Uzbek Lamb and Rice
Soaking the rice in warm water, and changing the water a couple of times until it's clear helps the rice be less sticky in the end.
By the way, isn't that photo of the rice cool ? All of these were taken by Tiffany Converse Photography. Thank you!
Interesting... He cut the carrot into planks, and then sliced stacks of them with a tilted knife.
That technique made the edges of the carrots not so geometric looking. Very cool. Otherwise he chopped like a professional. Turns out he was a cook in an army, (I think Russian). Anyway, he's a man of many tricks. He also showed me a bag of precut julienned carrots he got at the store.
Okay this next thing is cool. He basically made lamb cracklin's with the lamb fat. Or maybe they're more like bacon bits. Fried animal fat.
The process flavors the oil, in turn the rice, and makes for a good little appetizer or cook's snack. 
This next picture is his steam vent trick. Read more about it in the recipe. Very little of the rice is sitting in water because he uses less water than the 2:1 ratio, we cook some of it off w/o a lid, and then the narrow bottom of the walk keeps most rice above what little water remains. The steam vents and the lid help the existing moisture in all the meat and veggies soften the rice over two hours and fifteen minutes of slow cooking. 
All photos copyright Tiffany Converse 2010
