Azerbaijan
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This dish has a few of my favorite ingredients popular in this region including sumac, pomegranate molasses, and barberries. It serves a crowd and has wonderfully unique flavors and textures!
This summery salad is made with a mixture of punchy herbs and creamy components like feta, walnuts, and soft boiled eggs.
That deep interconnectedness and delicious food history of this region results in amazing recipes that work well together, whether they are “Persian”, “Kurdish”, “Azeri”, or “Middle-Eastern”. I gathered a few from different areas and created a feast!
Warm flavors of dates, walnuts, and cardamom make for a delicious filling to this simple and flaky pastry.
Nan-e Barbari is a perfect accompaniment to Sabzi Khordan (herb and feta plate) or a creamy dip like Spinach Borani.
This is more of a concept than a recipe, but I want to share it nonetheless. It can be served as a starter along with flatbread, or set on the table alongside a main meal. Either way it brings lovely texture and flavor to any meal!
Kuku (also sometimes spelled Kookoo) is essentially a very heavily vegetable laden frittata with Persian spices. This is a particularly savory version with eggplant, zucchini, potatoes, and onion.
This simple but flavorsome bean dish hails from what author and cook Naomi Duguid terms the “Persian Culinary Region” spanning Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan.
Spinach Borani is a delicious starter made simply with thickened yogurt and quick cooked spinach and fried onions. The sumptuousness of the dish belies the simplicity of the ingredients.
This vegetarian rice pilaf smells heavenly with a sprinkling of dill seeds atop the warm flavors or butternut squash and perfectly tender rice.
This Azeri Stew is rich, flavorful, and although it takes time, it does require excessive attention. This version is full of bright green herbs cooked down and mixed with fragrant lamb and a kick of lemon juice.
For this meal we went simple summertime with some grilled chicken kebabs, chopped veg salad, and dolmas with grape leaves from my Mom's garden.
Plov is a very popular dish in Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, pretty much all of Central Asia and indeed Azerbaijan.
Similar to biscotti, these Middle Eastern baked goods are perfect with a nice hot cup of tea.