National cuisine

In equal parts Georgian, Iranian, Turkish and Central Asian, the national cuisine of Azerbaijan is heavy on meat - especially lamb, beef, mutton and poultry - and richly spiced. While having much in common with the cooking of its neighbours, Azeri food has a character all of its own and is surprisingly varied - each region, as a rule, having its own specialties. As is the case with Azeri carpets or music, the dishes are exquisitely refined and take time and skill to prepare. Meat dishes are flavoured with chestnuts, dried apricots, raisins, and green herbs.

Common items are pilaff / plov (rice fried with meat, fish, vegetables or even fruit) and fish. Not that you can't get your veggies - beets, cabbage, eggplants, spinach and others are common. Many dishes use saffron, though you'll often taste coriander, fennel, mint and parsley. Soup is a staple of Azerbaijani cuisine, often made with meat and sheep fat.

There are about a hundred varieties of pilaff: instead of being cooked in oil in one pot as in Uzbekistan, the rice and the various seasonings of the Azeri pilaff are cooked in separate pots. At home they are served separately, with melted butter in a jug, and everyone helps himself. In restaurants it's usually served in a metal dish with a lid.
Dolma is another common dish: minced lamb meat with rice and different spices is wrapped into grape leaves (or occasionally in cabbage). Eggplants, potatoes, pepper, apples are also stuffed with lamb meat.

Other excellent dishes include: piti soup, made of mouton and peas, served in a earthenware pot; dogva yoghurt soup, served with meatballs and herbs; kiufta-bosbash soup (a clear soup with meat balls, rice peas and potatoes); liula-kebab grilled over an open fire: dooshbere soup with local ravioli; khamrachi (a noodle soup); kutabi pastries with various stuffings and many others.

In the northwest khingal is a favourite dish - a flour dish with meat, fried onion and kurut (a dried cottage cheese). In the Lenkoran region chicken is stuffed with nuts, onion and jelly and fried. Fish is also stuffed and baked in a tandoori oven. The Apsheron peninsula is famous for its dushpara - small meat dumplings and kutabs - meat patties made in a very thin dough.

Bread is served with most meals, the most common are the round loaves called 'chorek'. Try also the wafer style 'lavash'. The traditional white wheat flour bread baked in a tandoori oven is usually still found in the countryside.

Caviar (kuru) is one of the Azeri luxuries, and you can taste it not only canned but also fresh. In Baku the best place to find it is at the Taza bazaar, near the Circus (beware that you are only allowed to take 600 g out of the country). In Azerbaijan besides some of the best caviar in the world, you will be able to taste the sturgeon itself (osetr). In fact many second courses are prepared of fish. Sturgeon shashlik, kutum a la Azerbaijan, kuku of kutum, balyg chygyrtma, stuffed fish, boiled, fried and stew fish, fish-pilaff, starred sturgeon pilaff, balyg mutyanjan are the most popular fish dishes. But not all fish is sturgeon, and the Caspian sea also provides herring, salmon and the more rare pike perch.

A special place in the Azerbaijan cuisine belongs to salads prepared from fresh vegetables. When making salads of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum, coriander and basil these ingredients are very finely cut. Salads are served together with the main course. Salads "Khazar", "Azerbaijan", "Bakhar", red caviar salad, salad a la Sheky, kuku of greens, kuku of kutum (kind of fish), kuku with nuts, fisinjan of beans, red beet etc; are the most common salads and cold dishes in the Azerbaijan cookery.

If you like new things, and enjoy a little culinary adventure, have a typical local breakfast dish: "hash" - boiled hoof served with garlic-vinegar and a shot of vodka.
The Azeri sweets shouldn't be missed. Often you'll will be offered some in business or social meetings. Worth special reference are: the shekerbura (pie of thin dough with nuts and sugar), the shekerlockum and pahlava (a diamond shaped layered sweet pastry with nuts) accompanied by sherbet or tea.

Tea ('chai') is central to all social, family and even a lot of business occasions. Tea is served in small pear shaped glasses (armuds) and sometimes sweetened with jam, it starts and ends a grand meal. In the traditional chaykhanas (tea houses), you can linger over a pot all day if you like. Tea in Azerbaijan is a symbol of warm hospitality. Tea can be accompanied with various jams or nuts and raisins. Sometimes when brewing tea dried leaves or flowers of savory, clove, cardamom and other spices are added to give a special flavour. Special tea is also made of cinnamon (darchin) and ginger.

Kvas, although totally unknown to most western Europeans, is one of the most refreshing things you can drink in a summer day. It's a non-alcoholic fermented drink, made from bread. As in Russia it is sold on the streets, from little yellow tankers.

Sherbet is one of the most popular drinks in Azerbaijan. It is an infusion made of sugar, lemon, saffron, seeds of mint and basil and other fruit.
And certainly the large portion of Azeri products belongs to a great variety of fruits and vegetables. Apart from using them as they are i.e. in a raw condition also they are widely used in food preparation.