BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 1 The long-awaited Novruz holidays have come, preparations for which have been going on for four weeks.
The Novruz holiday is annually celebrated in Azerbaijan for five days, including March 20 and 21, the day of the spring equinox. The holiday is celebrated in honor of the arrival of spring and the renewal of nature.
On the days of Novruz, according to folk tradition, bonfires are lit, various sweets (shekerbura, baklava, gogal) are prepared, khoncha (treats collected on a tray) are dressed up, semeni are planted, painted boiled eggs etc.
However, the main attention is usually paid to the festive table.
The pride of the table, of course, is the festive pilaf, and the main of all its varieties is shah-pilaf.
Pilaf, or "Shah of ceremonial tables", as it is otherwise called, is the main pride of Azerbaijani cuisine. This National dish has many variations and each region of the country has its own type of this delicious dish. The main attribute of "Shah" pilaf is gazmah - an appetizing crispy lavash crust in which pilaf is cooked.
A proven combination for thousands of years juicy meat, rice, raisins, dried apricots, in a crispy golden crown of lavash reveals the true hospitality of the East.
To learn all the subtleties of cooking shah-pilaf, we turned to a local housewife, mother and grandmother, Zeynab khanum.
She told us that the main secret in the preparation of shah-pilaf is selected high-quality and fresh ingredients. She advised using long-grain basmati rice, pitted dried fruits and chicken meat. Zeynab khanum gives preference to trusted producers, such as the local “Mərcan” chicken, which, in her opinion, is ideal for pilaf, as palatability, as well as useful properties for all family members.
“I noticed that the texture of Mərcan chicken meat is somewhat different from other manufacturers. After cooking, it tends to diverge into fibers, unlike other brands, when their meat turns into a kind of pasty mass during the cooking process, and it also has a sharp, unpleasant fishy smell. In the preparation of pilaf, such products are simply unacceptable, ”the hostess shares.
“There are no trifles in the preparation of pilaf, so even water should be used not chlorinated, without foreign odors. Rice should be soaked with water at a strictly defined temperature. From my own experience I will say that the most crumbly is rice soaked in salted water at a temperature of 60 degrees. Rice should also be washed in a special way: do not rub it between the palms, as it may break. The main thing is that the starch comes off the rice. I rinse until the water runs clear.”
The next secret from Zeynam khanum was the sequence of frying the ingredients for the gravy. “You need to start cooking gravy with frying onions. The mistake of many is that they first fry the chicken, and then they wonder why the onion does not get the desired shade. But properly fried onions give the smell of pilaf. Then they put meat, and only then dried fruits. The mixture is not strongly fried, as it will still languish in the pilaf itself. I use melted butter when frying.
According to the hostess, rice is cooked until half cooked in salt water.
Cauldron, oiled butter, covered with pieces of pita bread. According to Zeynab khanum, the dough itself also needs to be smeared with ghee, otherwise a crispy crust will not form.
Alternately, rice and govurma (gravy) are laid out on pita bread in layers, pouring with melted butter and saffron tincture. From above, rice is also covered with pita bread, which also needs to be greased with butter. Shah pilaf should languish for 30 minutes in the oven, after which it will be ready to decorate the table for Novruz.
The hostess emphasized that for the Novruz family feast, it is better to give preference to chicken govurma for pilaf. She told us interesting fact which probably not everyone knows about. It turns out that it is not customary to cook cattle meat for Novruz. The fact is that in the spring the breeding stage begins in cattle, and during this period it cannot be cut. Therefore, on the festive table, according to tradition, there are dishes of fish (a symbol of prosperity) and chicken on the table.
She advises to choose trusted local producers, such as Mərcan, not only so that Novruz pilaf is tasty and appetizing, but also for the safety of all family members, because during production chicken meat use only natural feed without chemical additives, GMOs, antibiotics, anabolics and hormones.
Bon appetit and happy holidays!
The centuries-old traditions of the Azerbaijani people and borrowings from Georgian, Turkish, Persian and Arab cultures have given us original dishes Azerbaijani cuisine. Pilaf in lavash, or, as it is also called, shah-pilaf - royal Azerbaijani pilaf, is the pride of Azerbaijani cuisine.
