Azeri things I made before I got sick

I have a confession to make… I cheated a little. I actually did manage to make two Azerbaijani dishes before I got sick. So I’m gonna post them now, and have Fry’s schnitzle for dinner tonight

I made Dushbere, an Azeri dumpling soup, from the recipe over at AZCookBook, and Zebra cake, from a recipe at the same website (she really is fab). There are other recipes around, but I preferred to use the first one I found there.

The dumplung soup was tedios to make, and instead of getting 5-10 dumplings per spoon (!) I only got 1-2. Clearly I need to work on my tiny dumpling making skills.

I substituted mushed Sanitarium sausages for the mince, but I otherwise followed the recipe. It was so yummy, but I’m not sure its worth the work! I don’t have a photo, because I was in a bit of pain and forgot, but I can tell you it was yummy.

Earlier that day I also made Zebra cake. It is a chocolate and vanilla cake that is patterned to look like Zebra stripes. I have posted photos below, and it looks so pretty. I substituted silken tofu for the egg, and soy milk for milk. Mine was a little too wet, so I suggest only substituting about half as much tofu as egg, volume wise.

Zebra cake

It was so pretty that I’m going to appropriate the technique for an Orange and Chocolate Tiger cake, which will hopefully be in the book (a yet-to-be-named chocolate themed Vegan cookbook), whenever I finish it.

Kufta, Ajab Sandal, and cute kids

Before I move on to the rest of this post, check out these recipes and essays, submitted by school kids in Azerbaijan. I think they’re just great. Some are insightful, some sad, and most cute. I especially like the pictures that go with the writing.

I found those while I was looking for recipes, and came across one for something called Ajab Sandal. I don’t know where it comes from, except that at least one person in Azerbaijan makes it. It looked tasty, had more vegetables than some of the other options, and seemed easily veganisable. It is a vegetable and meat stew, with corriander, dill and parsley.

I followed the recipe exactly, using mashed sausages (I had four left over after the piti) instead of mutton mince. It tasted good during my taste tests, and Mr says the final result was good, but I didn’t quite get to tasting it properly.

You see, I have a thing about dill. Its due to a nasty scent-memory from a high school hospitality course. Each student was supposed to make hollandaise sauce. Real hollandaise sauce curdles easily, and is flavoured with dill. 2 1/2 hours of the scent of curdled eggs and butter with dill 9 years ago, and I still can’t stomach the stuff today, as the smell puts me off food. It was  a small miracle that I liked the salad yesterday! Ah well. Dill-phobia aside, it looked good, I initially liked it, and Mr said it was tasty. So check out the recipe and give it a go.

Unfortunately, due to the dill incident, I didn’t get a good photo last night (I avoided the kitchen for a bit). So this photo was taken this morning, of the left overs. It doesn’t look a pretty, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Ajab Sandal

Soup tonight is Kufta-Bozbash. The internet claims that the ingredients are the same as last night’s piti, however the mice is turned into kufta (meatballs), presented in a broth. I had a lot of soup left over from last night, so I decided to get my recycle on. I strained the soup, and mashed the vegies and sausages with my hands. I added some bread crumbs, rolled them into balls, and popped them in the oven on moderate for about 15 minutes. I re-heated the broth, and served the cooked balls in it. My kufta was clearly not the same as if it had been made out of mince, but they tasted good, and were quite fluffy due ot the potato from the soup. The broth tasted wonderfully full bodied and buttery, as it had improved over night.

Kufta Bozbash

It might be worth noting here that we don’t usually eat mutli-stage meals, or nearly this much margarine and faux meat.  In the in between weeks, I’m tempted to make us eat steamed veg and gruel to compensate!

Piti, Khangal, salad and Sherbert

This was easier Azeri food.

Piti, usually a mutton soup with mutton fat (challenging to replace), Khangal, pasta with mince and yoghurt sauce, salad, and sherbert, a sweet drink.

I don’t know why this photo is going all stretchy, and wordpress isn’t letting me fix it. Sorry.

Clockwise from top: Salad, Khangal and Piti

First, the Sherbert. This was actually the second time I had turned my hand to sherbert-making. The first time, Mr mistook the liquid cooling in a bottle for me trying to soak a bottle, and tipped it down the sink. In his defence, it is clear. Then again, if he had given it a sniff, surely he would have noticed it had a strong smell of roses. In any case, it got made again.

I followed the recipe from the Ministry of Tourism, sort of. I didn’t use rose petals, because I can’t imagine where I would find them, without becoming a petal-robber, stalking Brunswick in the night. So I used rose water instead. Its easy to find here, with the big Lebanese  influence in the area. Given I didn’t use real rose-petals, I also didn’t see the need to let it draw for such a long time. I didn’t add ice, I just poped the mix in the fridge until it was cold. My last change to the recipe? I added a little tiny bit of pink food colouring, so it wouldn’t get poured down the drain this time.

It was pretty good. Sweet, rose-falvoured (I love rose water!) with a lemony, citrus flavour underneath. (the lemon-acid referred to in the recipe is citric acid). Totally worth the small amount of effort, and it might just go into rotation at home.

