Each sly fox had his own plans. Getting relatives, a young master from a large trading clan, and even a kind of warriors was very welcome. The little elder of the mountain village could never have dreamed of it. And then luck itself floated into his hands.
Debt?! He is paying off! This is the law of trade, the law of hospitality! To abandon this means to cease to be a man of honor! And without honor, there is no trust, no trust, no trade!
The girls were cute and beautiful, like all young creatures. But Shir Ali was too young to flirt. Yes, and he was too soon let through the millstones of political repression. Indicated by the traitors who destroyed the socialist second empire. Therefore, for the age of 8 years, Shir Ali was more clamped, not trusting, and was looking for hidden meaning, where it might not have been.
As the son of a senior officer, grandson of general, secret police, he did not trust anyone until he checked him and still did not trust 100 percent.
Shir Ali only smiled ... he would only have to find out the pilaf recipe and there we'll figure it out on the spot.
The bow was yellow, and there was red, purple and white.
What attracted the attention of Shir Ali.
"Ah, this onion is not for cooking pilaf, it is for dressing salads, red onions have a sweet taste, white tart, purple has a soft texture, pleasant aroma," said the mountaineer.
"Yeah, that means like everyone else!" raising his eyebrows, Shir Ali was surprised.
Cut the onion in half rings. Highlander began to cut meat. It was a mountain ram. His meat was like a deer. But Shir Ali has never eaten deer meat in his life. So what is it like? He didn't even know!
His gourmet journey was still long since he had not tried many products, the meat of different animals. He needed to learn not only new methods of cooking, slicing, but also to recognize meat and fruits by taste and appearance.
Well, he was only at the beginning of his journey becoming a gourmet, 8 years old, only on the way!
The meat was red, with layers of internal fat, the tail fat lay separately in a large piece.
The highlander took a sharp and long knife, rather even a dagger. He cleverly separated the fat from the meat. Fat glittered in the sun. The meat had an amazing texture.
He cut the meat into large pieces. Preparatory work is very important in cooking.
First, select the selected products. Then wash and dry them. Peel, chop. Prepare all cooking tools, including the hob.
Highlander was cutting meat on a large and flat slate, a rock that lay in the courtyard. It was a flat surface in the 20th century, many chefs would have been for such a surface, would have been glad to pay tens if not hundreds of thousands of US dollars.
But the simple highlander, in the distant Middle Ages, did not even have the thought that it was a natural cutting board, was so special!
The rock had a size of 3 meters by 5. On it lay wooden bowls, large the size of a tree trunk. Hazelnuts.
The production of bowls itself was a separate topic for discussion. The highlander made them himself, carving for long winter evenings from the trunk of a nut. Such bowls were strong, and most importantly cheaper and more durable than burnt clay bowls.
Red and white carrots cut into strips already lay in bowls. Carrot Juice. Onion half rings. The pulp of a mountain sheep, internal fat and fat tail, cut into small cubes.
And smaller bowls contained spices, cumin, barberry, mint.
Highlanders gathered medicinal and spicy plants in the mountains and small swamps in the lowlands of the foothills. They fermented them, dried in other words, and then during the winter and spring, used the resulting spices.
They exchanged them with traders for money or goods that they needed. Needles, threads, buttons, gunpowder. And the economical mountaineers themselves poured bullets, since there were deposits of lead ore in their mountains.
Many highlanders were also counterfeiters, since the time of the mountain magicians who possessed the magic of fire, there have been mines for the extraction of silver and gold.
In the mountains one could also find diamond pipes. Diamonds were not as beautiful as in the Pamir mountains, but they could also be exchanged with merchants.
From dry herbs, they also made infusions, decoctions, ointments, with the addition of fat frogs, snakes, bears, badgers, which were found in the mountains.
From the wax of wild bees, with the addition of spices, medicinal herbs, balms were also made, which were treated for bites of poisonous snakes and spiders. Healed headaches and colds. They gave a sleepy person a feeling of vigor for a while. Saved from bites of fleas and ticks that were found in caves, when the mountaineers mined the shit of bats.
And they exchanged the mummy-like saffron for grams, it was considered a mountain magical substance. From it, urban alchemists prepared the elixir of youth.
To which Shir Ali only grinned bitterly, this quackery was not as dangerous as the alchemists from the Chinese Empire and various dynasties. They generally used cinnabar and ground jade to prolong the life that poisoned the body itself.
On the hearth made of stones stood a large bowler. In the view of Shir Ali, he rated it at 20 liters.
As Feruz told him, that the taste of pilaf also depends on the volume of the pot. In large, 100 liters, it turns out to be especially tasty! Since there are large pieces of meat, not cut, with bones, brain. from which the taste of pilaf becomes more saturated, the texture of the rice is more tender and the taste and aftertaste are deeper. It allows you to reveal the whole gamut of different products.
Small home boilers, they could not reveal all the charm of taste, a volume of 3-5 liters. Since the pieces of meat were sliced, there were not so many bones.
Mid taste in a 20-liter pot.
Much depends on the material of the pot - copper, silver, stone, steel, aluminum, cast iron.
Classic was considered stone, but wherein the city you will find one in the 20th century, therefore, cast iron was chosen as the standard of quality.
And nomads from 10 to the end of the 19th century used copper. Aluminum boilers were popular during the period of socialism.
Now at home at Shir Ali, there was a pot of black cast iron cast in Stockholm. In the Russian company, which opened its factory in Sweden. Selling your products like Swedish dishes. Most of which was manufactured under license in technoparks, in small villages in the provinces of Guangdong and Sichuan, in China.
Already in the early 90s of the 20th century, most of the production in Europe and the United States moved to China.
Also, a lot depended on the type of fire. Firewood, coal, gas, electricity.
The classic version is firewood from fruit trees or charcoal, fruit trees.
In the city, they usually cooked on gas, and pilaf cooked on electricity was not considered the most delicious.
The mountaineer had firewood, cherries. When burned, they give an additional smell to rice, as you know this cereal absorbs (absorbs) all odors well.
Having opened fire under the cauldron, the highlander waited for him to heat up, and then threw pieces of chopped fat tail fat. After some time, in order to brew green tea and drink the first bowl, pieces of lard began to melt...