Each region of the country has its own peculiarities of its preparation, but the main ingredient is “gazmakh” - this is a crispy crust of lavash, in which it is cooked. The proportions of juicy meat verified over the centuries, crumbly rice, fragrant spices and dried fruits in a crispy lavash crust reveal the hospitality of the East. Such pilaf is prepared for dear guests and for the most solemn occasions. Let's cook shah pilaf with you step by step recipe with photo.
Recipe with a photo of shah pilaf in Azerbaijani
Kitchenware: cauldron or thick-walled pan, cutting board, brush, knife, frying pan, saucepan, bowl.
Ingredients
Step by step cooking
Preparing the Ingredients
Cooking
- Put the pan on the fire and add 5-6 tablespoons of melted butter to it. When the pan is hot, sauté the onion until caramelized and add 1 teaspoon of turmeric.
- Put the meat on the onion and lightly fry it. Salt.
- When the meat is fried, add prepared dried fruits to the pan: dried apricots (150 g), raisins (150 g) and roasted peeled chestnuts (6-8 pieces). Mix everything and fry a little.
- Thin pita breads (4 pieces) with a brush generously grease with melted butter on both sides and cover the cauldron so that the sheets hang from the edge of the cauldron. This is necessary to then cover the pilaf from above.
- Put all the contents of the pan on top: meat with onions, chestnuts and dried fruits and pour the resulting juice.
- Cover the surface with hanging edges of pita bread and pour 5-6 tablespoons of melted butter. Cover the cauldron with a lid.
- Put the covered cauldron in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 1 hour.
- Serve hot on a large platter, cutting the toasted pita bread into petals.
Recipe video
It is only at first glance that the recipe for making shah-pilaf in pita bread seems complicated and incomprehensible, but after watching the video, you will see that this is not so. Watch, cook and surprise dear guests.
Choosing the Right Ingredients
The main ingredient of pilaf is rice, so pay special attention to its quality. The most suitable is the Fergana rice "Devzira", but its absence can be replaced with Basmati or Krasnodar rice. In the most extreme case, you can use any steamed rice.
Choose firmer varieties of long-grain rice. It is not necessary to soak the rice, it is only necessary to sort it out and rinse it well.
To acquire pilaf of a pleasant yellow color, add saffron to the water when boiling rice. Just remember that any spice should be added in a small amount. This is especially true for saffron: if you overdo it with it, then the pilaf will come out bright orange and unpleasant in taste.
The best dish for cooking pilaf is a cauldron or a thick-walled deep frying pan with a tight-fitting lid. If you want to make sure of this, cook it, and if you like chicken meat more, then.
Not so long ago, modern housewives have a new excellent assistant - a slow cooker. It greatly facilitates cooking and saves time, and pilaf cooked in it turns out to be crumbly and rich. Try cooking or.
I told you how to cook shah-pilaf, and I think you will definitely want to gather friends, your family and relatives at a large round table and treat them to such a noble and rich treat. Bon Appetit.
Shah Ash - Royal Pilaf! (Khan plov). Photorecipe.
(Azerbaijani cuisine)
It's just crazy delicious pilaf- fragrant and tender,
crumbly rice soaked in oil, soft meat,
and fruits give a kind of sweet and sour accent.
Ingredients:
lamb or beef - 800 gr
rice - 800 gr.
Lavash thin - 3-4 packs of 70 gr.
butter - 600 gr.
onion - 1 pc.
apricot - 200 gr.
raisins - 150 gr.
chestnuts 150 gr. (I don't have chestnuts)
dried cherry plum - 150 gr. (I have no cherry plum)
turmeric, salt, spices for pilaf
Cooking:
First of all, I want to say that everything should be the best.
Ideal: Indonesian Basmati-type rice, apricots and raisins
shade dried and preferably pitted
(I found dried plums for sale, generally lovely!), Cherry plums can be
add, or you can not (cherry plum gives a well-detectable sourness
like babrberry, it's not for everybody. and here, in the Urals,
it is not on sale at all), also for cooking
a thick-walled brazier is required - ideally a round cast-iron cauldron,
but any thick cast aluminum brazier will do.