Next was the Piti (I’ve also seen it spelled Pyty). It is usually made of mutton, mutton fat, butter, and vegetables. The veges were easy, of course. For the mutton I substituted Sanitarium vegan sausages, chopped into small bits and fried in olive oil. After that I followed this recipe, however as before, I could not find dried sour plums, so they were left out. I cooked it until the sausages were quite soft, to simulate the tender meat in the real deal, and added some beef flavoured stock to compensate for the lack of mutton butter.

This was also pretty tasty, and surprisingly buttery. Again, I can’t tell how close to the real thing it was, but it tasted good to me.

Last was Khangal. I have only found one description of this dish on the internet, and no recipe, but it sounded so good, I guessed at a recipe, which is below. It is a pasta dish, with mice meat, butter, and garlic yoghurt sauce. Challenging to veganise in Australia, where we don’t have vegan natural yoghurt, or butter, but we gave it a shot, ad it was fantastic! it will be made again, and was great with the salad I added. According to the article (link above) Khangal is not a dish shared with guests. If I guessed at the recipe correctly, that’s a shame, because it was very tasty, and might go with the sherbert into my dinner options list.

The salad was just a quick mixture of cucumber, parsley, corriander and dill.

Vegan Khangal Recipe

• One packet sanitarium mince
• One onion, chopped finely
• Olive oil (about 3 tbs)
• mixed spice
• cumin
• dried mint
• pepper
• salt
• chicken style stock
• flat pasta broken into strips (or you could make your own)
• Tofutti sour cream (1/3 cup)
• 1 clove garlic, chopped very very finely
• 1 tbs vegan margarine

1. Chop all ingredients.
2. Boil enough water to cook your pasta in, and begin to cook pasta. If you are going to make your own pasta, do so now, and cook it right at the end. (I didn’t have time this time around)
3. Fry onion in a large frying pan, until soft.
4. Add mince. It may need mashing with a fork to get the right consistency. Fry for at least 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add stock and spices to taste. Stir through. I like mine very flavourful, others don’t. Do your own thing.
6. Add about 1/3 cup water, stir through and allow to simmer until water is soaked up.
7. Mix the garlic with the sour cream in a small cup.
8. Drain the pasta. Place it back into the saucepan and add margarine. Leave to melt (off heat).
9. Place pasta on plates, cover with mince, then add dollops of sour cream mixture. Serve with salad.

Plov, kutaby, and eggplant rolls

The first night of vegan Azerbaijani food featured Plov ( a la keira), Greens Kutaby, and eggplant rolls.

The food was tasty, and successful (looked like it was supposed to, didn’t fall apart or burn), but it probably wasn’t at all familiar to someone actually from Azerbaijan. It was more about getting into the spirit, than getting it right.

The eggplant rolls were made from a recipe found at AZCookBook. It turned out somewhat differently though, as I didn’t read the recipe properly, didn’t have any vegan mayo, and forgot to add the walnuts. So, my eggplant rolls instead had sour cream, chard, corriander and garlis as their filling, and were grilled instead of fried. Also, they were quite small, because I was saving the rest of the eggplant for another dish, so I skewered them to keep them rolled up. They were, however, very good, and I would definitely make them again.

Kutaby and eggplant rolls

Similarly, my version of Kutaby with greens wasn’t perhaps exactly what it would have been in Azerbaijan. Kutaby are a fried fold-over bread with stuffing. I used a recipe I found on Azerbaijan24, which called for egg, butter oil, sorrel, lavashna, and matsoni, as well as the oil, flour and water. Hmmm, so no egg, no butter oil, no sorrel, and what is matsoni and lavashna? Apparently Matsoni is Caspian Sea Yoghurt (I ca’t help but put a hyphen between “sea” and “yoghurt” when I say it to myself, with makes me giggle), and Lavashna is rolled tablets of dried cherry plums.

So, my kutaby are made of a plain flour dough, filled with chard, corriander from our garden, onion, sumac, and a little Tofutti cream cheese for good measure. They are then fried in oil in my wok, and salted. The result: very yummy, fried bread things, but probably not at all like real kutaby.

The masterpiece of the night though was the Plov. Plov isn’t eaten often in Azerbaijan, and is usually kept for special occasions and ceremonies. It is a rice dish, which may be flavoured with saffron, spices, fruits and nuts, chestnuts, vegetables or meats. I found many recipes, but could not find many of the ingredients when I went shopping (there are many stores with the right ingredients, but I can’t read the packets to check what they are, or their vegan credentials).

My version was flavoured with saffron, and when that didn’t colour up, I added tumeric (not right, but whatever) as well. I used margarine instead of pouring butter over it (gotta love any recipe that calls for pouring butter), and added almonds and dried apricots. I served tofu and some vegies over it instead of chicken.

In the end it looked and tasted spectacular.

Plov!

Keira’s version of Plov, vegan style

This recipe was adapted from many sources, but mostly resembles the one found here.

