2-3 minutes have passed, remove the fill from the heat and set aside for 15 minutes.

The dish is served as follows: noodles are poured into a plate, a ladle of fragrant waji (pouring) is placed on top, sprinkled with herbs, and the sauce is placed next to it.

This hearty, fragrant and spicy dish will surprise and feed your guests to their fill!