azeri food

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 specialities. 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 Azeri dish: minced lamb meat with rice is wrapped into grape leaves (Yarpag dolmasy) or occasionally in cabbage leaves (Kyalyam dolmasy). This dish is condimented with coriander, dill, mint, pepper, cinnamon and melted butter. Sometimmes chestnuts and peas are part of the mix. Sour milk is often used as a sauce. Aubergines, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onions, quince and apples are also stuffed with lamb meat and also called dolma.

Kebabs are a staple dish, try the liula-kebab grilled over an open fire. Stewed lamb, Bosartma, is another local favourite, the meat is stewed with vegetables and plums. Bosartma is served with lemon slices and cucumbers.

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.

Other excellent dishes include: piti soup, made of mouton and peas, served in a earthenware pot; dogva pea with yoghurt soup, served with meatballs and herbs (served both cold and hot); kiufta-bosbash soup (a clear soup with meat balls, rice peas and potatoes); dooshbere soup with local ravioli; khamrachi (a noodle soup); kutabi pastries with various stuffings.

Bread is served with most meals, the most common are the round loaves callled '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. There's some sturgeon farming but most caviar comes from the dwindling stocks of the Caspian sea.

In Baku the best place to find caviar is at the Taza bazaar, near the Circus. Beluga is rather rare in Baku - most production of Beluga is exported. Most caviar you find in Baku is Osetra and Sevruga. You should also be aware that most fresh caviar is fully authentic, but illegally poached.

Beware that you are only allowed to take 600 g of caviar out of the country. Customs inspectors are skilled at checking for contraband in x-rayed luggage at the airport. The best way to smuggle Azeri caviar out of the country is via train to Russia, where it is not even checked for. From Moscow, it's easy to get the caviar out of the country. Unless you smuggle, you will find little cost advantage to buying caviar in Baku for export, versus buying in the West.

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 and sturgeon fillet with pomegranate sauce (Narsharab) 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 ('çay') is the drink of hospitality, it is central to all social, family and even a lot of business occasions. Tea, mainly black, is served in small pear shaped glasses - the glasses are called armuds, literally meaning pear. Tea is 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 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. The word Kvas is Russian by origin and means “sour beverage". It's a non-alcoholic fermented drink, made from malt. As in Russia it is sold on the streets, from little yellow tankers.

There are many recipes of kvas, but, in general, they have the same ingredients, just in different proportions: malt, rye or wheat flour, boiling water. This dense mass is blended until it acquires a sweet taste. Then it is put in a well heated oven for 24 hours. Finally it is dissolved in water and left in a room for 2-3 hours. That is the base of kvas making, but kvases differ by different types of flour, temperature of water; some people liked to add sugar, raisins, honey, mint or molasses. Kvas is notable for rich content of vitamin B, and historically was used to prevent scurvy.

Sherbet is one of the most popular drinks in Azerbaijan. It is a refreshing infusion that come in many varities: sugar, milk, lemon, saffron, seeds of mint and basil and several fruits.