Baclava from Azerbaijan

                                                               Receta en Español


Baclava is a typical treat at middle East countries, it is called baklava, baklawa, baclava or pakhlava, depending on the countrie.

In Azerbaijan there are several types of baclava, the most popular is the recipe I bring to you today.

This is called pakhlava, it is one of the most laborious due to the multiple layers you need.

It is a dessert cooked for the persian holiday Novruz, the 21  st of mars to celebrate the arriving of the spring and Persian's New Year

I took this recipe from this blog flavors of baku

where you can find a lot of recipes form Azerbaijan.

Ingredients (For 55 baclava, ovenproof recipient~ 25 X 27):

For the mixture of yeast:

• 1 teaspoon of yeast.
• 1 table spoon sugar.
• 1 table spoon flour.
• 80 ml of warm water.

For the dough:

•   1250 grams of flour.
•   1 egg room temperature.
•   1 table spoon sugar.
•   The mixture of yeast.
•   3 table spoon sour cream.
•   250 ml warm milk.
•   250 ml melted butter.
•   Salt.

   
For the Filling:
   

  450 grams nuts (without the shells).

  450 grams sugar.

  1 teaspoon ground cardamom.

  1 teaspoon ground coriander.

  1 teaspoon vanilla sugar.

  250 ml clarified butter.

 To decorate:

  2 yolks.

  1 teaspoon saffron infusion.

  1 teaspoon olive oil.

  15 nuts.

For the Syrup:

  125 ml clarified butter.

  250 grams of sugar.

  125 ml water.

  125 ml thousend flowers honey.

  1 tablespoon lemon juice.

Method:

1-  We are going to prepare first the mixture of yeast,flour and water. Let stand for half en hour.

2- Add to the bowl where you have the yeast the rest of the ingredients except the flour: egg, sour cream,milk, melted butter and mix well. Now add flour little by little passing it through a sieve.



3- Knead the dough until it is not sticky. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let it stand for 2 hours at room temperature. Yo can see in the pictures the dough before and after the 2 hours:

4- Now we prepare the filling. Crush the nuts in little pieces , mix with sugar, cardamon, coriander and vanilla sugar.

5- Now it is time to build the baclava, it has 12 layers of dough, you should divide the dough into 10 balls the same weight and other 2 balls with a little more weight , these two layers will be the upper and lower layers.

My dough weighted 1830 grams, I used 140 for each of the 10 layers and 215 grams for the upper and lower side layers.

To make the layers in a good shape I cut parchment paper with the same shape as my oven mold.

Sprinkle a little quantity of flour over the parchment paper, take one ball of dough , spread it over the parchment paper with the help of a rolling pin.

Then you should place the layer in the oven mold.

Don't forget to grease the mold with a little of clarified butter (see point 6) before putting inside all the layers.

I had a 35 x 27 mold

 6- To clarify the butter you should follow this procedure.

Heat butter in a casserole, once it is melted , turn off the heat and get rid of the white part that you see on the surface.

A little quantity of white will remain on the bottom of the casserole so be careful when you take the butter to avoid this part too.

7- After the first layer of dough (215 grams) is in the mold, paint all the surface of the layer with some clarified butter until it is brilliant (use a kitchen brush).



8- Now put some of the filling (point 4). I had 900 grams of filling 900/11 = 81 grams . So I took 81 grams of filling and spread it evenly over the first layer.

9- Now prepare the second layer using the same procedure : Layer of dough, clarified butter and filling.

Until you arrive to the last layer , here you don't have to brush with clarified butter,  no filling either.

After every layer be careful to place it evenly all over the surface of the mold.

10- To have baclavas with a rhomboid shape, cut the dough with diagonal strips:

 and now horizontal strips:

11- To decorate, brush the surface with a mixture of egg, saffran infusion and oil, this is to have a good colour after cooking in the oven. Place half a nut in the middle of every baclava.

12- Preheat oven at 180 ºC and cook baclavas in oven for 20 minutes.

13- Take out of the oven, spread 125 ml of clarified butter over the surface.Cook in oven for 15 more minutes.

14- Prepare syrup, mix water and sugar and cook for 20 minutes at low heat. Then add honey and lemon juice , stir and let cook at low heat for 10 more minutes.

15- Take out the baclavas from oven, with the help of a knife recut the baclavas in case they have stuck together.

Pour syrup over the baclavas.

16- Cook baclavas 5 more minutes in oven.

17- Let the baclavas get cool.



18- When baclavas are still a little warm separate them and place them on the serving dish. you can eat them now or wait until they are cooled . This baclavas last some days.





Sour Cream

                                                                               Receta en Español

Sour cream is an ingredient very useful for a lot of recipes, it has a similar effect as greek yogourt. In fact you can use this yogourt in those recipes you have to use sour cream and you don't have it at hand.

But you should know that you can obtain sour cream in a very easy way. 