I have a 6-liter vertical (for city stoves, like a pan)
cast aluminium.
So, first of all, we wash the rice (I washed it for a couple of minutes
on a sieve) and soak in slightly warm salt n water
for at least 30 minutes.
Then drain the water, add a teaspoon of turmeric
and a tablespoon of vegetable oil.
Pour fresh cold water, bring to a boil
and boil the rice until half cooked (See on the package
your rice. If it says cook for 20 minutes, then cook for 10 minutes).
Throw the rice in a sieve to drain excess water.
While the rice is cooking, cut the meat into small pieces.
(for example, cubes),
Then melt 50 grams of butter in a frying pan,
Fry the meat until golden brown, add chopped
onion cubes and fry for another 5-7 minutes, salt, pepper, and remove from heat.
Set aside 70 grams (less than half a pack) of oil
to lubricate the cauldron, melt the rest of the butter
(Ideally, we drown in a water bath. I'm lazy, I just melted it on fire).
Pour apricots and raisins with boiling water for 5-10 minutes, depending
from the degree of drying, drain the water.
Now we collect our Shakh-pilaf.
Grease the cauldron generously with oil.
We line the cauldron with strips of pita bread so that at the bottom
they overlapped, and the edges hung down.
Pour the bottom with a few tablespoons of melted butter.
We spread the third part of the rice. pouring oil,
Sprinkle with spices (with spices carefully, a little bit!).
Put the meat on the rice.
For meat again, a third of rice, pour oil,
a bit of spices, and put raisins and apricots on top.
Put the rest of the rice on top, drizzle with oil,
a bunch of spices.
We close the rice with the hanging ends of the strips of pita bread,
drizzle with remaining oil.
We close the cauldron with a lid and put it in the oven,
preheated to 180 degrees, for 1-1.5 hours.
Readiness is determined by a beautiful golden crust.
I didn’t look at the oven for an hour, then I looked -
it seemed that the crust was not ruddy enough -
left it in the oven for another 15 minutes.
When ready, take the cauldron out of the oven,
remove the cover - this is what it looked like for me:
Holding the pilaf with a spatula, drain the cauldron over the edge
oil (it will not be enough, but it will be), then
turn the cauldron onto a dish.
Cut into petals with a sharp knife. Do not wait,
that it will be a casserole, this is the real crumbly pilaf,
He so and is sprinkled on the dish!
Calories: Not specified
Cooking time: 90 min
Shah pilaf in Azerbaijani from Stalik Khankishiyev - a dish for holiday table or Sunday lunch. Amazingly delicious pilaf, fragrant, crumbly. Fresh vegetables should be served with it - cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet onions marinated in vinegar. Choose meat that is not very fatty, as there is quite a lot of butter in the recipe. The recipes of this culinary specialist - stalik Khankishiev - are always very good, for example, you can’t tear them away from him.
It will take 90 minutes to prepare shah pilaf. The ingredients in the recipe will make 4-5 servings.
Ingredients:
- meat - 400 g;
- rice - 160 g;
- butter - 50 g;
- carrots - 1 pc.;
- bow - 1 pc.;
- barberry - 2 teaspoons;
- chili pepper - 1 pc.;
- zira, mustard seeds, pepper, turmeric, paprika, salt;
- vegetable oil - 30 ml;
- figs, raisins, dried apricots, prunes.
For test:
- wheat flour - 150 g;
- water - 70 ml;
- butter - 45 g;
- salt.
How to cook with a photo step by step
Grease the sides and bottom of the pan with butter. 
From flour, water, and melted butter, knead the dough (salt to taste). Let the dough rest for 20 minutes, then roll it out very thin. You can put a whole dough in the broiler so that the edges hang down, or cut into strips, as in this recipe. 
Fry onions and carrots in vegetable oil 10-15 minutes, add zira, mustard seeds (one teaspoon each), black pepper and chili pepper pod. If spicy food If you don't like it, you can do without the chili. 
