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What to eat in Baku

The Azerbaijani table in Baku: plov under a crisp kazmag, dovga, kufta bozbash, lyulya on the grill, qutab, shekerbura and tea from an armudu glass.

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Eat plov with kazmag
Saffron rice served as a mound with a separate gara of meat cooked with chestnuts, dried apricot and cherry plum. Underneath sits the crisp buttered kazmag.

You mix the rice and gara on your own plate; they are never served combined. Shah plov is baked whole in a lavash shell and cut open at the table.
Try dovga
A soup made on matsoni yoghurt with rice, chickpeas and a huge quantity of herbs, stirred constantly so it does not split. Eaten hot or cold.

In summer it is served cold, in winter hot: one dish in two modes. In a proper dovga the herbs outweigh everything else.
Try kufta bozbash
A clear broth with one enormous lamb meatball hiding cherry plum and dried apricot inside, plus chickpeas and potato. The meatball is the size of a fist.

You cut the meatball open in the bowl; the sour filling inside is the surprise. The broth is drunk separately, as with shurpa.
Try piti
Lamb with chickpeas, tail fat and dried cherry plum, baked in an individual clay pot. Eaten in two stages: first the broth over crumbled lavash, then the solids.

Crumble the lavash into a deep bowl, pour the broth over and eat it as a first course. Then mash the rest with sumac and eat it as a second.
Eat qutab
Thin half-moon flatbreads filled with herbs, pumpkin or meat, cooked on a dry saj griddle and brushed with butter. Eaten with sumac and matsoni.

The dough should be almost translucent, with the filling showing through. Pumpkin qutab are seasonal, appear in autumn and are the sweetest.
Try lyulya kebab
Minced lamb with onion and tail fat shaped on a flat skewer and grilled over coals. Served on lavash with sumac, grilled vegetables and herbs.

The mince is worked until sticky so it holds on the skewer without egg or flour. The sumac goes on the meat rather than on the bread.
Try dolma
Vine leaves stuffed with mince and rice, served with garlic matsoni. Summer versions use fresh leaves, winter ones brined, and the difference is noticeable.

The three sisters are vine leaf dolma, cabbage dolma and badimjan dolma made from three vegetables at once. The matsoni is essential; without it the dish is too dense.
Try dushbara
Tiny dumplings in a clear broth with vinegar and dried mint. So small that skill is measured by how many fit on a spoon.

Vinegar and mint go into your own bowl; without them the flavour is flat. Good dushbara fit eight to ten to a tablespoon.
Try sac
Meat with potato, tomato and pepper fried on a large cast-iron pan and served on it over a burner. A dish for a group, eaten straight from the pan.

It is ordered for at least two, with lavash for mopping. The vegetables should be browned rather than stewed in their own liquid.
Try sturgeon and kutum
Caspian fish on the grill: sturgeon in chunks with narsharab, and kutum, a white fish baked with walnut and cherry plum. A Baku coastal classic.

Narsharab is a thick pomegranate sauce, sour and astringent, and it suits fish better than lemon. Sturgeon is expensive, so agree the price by weight in advance.
Try Baku pakhlava Desserts and pastries
Diamonds of thin pastry with walnut and cardamom under a honey syrup, each topped with half a nut. It differs from the Turkish version in using walnut rather than pistachio, and in being less sweet.

The peak season is Novruz in March, when every household bakes it. The diamond shape and saffron in the syrup are the local markers.
Try shekerbura Desserts and pastries
A half-moon pastry filled with ground hazelnut or almond and cardamom, with a pinched pattern along the edge. Novruz baking, shaped as the crescent moon.

The pattern is made with maggash tweezers, and it distinguishes home baking from factory work. Its partner is shorgogal, a savoury spiced pastry.
Try firni Desserts and pastries
A rice pudding on milk with saffron, rose water and cinnamon, served cold. Simple and not cloying, and it closes a long meal.

The cinnamon is dusted in a pattern on top rather than stirred in. Its relative is sudlu plov, sweet rice with milk and dried fruit.
Drink tea from an armudu Non-alcoholic drinks
Black tea with thyme or cardamom in a pear-shaped glass, filled to the waist rather than the brim. Drunk with jam and lump sugar rather than sugar stirred in.

The armudu shape is functional: the narrow waist holds the heat while the wide top cools the surface. The tea ritual comes before the meal, not after.
Try sherbet Non-alcoholic drinks
A cool infusion of rose petals, basil or lemon with sugar, served alongside plov and in the heat. Neither an ice cream nor a syrup: a drink.

Basil sherbet turns bright purple through its reaction with lemon, and the colour is natural. It is served chilled, and it is the traditional partner to plov.
Try local wine and mulberry spirit Local alcohol
Winemaking here is ancient, and pomegranate wine is a local speciality, sour and astringent. Tutovka is a strong spirit from white mulberry with a distinctly sweet aroma.

Pomegranate wine is usually off-dry, so ask if you want it dry. Tutovka is sipped in small glasses with meat and cheese rather than thrown back.

Azerbaijani cooking is a crossroads of Persian, Turkic and Caucasian: saffron and dried fruit from Iran, the grill and lamb from the Turkic side, herbs and fermented dairy from the Caucasus. Its signature is meat cooked with fruit, and sourness from cherry plum, pomegranate and dried lime.

Plov and its logic

Azerbaijani plov is built differently from the Uzbek kind: the rice is cooked separately and served as a mound, while the meat with fruit and spices comes beside it as a gara. Underneath lies the kazmag, a sheet of dough or lavash that has soaked up the butter and crisped, and it is shared out as a delicacy of its own.

Tea and the table

Tea is drunk from pear-shaped armudu glasses, without sugar in the cup: you hold a lump of sugar in your mouth, or chase the tea with jam made from white cherries, figs or rose petals. The tea comes before the meal rather than after, which sets the Azerbaijani table apart from several of its neighbours.

Herbs and other things to know

A plate of fresh herbs — coriander, tarragon, basil, spring onion, radish — sits on the table permanently and is not treated as a salad: it is eaten by hand between bites. Tap water is boiled or replaced with bottled. Summers are hot and humid, and dinner drifts later of its own accord.

Frequently asked questions

How does Azerbaijani plov differ from the Uzbek kind?

In the Uzbek version the rice cooks together with meat and carrot in one cauldron and is served mixed. In the Azerbaijani one the rice is boiled separately with saffron, while meat with dried fruit and chestnuts is prepared as a separate gara and placed alongside. Plus the kazmag, the crisp dough crust at the bottom of the pot, which the Uzbek version does not have.

How is tea drunk with jam in Azerbaijan?

The jam is never stirred into the tea. You eat it by the spoonful from its own dish and chase it with unsweetened tea, so both flavours stay distinct. The classic jams are white cherry, fig, cornelian cherry and rose petal. The other method is to hold a lump of sugar in your mouth and draw the tea through it.

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