Don't mistake sour cream for fresh cream.

To obtain sour cream you need cream and yogurt, to obtain fresh cream you need whipped cream and butter.

Sour cream is an excellent sauce that can accompany boiled potatoes or endives, as you can see in the next photo:

Ingredients:

•   200 ml cream 35.1% fat.
•   50 ml yogourt.

   

Method:

1-  Take a jar made of glass, put the cream and yogourt inside the jar and mix well with the help of a spoon.



 2-  Cover the jar with a paper cloth , let stand for 18 or 24 hours in a place where temperature is 24 ºC.

I put the jar on a heater, after 18 hours it already had the consistency of a cream, as you can see in the pictures.

That is!.

Soyutma Lamb

                                                                               Receta en Español

Lamb is a food largement consumed in Azerbaijan, today I present to you 'Soyutma Lamb'.

Soyutma means slow cooked, it is the key on this dish, it is a piece of lamb cooked very slowly to obtain a different texture and taste.

Ingredients (For two people):

•   1 leg of lamb.
•   2 medium sized potatoes.
•   1 medium sized onion.
•   Some saffron strands.
•   Pepper.
•   Some fresh mint.
•   Salt.

   

Method:

1-  Wash the meat. Then add salt and pepper to the meat.

Put in a casserole, cover with water and set fire on a medium heat until water boils.

2-  Once it reaches boiling point, you can observe some foam on the surface, get rid of this foam ant put fire on a low heat.

3-  Now add the whole onion.

4-  Now let it cook for 3 hours at low heat. After the 3 hours, add peeled whole potatoes, make some cuts to the potatoes, this way they can cook faster.

Add salt, pepper, mint and some saffron strands, cook until potatoes are done.

5-  Now you can serve it, put a potato for each people , the dish should be accompanied by some yogurt with garlic (tipical from Azerbaijan).

Where to find the ingredients:

I found the mint near Madrid mosque, at arab shops at Antonio Calvo street.

My comments to the recipe

This boiled lamb is very tasty, because it is cooked very slowly , all the spices match very well with the lamb as well as the fresh yogurt.



Azerbaijan

Südlü Plov (rice cooked in milk)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Plov is how people from Azerbaijan call the pilaf. This is a popular dish , there are more than 70 variations of plov.

Today I will present you an original plov, it is rice cooked in milk (südlü means milk), besides, it has dried fruits like dates, dried apricots and raisins. All of them are used in several dishes.

This dish has saffron too , an ingredient very common in Azerbaijan.

Ingredients (Two people):

•   1 cup basmati rice.
•   1 cup and a half whole milk.
•   75 grams butter.
•   50 grams raisin.
•   10 dates.
•    5 dried apricots.
•    Some saffron strands.
•    2 tablespoon sugar.
•    Salt.

Method:

1-  Put some saffron strands into a cup filled with a little quantity of boiling water (you can boil this water in the microwave if you want), cover the cup and let stand for 15 minutes to allow saffron to infuse.

2-  Wash rice and dried fruits.

3-  Mix in a casserole the rice, milk, butter, salt, sugar and water with saffron. Cook at low heat.

4-  Cook until you see 2/3 of the milk has been absorbed, then add the dates and dried fruits.

In this moment cover with a cloth and then the lid, let it cook at low heat.

It cooks very fast, better than giving to you a time of cooking, you should check from time to time and see if it has absorbed all the milk, then you must turn off the heat and let it stand some minutes still covered.

This is the result:

My comments to the Recipe:

¡This is a delicious rice!, it has a special softness thanks to the milk and butter, then the sweet and sour of the dried fruits. It is a luxurious rice, in accordance with the wealth of this country.



Azerbaijan

Barbados

Postdlf from w [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

By Addicted04 [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Recipes from Barbados that I cooked:

Pudding and Souse

Tamarind Balls

Rhum Punch

 

Barbados

Tamarind Balls

                                                                               Receta en Español

This is one of the most popular desserts in Barbados, it is very easy to prepare and it has the 'sweet and sour' taste, a popular flavour in most of the dishes made in Barbados!.

Ingredients:

•   100 grams tamarind pulp.
•   150 grams white sugar.
•   1 table spoon flour.
•    Pepper.
•    Salt.
•    Brown Sugar.

Method:

1-  It is better if you buy tamarind pulp, if you have the fruit itself you should get rid of the skin and seeds.

Mix all the ingredients (except the brown sugar) in a bowl.

Tamarind pulp is acid and sticky , to mix well sugar with the pulp , it is better to use a food processor, it should be well mixed to soften the acidity of the tamarind.

2-  Take little by little some dough and make little balls. Put some brown sugar in a plate ,make the balls roll over the sugar, this is how they should be:

My comments to the Recipe:

It is very easy, but bear in mind that you should mix well , use a thin sugar to mix with the pulp, after that, the brown sugar to wrap the ball can be as thick as you want.



Barbados