Shared by Jeremy Issacharoff
Shared by Jeremy Issacharoff
Osavo (Overnight Bukharian Rice)
Yield: 6 ServingsTime: About 1 hour, plus overnight cooking
Osavo (Overnight Bukharian Rice)
Yield: 6 ServingsTime: About 1 hour, plus overnight cookingFamily Journey
Aleppo, SyriaSamarkand, UzbekistanJerusalem
LondonJerusalem
When JFS culinary manager Talya Avisar learned of a Bukharian Shabbat dish in her fiance’s family she set out to master it, seeing it as an important step to becoming part of the family. Here, she tells us the story in her own words.
My fiancé Dean shoved his phone into my hand, showing me a message in his family’s WhatsApp group. It was a picture of a rich-looking rice stew, served with brown eggs, along with his dad Jeremy’s instructions for how to make the dish. I scrolled down and saw that his mom, Laura, had added, “Dad wants to know if Talya will put him on the website.”
Feeling the weight of responsibility, I instantly started interrogating Dean about the dish and its origins. I discovered that osavo, or oshsavo (osh means rice), is a Bukharian hamin — an overnight dish cooked on Friday night and eaten for lunch on Shabbat. It consists of caramelized grated carrots and onions, cubes of meat, dried fruit (prunes, in this case), and rice. Overnight, the rice gets soft and porridge-like and develops a charred, crispy bottom, which is everyone’s favorite part. Jeremy comes from a line of Bukharian men who love to cook, and this is one of his staples.
Before bringing the recipe to the JFS test kitchen, I knew I first had to make it at home. In a way, it symbolized stepping into this family and becoming a part of it.
Fittingly, it was a very cold weekend (the only hamin-appropriate weather), and we invited friends over (this really isn’t a two-person dish). Unlike when I officially test a recipe, I didn’t follow the instructions religiously; I felt I had to rely on intuition and instinct and cook like a grandma for this to succeed. The osavo cooked all night, smelling almost too good to let us sleep. To serve with it, Dean made his dad’s famous salad of finely chopped vegetables with pickles and roasted peppers.
The osavo came out rich, comforting, and delicious, and we all ate a little too much of it. After lunch, Dean sent a photo to the family WhatsApp. When his dad called and declared that it “looks perfect” and asked whether we had taken the obligatory “shloof” — the inevitable post-hamin nap — I knew I had succeeded.
Cooking note: To ensure the osavo doesn’t dry out while cooking overnight, place a piece of parchment paper directly over the rice, then seal the pot tightly with a lid before putting it in the oven. To do this, cut out a circle of parchment paper to match the diameter of your pot.
Read more about Jeremy and Dean’s family in "the Bukharian dish that’s perfumed shabbats for generations" and try his recipe for chopped salad with pickles and roasted peppers.
Ingredients
- 1½ lb beef chuck, cut into 1½ -inch cubes
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more
- ½ cup neutral oil, plus more
- 2 yellow onions, finely chopped
- 3-4 medium carrots, grated
- 8 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
- 8-10 pitted prunes, chopped
- 1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper, plus more
- 2 cups jasmine rice, thoroughly rinsed
- 2-3 cups water
- 6-8 hard boiled eggs
Preparation
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 200°F.
Step 2
Set a large, heavy-bottomed pot like a Dutch oven over high heat and generously season the meat with salt. Add 2 tablespoons of oil and sear the meat on all sides until browned, about 2 minutes on each side. Do not overcrowd the pot, work in batches. Transfer the meat to a plate and set aside.
Step 3
Add ½ cup oil to the pot along with the onion and fry over medium-high heat until golden, about 10 minutes. Add the carrots, and continue cooking until the carrots are slightly softened and golden, about 8–10 minutes.
Step 4
Stir in the garlic and tomato paste and fry for a few seconds. Then add the chopped tomatoes, prunes, salt, black pepper, and continue cooking, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes.
Step 5
Return the meat to the pot along with the drained rice. Add enough water to just cover the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
Step 6
Add the boiled eggs on top of the rice, cover with a piece of parchment, and seal the pot tightly with a lid. From that moment on, do not stir the rice.
Step 7
Place the pot in the preheated oven and cook for 10–12 hours. By the end, all of the liquid should be absorbed by the rice, and the rice at the edges of the pot will be charred.
Step 8
Serve hot. The rice should have a soft and porridgy texture and a dark and crispy bottom (the best part).
