Azerbaijan Dishes

Trying traditional dishes is one of the best ways to get to know a new country, and for Azerbaijan cuisine, this theory is quite relevant. Delicious, hearty, and varied Azerbaijan food will impress and surprise you no less than the numerous natural and cultural attractions of Azerbaijan. Be prepared to have a nourishing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The local Azerbaijani dish is very high in calories! You will encounter dishes of Azerbaijan cuisine with various types of meat at every step: pilafs, soups, pies, poultry, and fish dishes. You can try these delicacies at any restaurant or local household. Vegetables, fruits, and dried fruits are also actively used as a principal or additional ingredient. Many Azerbaijani meals are delicately seasoned with fragrant spices in various combinations and proportions, making each dish unique and inimitable.

Azerbaijan cuisine has a unique national flavor due to the distinctiveness of culinary talents as well as the customs of serving and eating food. The Azerbaijani feast will impress you with a multi-colored palette of delectable delicacies, each deserving of its description. We've assembled a list of some of Azerbaijan's most distinctive foods that you should taste while visiting the country.

Pilaf

For Azerbaijanis, plov is more than a dish; dozens of varieties of Azerbaijani pilaf recipes are passed down from generation to generation. The essential ingredients in pilaf are rice and meat, but the types of meat used, the vegetables and dried fruits used, the spices used, and the way the pilaf is served all vary.

Enjoy the delicate taste of Chigirtma plov to appreciate the combination of chicken meat, whisked eggs, and melted butter. Also, try the fried lamb Parcha Doshamya Plov, which is greasy and heavy in calories. Try the Shirin pilaf with cinnamon, dried apricots, barberry, and prunes. Choose Shah-pilaf, the king of pilafs with the shape of a big pie, for the most stunning presentation of pilaf. Whatever sort of pilaf you favor, learning about it will open your eyes to the richness and complexity of Azerbaijan culture.

Dovga

A light, sour-milk-based soup made of yogurt, flour, eggs, spices, and herbs is a great meal, both on hot and cool days. The peculiarity of the dish is that it can be consumed both hot and cold. Eating Dovga is especially pleasant during the autumn weather. While it's cold outside, the steaming fragrant dovga will warm you and help restore strength. The soup's spicy sourness comes from greens and a milk base, while the dish's heartiness and richness come from eggs, flour, and rice.

Levengi

Levengi or Lavangi is a national dish of Azerbaijan. This meal consists of chicken or fish, filled with fried onion, walnut, and dried fruit stuffing. Caviar is added to the filling if fish is the main ingredient. To give it a particularly deep flavor and aroma, the entire meal is cooked in a tandoor clay oven. Then the chicken is coated in a rich paste of tamarind sauce or cherry-plum sauce, which gives it extra taste. The finished dish is adorned with onion rings, sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, pomegranate seeds, or chopped herbs.

Qutab

Any traveler will fall in love with a traditional Azerbaijani thin dough pie called Qutab. This hearty and delicious dish can be made in a variety of ways and with a variety of toppings. Qutab can be filled with fresh herbs, meat, cheese, pumpkin, onions, pomegranate seeds, and other ingredients. Butter is slathered on ready-made hot pies, making them even more appealing.

Jiz-Biz

Fragrant and juicy roast Jiz-Biz is prepared in Azerbaijan from mutton meat. Kidneys, liver, heart, and other organs are used to make this dish. Additional ingredients include potatoes and onions. The dish is finished up with chopped herbs and served with warm bread. Jiz-Biz originated as food for shepherds who spent a lot of time in the fields, but it spread throughout Azerbaijan through time. Make sure to taste this hearty cuisine, which will fill you with power and energy right away!

Buglama

The delicate texture and a rich pallet of flavors of lamb stewed in a sauce of fried veggies and cherry plum will amaze you. Tomatoes, sweet peppers, and onions, seasoned with spices and fried in butter, organically complement rich and high-calorie lamb meat with spicy undertones. The sourness of cherry plum provides a unique flavor to buglama.

Piti

Piti is Azerbaijani soup made of tail fat and vegetables cooked in an aromatic mutton bone broth. Like many other Azerbaijan dishes, it is distinguished by its rich taste. The name of the soup comes from the name of a small clay pot in which pity was traditionally prepared. You can find variations of this soup. For example, beef is also used in the preparation of the dish. Although, its key ingredients are lamb and chickpeas, complemented by cherry plums, vegetables, and seasonings. Piti soup is also served with pickles and lavash.

Sadj

A vibrant and tasty dish of lamb meat and a broad variety of vegetables, including eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and zucchini is a true vegetable stew with a substantial lamb meat flavor! All of the ingredients are fried separately and then placed down in layers in a single bowl. The lettuce leaves cover the bottom of the container. Following that, fried meat is placed in the center of the plate, surrounded by fried vegetables. Dill sprigs adorn the finished sadj, tava or tawa.

Sheker chuker

Azerbaijani pastries, in addition to nourishing and high-calorie vegetable and meat dishes, are worth learning about. Sheker chuker means "sweet bread" in Azerbaijani, and indeed, the shape and ingredients of this delicacy match its name. Sheker churek biscuits have a delicate structure and a pleasant sweetness to them. Egg yolk is slathered on the finished product.

Baklava

Baklava is a well-known dessert and is among the top Azerbaijan dishes representing the country's national cuisine. This dessert is made of delicate, milk-infused dough, and the crumbly structure is provided by a groundnut and honey filling that soak into each layer of the product. Finished baklava is frequently topped with walnut halves and sugar syrup.