• Basmati rice, enough for 2 people
• Saffron threads
• Tumeric
• Handful of almonds
• Dried apricots
• Margarine, about 2 tbsp
• 300g smoked tofu
• 1 small zuchini
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• cumin
• cardamon
• mixed spice
• beef stock
• water
• olive oil

1. chop the onion and garlic finely
2. chop the zucchini and tofu roughly
3. Fry the onion and garlic in a saucepan until soft
4. Put some water on to boil
5. Add the tofu to the onion and garlic, and fry a little longer
6. Add rice to the water and cook until tender
7. Add two teaspoons of beef stock to the tofu, continue to fry, ensuring it doesn’t stick.
8. Add zuchini, cardamon, cumin and mixed spice to the tofu. Add a little water (about 2 ml deep in frypan). Stew, stirring occasionally.
9. Drain rice. Break into two parts. add saffron to 1/3 of the rice. If it colours, go you! if not, add tumeric, or give up on yellow rice. (i really haven’t mastered saffron).
10. Place rice on a serving dish, decoratively. I added the yellow rice to each end of a shaped mound of white rice.
11. Pour melted margarine or oil over the rice.
12. Remove tofu from heat, and gentle place on top of rice, again, decoratively.
13. Place almonds and apricots on top of rice. Make it pretty.
14. Serve.

When I made it I added water a few times to the tofu, to stop it from sticking and keep it warm while I worked on the kutaby and eggplant rolls. I also made the rice to early, and had to fry it a little in the wok to reheat it.

The tofu was absolutely delicious, smoky and salty and warm with spices. I have no idea what the chicken version is supposed to taste like, but this was really good. I think the rice would have been better if I could have found more traditional ingredients such as chestnuts and sour plums.

Azeri Cuisine. Its going to be a challenge.

According to the few sources I have found, Azeri food has changed a lot during the last century, and there is some conjecture over what counts at true Azeri food. Families ceased preparing many traditional dishes during the Soviet period, and haven’t revived them, while many Russian dishes became staples, says Tahir Amiraslanov, in an article for Azerbaijan International.

To complicate matters further, Azeri food differs substantially from region to region, both withing the Republic of Azerbaijan, and between the Republic and Southern Azerbaijin (in Iran). And don’t even get me started on the challenge that will be veganising this stuff. As it turns out, Azeri food includes a LOT of lamb, beef, and fish, not to mention some exotic uses of animal I hadn’t come across before (Fancy some gelatinous stewed lambs head with your Vodka? Camel turnovers, anyone?).

But on we push!

Azeri food includes a lot of soups, stews, breads and stuffed things (dolma, but not just vine leaves, as we’re used to). Meals may start and end with black tea, sweetened with jam, and there are a number of sweets including cakes, dried fruits, shakerbura and pahklava. Frequent ingredients seem to be meat, butter, yoghurt and egg, so I suppose I’ll be doing a lot of substituting. That said it will be good warm food to suit the current Melbourne chill.

I’m going to attempt to veganise these dishes:

• Dushbere (dumpling soup)
• Plov (rice pilaf)
• Badimjan Dolma (eggplant stuffed with rice and meat)
• Gutabi (crepes or turnovers- filled with greens or meat)
• Khangal (a pasta dish with butter, yoghurt and, you guessed it, meat)
• Kufta (meatballs served in a clear soup)
• Badimcan Borucuqlari (eggplant rolls)
• Sherbert (a sweet drink)
• Shekerbura (a pastry thing) or Pakhlava (another pastry thing)
• and finally, Zebra cake (to be fair, I actually jumped the gun and made this while before I got sick, but I’ll post it with the others)

Wish me luck!

Introducing: Azerbaijan

This week the country of choice is Azerbaijan. This time Mr picked it, deciding he wanted to find out what people eat in the Caucasus. It looks hearty, tasty, and scarily meaty… we’ll see what happens.

The Basics

Azerbaijan is in the South Caucasus, has coastline on the Caspian Sea and shares borders with Iran, Armenia, Russia and Georgia. Azerbaijan was formerly part of the Soviet Union, and became officially independent in 1991. It is now a republic, with a President who is elected by the people every 5 years, as well as a Prime Minister and Cabinet of ministers.

Population: 8, 303, 512 est.

Demographics: Median age is 28.5yo, 52% of the population lives in urban areas. The majority of the people are Turkic and Muslim. Most people speak Azerbaijani (also called Azeri).

Capital City: Baku

The Links:

This week I have no book this with which to plug the fabulousness that is the Moreland Libraries, as apparently there hasn’t been a lot written about Azeri food. Instead, I have been trawling the internets, and can send you to these links for recipes, information and table manners!

An article about the changing face of Azeri food:http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/83_folder/83_articles/83_comparison.html

An article about table manners and ettiquette in Azerbaijan: http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/83_folder/83_articles/83_sociolinguistics.html

A blog dedicated to Azeri (and other) food (this is where most of recipes will come from!):http://www.azcookbook.com/

Another explanation of Azeri food :  http://www.azerb.com/az-food.html

The Ministry of Culture (with recipes!): http://azerbaijan.tourism.az/?/en/topmenu_content/1262/

Azerbaijan24: http://azerbaijan24.com/component/content/article/48.html

Everything you ever wanted to know about Azerbijan can be obtained at the CIA world fact book, Azerbijan’s BBC webpage, or our old friend Wikipedia.