Azerbaijani cuisine

The moment comes that I need to talk about the most important thing for me - food. Following all the Christmas decorations everywhere, a little snow that maked everybody freak out and the fact that I can't find basic ingrediences for making some Polish dishes for Christmas dinner, at least a little must be said about what people eat in Azerbaijan.

The definite no. 1
BREAD. If not for bread, I don't know what people would eat. Bread is a must to every meal you eat in Azerbaijan. Considering low wages in the country, it's a best and cheapest way to kill your hunger. The most popular bread, çörək, is an addition to your breakfast, lunch and dinner. It doesn't matter what you eat: soup, salad, plov, chicken - the bread is always there. The other type of bread, my personal favourite, is təndir çörəyi, which is a type of bread baked in a clay oven called tandoor. It is delicious! Can't buy it very often though because once I get a taste of the freshly baked bread I eat the whole thing at once...
One other type of bread is lavash which is similar to what we know as a Mexican tortilla.

Çay
If you know Russian you already know what it is :) Çay is tea. Tea is drunk everyday, many, many, many times a day. The tradition and culture of drinking tea in Azerbaijan is long and strong. What's interesting is that tea is always served in pear shaped glasses, just like this one:

The thing is, if you're invited for some tea you should expect more than just one glass of tea. 'Tea meetings' as I like to call them last for hours. I don't think I have ever in my life drunk more tea than here. Those glasses are smaller than regular cups that's why people drink 4 or more glasses at a time. Tea is also served with nuts, raisins, fruit preserves, cookies, sweets, sugar and candy (many times Polish). Believe me, a lot of times one 'tea meeting' made well for a lunch for me :)

Ayran
Ayran is a type of drink which I got to try not knowing what it was. I mixed it up with natural yogurt which might be the reason I don't want to taste it again. Ayran is the most popular drink in Azerbaijan, right after tea. You can drink it to every meal you want but its mostly drank with kebab on the street :) Ayran is a salty drink and from my investigation it seems like it's a mixture of natural yogurt and water with some addition of salt. I would say it's one of the things you have to try when you're here although I can't guarantee you will like it :))

Mercimek Çorbası
Even though soups are quite popular in Poland too I don't make them very often. That's the reason here I want to try as many as I can. Most of the soups are very easy, vegetable soups that make for a nice appetizer (for the whole lunch you would need to add some bread ;p). The first one I ever tried here is mercimek çorbası and it still remains my favourite! It's a red lentil soup and it's the easiest thing in the world! The only thing you need is red lentils, a carrot, a potato, an onion and a little of tomato paste. Ta-dum! And this one exceptionally is very filling thanks to red lentils which from now on are a must in my kitchen!

Dolma
Dolma is a very interesting side dish that I can't help but to compare with Polish gołąbki ;) It's basically a minced lamb mixed with rice stuffed in vine leaves. They're much smaller than gołąbki and I bet they require a lot of work but try them if you have a chance.

Qutab
Qutab is a very thin pancake made out of flour and water with a very, very, very little of minced lamb, pumpkin, spinach or cheese. I don't recommend. They're good but they don't have much taste and you will not feel like you ate anything. Or maybe I was just unlucky?

Plov
Plov is the greatest dish I have tried here, it's definitely my favourite!! It requires a lot of work, a special type of rice, many grams of butter, raisins, apricots and walnuts. But it's worth it!! Plov is a rice dish with some chunks of either meat or chicken, dried fruits and saffron! There are many types of plov depending on the ingrediences you use but I assure you every one of them is great!

Paxlava
Baklava is the greatest of the desserts! There's nothing better: it's sweet, contains nuts and honey, always with some more nuts on the top! In March 2009, Azerbaijani bakers achieved an entry in the CIS book of records for baking the biggest and heaviest pakhlava in the CIS, weighing about 3 tons. More than 7 thousand eggs, 350 kg of nuts, 20 kg of almonds, 350 kg of sugar, and the same amount of flour was used in the preparation of the pastry*.

Halva and Shakerbura
What halva is everybody knows and I know especially. I can eat it all day long (and then hate myself)! Shakerbura is a funny thing. It looks like Polish pierogi with some ornaments on top and it's filled with a mixture of sweetened nuts. Yummy!