Country 11 - Azerbaijan

 

Azerbaijan has got to be the best name for a country ever! 😀

Azerbaijan is on the borders of south-eastern Europe and south-western Asia. It is surrounded by the Caspian Sea, Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Iran.

It first became independent in 1918, then became part of USSR in 1920, it regained it's independence in 1991 when it became a republic.

Cultural influences come from Iran, Russia and Turkey as well as the Caucasian people of the area. Food influences are from Iran and Turkey and are an important part of the culture.

We struggled a bit to choose the recipes to cook this week. Although we want to try new foods we also want to cook meals that we are happy to try and eat and with ingredients that we can source locally.
So our Azerbaijan meal was influenced this week by the blog that began our little adventure Global Table Adventure by Sasha Martin. Azeri saffron pilaf with potato kazmag, green beans with Azeri tomato sauce and grilled Lyulya kabab.    It was all delicious! 😊

This week we were able to source minced lamb from Sobeys in Bridgewater - which was a nice surprise. I made the kebabs early in the day so that they had time to rest and for the flavours to mingle before we cooked them.

Grated onion, paprika, garlic, cumin, mint, parsley and cayenne. I made half the recipe except for the cayenne which we enjoy so I mixed in more.

It was when I came to wrap the meat mixture onto the kebab sticks that I realised we didn't have any bamboo ones so I used the 3 metal ones that we have had for ever! The meat kept falling off the sticks so in the end I made sausage shapes and poked the stick through the middle. It worked!!!!!

The pilaf method was a little strange. We had to line a pan with thinly sliced potatoes and cook them in water and butter until they were turning a little brown. Then we added half the cooked rice, a layer of melted butter and then the rest of the rice and then even more butter - there is a lot of butter in this dish! Then the whole thing was covered and left to steam for 40 minutes. It was so tempting to keep checking on it as we were sure the whole thing would eirther dry out and stick to the pan or just not cook at all!

This is the dish ready for its final steam.

Meanwhile we made the green bean dish. The beans and onions are cooked in yet more butter until the beans are beginning to soften.

Then they are added to the tomato sauce which has been combined with plain yoghurt and sour cream. You will have to imagine the final result as I forgot to take a photo! 

Before we served the rice and while the kebabs were grilling/broiling we finished the pilaf.

We had to remove a cup of cooked rice and mixed it with a small amount of hot water in which saffron had been soaking. We bought saffron when we were in Dubai and it was exciting to be using some if it at last. The rice went a beautiful yellow with golden streaks of saffron.

               

The pilaf was transfered to a serving dish with the golden rice in the centre.

We scrapped the potato from the bottom of the pan

 and scattered it over the top.

The kebabs are ready.

Our Azerbaijan meal. 

No alcohol this week as Azerbaijan is a mainly Muslim country. They drink something called Sherbert, it's a bit like the lemon cordial that I make so we had that with some added basil leaves.

                         

We were very pleased with our Azerbaijan meal. Everything was delicious. The kebabs had a slight 'kick' from the extra cayenne, the green beans and tomato sauce were very tasty and certainly something to make again. We had missed out the last butter addition to the pilaf and it was, indeed, buttery enough, certainly an interesting way to change a basic rice into something more special.