The Uzbek flatbread

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Uzbeks have a long tradition. When an Uzbek comes to another city to visit, they buys bread. The tradition is still preserved. The flatbread has become a symbol of goodness and well-being. Therefore, when visiting someone, it is necessary to bring several flatbreads and the amount of bread brought should be even.

Baking a flatbread is a lot of work, and there is nothing tastier than bread baked in a tandoor! Just imagine, it is still steamy hot, fragrant, crispy flatbread is extremely tasty and appetizing! In addition, all because it is prepared in a special tandoor oven, which has the shape of a cylinder with a narrowed neck.

Tandoor is a special oven, and it used to be installed in almost every Uzbek family. Special artisans make such an oven from mountain loess with the addition of camel or sheep wool.

Vertical and horizontal tandoors are known. The first are made in the Samarkand, Bukhara and Kashkadarya regions. Such a tandoor is laid on a brick foundation, where a hole is left in the bottom part or a pipe is placed for blowing. In the Tashkent and Fergana regions, tandoor horizontal arrangement is made, and they are installed against the wall so that the hole tightly touches the wall. Tandoor is coated with clay mixed with wheat straw and salt, and the inner walls are lubricated with cotton oil, which gives the oven smoothness and does not allow flour crumbs to stick to the wall.Before starting baking flatbread, the master – and this is usually a man – kindles coals in the tandoor and heats the oven. Bread is laid in a tandoor when there is no longer a big fire in it, and the walls are pre-sprayed with water.

Flatbread or samsa are attached to the wall of the oven with a light slap using a rapid mitten made on a cotton base. Then the hole of the tandoor closes tightly for a short time.

In addition, when the master opens the hole of the magic oven, the amazing smell coming from there once again confirms that the most delicious bread is only from tandoor!