We cut the meat into cubes, fry in the same pan after vegetables, add raisins, dried apricots, prunes and dried figs, salt everything. We pour barberry, it will add sourness to the finished dish. 
Boil rice until tender. When cooking, add salt to the water, a teaspoon of turmeric and sweet paprika. 
Put the carrots and onions on the strips of dough first, then the meat with dried fruits, then a layer of rice. 
We close everything with strips of thinly rolled dough. 
Grease the dough with softened butter. We heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. 
We close the brazier, send it to a heated oven for 45 minutes. 
We cover the roasting pan with a plate, turn it upside down. 
Remove the brazier from the pilaf, cut a round hole on top. 
Let's put it on the table right away. Bon Appetit. 
You can also cook
Shah pilaf.
1. Boil rice until half cooked in a large amount of salted water, add a little saffron or turmeric to the water so that the color of the water is yellowish. Take long-grain rice, basmati or jasmine variety. Just not steamed. It is important. Throw away in a colander.
2. Meat (lamb or beef, cut into pieces larger than regular pilaf). You can also have chicken or turkey. Duck and rabbit won't go. Wash the meat, put in a cauldron, salt a little. On a small fire without seasonings, the meat is ready, almost in own juice, without water. After cooking, remove from the cauldron and set aside in a cup.
3. While the meat is cooking and the rice is cooking, prepare the most important thing - the sauce. Put 3-4 tablespoons of ghee into the pan, add pitted cherries, chopped apples or apricots, currants, etc. Any fruit that will give juice. On a low heat, stew the fruit until soft, almost puree, add sugar so that the taste is sour-sweet, more sour. Or whatever you like.
4. We prepare the dough for the flatbread - kazmag. Place 1 egg yolk, without protein, in a glass, add warm water, salt, a little yeast and knead the dough elastic.
5. If you plan to cook pilaf in a cauldron in the oven, then roll out a large circle of dough. Thickness is about 0.5 cm or less. If you cook pilaf in a cauldron on the stove, then roll out a circle larger than the bottom of the cauldron by 3-4 cm.
6. Now we collect pilaf, having salted rice and ready-made meat, and dough for kazmag.
7. Pour melted ghee on the bottom of the cauldron, sprinkle a little zira (cumin). We lay the thinly rolled dough so that the edges hang from the edges of the cauldron or distribute a circle to the bottom if the pilaf is cooked on the top plate.
8. Pour a little melted butter onto the dough - 3-4 tablespoons, sprinkle with zira (cumin). Put in half the meat.
9. Pour rice without tamping, not tightly.
10. Sprinkle generously with raisins, barberry if desired, cumin and pour 2-3 tablespoons of melted butter.
11. Put the remaining meat,
12. Pour rice without tamping, not tightly.
13. Sprinkle generously with raisins, barberry if desired, cumin and pour 2-3 tablespoons of melted butter.
14. We close the dough, grease with an egg and put it in a hot oven, on a very small fire for 1-1.5 hours. Check the readiness by the color of the dough.
15. If you cook on the top stove, then put the cauldron on a divider and a very small fire.
16. When the dough is reddened, simply turn the cauldron over onto a large dish, and you get pilaf baked in dough, the shape of a cauldron. Cut like a cake.
17. A cake is served - kazmag on a plate, and rice with meat from the middle. If desired, pour fruit sauce immediately on a plate or just on the edge of the plate 2-3 spoons of sauce.
Proportion:. 1 kg of meat, for 1 person 1 cup of rice, which means about 1.5-2 kg of rice, about 200 g of raisins (preferably light royal), melted melted butter about 300-400 grams, 50 g of barberry.
Sauce: 500 g pitted cherries, 5-6 apricots or 2 peaches and 1 apple. (this is the most delicious option sauce in my opinion), you can use any fruits and berries that will give juice.
All the same can be done without meat, with raw pumpkin, cut into large pieces 6-8 cm. It is tastier than with meat.
At first glance, a lot of fuss, but actually not much. But very tasty and effective. Good luck!
