Azerbaijani cuisine recipe shah pilaf. Shah pilaf with chicken "Mərcan" - the signature dish of Novruz

03.03.2020 Egg dishes

Shah-pilaf is the pride of the national Azerbaijani cuisine, and it is not just rice and meat, but a real culinary masterpiece that has absorbed all the charm of oriental cuisine. The exquisite and delicious crowned pilaf is treated to the most honorable and dear guests - it is wrapped in pita bread and served as a huge hearty pie. In combination with spices, such a dish, in a crispy golden crown of pita bread - can become a real decoration of the festive table. After all, it looks quite original and unexpected.

Its name - royal pilaf, the dish received for the similarity of shape with the crown of the supreme ruler. The main attribute of shah-pilaf is "gazmakh" - an appetizing crispy lavash crust in which pilaf is cooked. For the filling according to the classic recipe, Basmati rice is used with the addition of tender beef, dried apricots, Azerbaijani chestnuts and spices.

1.Step-by-step recipe for Shah pilaf with lamb and dried fruits

Ingredients:

Rice - 600 gr.
Meat (lamb, veal) - 600 gr.
Onions - 2-3 pcs.
Butter (ghee) - 150 gr.
White raisins - 100 gr.
Dried apricots - 100 gr.
Barberry - 50 gr.
Cornel - 100 gr.
Garlic - 3-4 cloves.
Thin lavash - 3 pcs.
Turmeric
Pepper

Preparation:

Rinse the rice, soak for several hours.
Then boil until half cooked, adding turmeric to the water for color.

Soak dried apricots and raisins in boiling water for a few minutes, rinse.

Chop the onion, fry in butter until transparent.

Chop the meat.
Remove the onion from the pan, fry the meat in the remaining oil.

Cut dried apricots into strips, finely garlic.

Return the onion to the meat and add raisins, dried apricots, barberry, dogwood and garlic there.
Salt, pepper, turmeric and any spices to your liking.
Stir and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Cut two circles to the size of the ovenware in which the pilaf will be cooked.

Well grease the sides with oil, cover the bottom with pita bread.

Cut the lavash into long strips, 5-6 cm wide.

With strips of pita bread, overlap the sides of the vessel.

And so along the entire perimeter. Brush with melted butter.

Spread out 1/3 of the rice.

The second layer is half of the meat.

Grease the top with oil, close the lid and place in the oven.
At t 200s - 1 hour.

In one hour...

Cover shah pilaf with a flat plate and turn over.

Cut with a sharp knife.

It is rather difficult to lay out on a plate, everything crumbles
But so aromatic, tasty and unusual.

2.Shah-pilaf with chicken

Ingredients

Salt 1 tsp Spices 3 tsp Garlic 4 cloves Raisins 70 grams Dried apricots 100 grams Butter 70 grams Onion 2 pieces (s) Lavash 2 pieces (s) Rice 400 grams Chicken 600 grams

Preparation

Place the rice in a saucepan. Sprinkle each centimeter layer of cereal with salt, spices, put small pieces of butter on it. Fill the rice with water in a 1: 2 ratio. Do not stir! Cook until tender.
Finely chop the meat, fry until golden brown. Chop the onion, put it to the meat, fry all together for 7 minutes. Chop the dried apricots, mix with raisins, steam in boiling water.

Add dried fruits to the meat, fry for 2 minutes. Add salt and spices. Chop the garlic, place in the skillet, immediately remove from heat. Cut the pita bread into strips 5 cm thick. Arrange them in a round shape, brush with melted butter.
Lay the meat and rice on top of the pita bread. Cover it all with pita bread. Bake for about 40 minutes. Before serving, it is better to put the dish on a board and cut like a cake.

3. Recipe for Shah-pilaf with beef and hunting sausages

Beef-based pilaf is richer and richer, and smoked sausages give the pilaf a breathtaking haze.

Ingredients

700 g of beef;
0.5 kg of rice;
300g hunting sausages
4 pita bread;
350 g butter;
1.5 onions;
300 ml of broth;
4 cloves of garlic;
150 g of raisins and dried apricots;
100 g dried cranberries;
1 pinch of saffron
salt and spices for pilaf to taste.

Preparation

Boil rice with saffron and spices until half cooked, rinse.
Fry chopped onions with 100 g of oil. Take it out and fry the meat in the same oil.
Return the onions to the skillet. Put steamed and chopped dried fruits there. Add garlic, spices, salt, broth, 50 g butter. Stews for 10 minutes. under the lid. Cut the lavash into strips 5 cm thick. Lay them in the form, grease with melted butter. Spread layers of rice, chopped sausages and meat on the pita bread. Sprinkle the rice with oil. Cover it all with pita bread.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour. It is best to serve a salad of fresh vegetables and herbs with this dish.

All pilaf fans should definitely try this variation. It is especially good to serve such a dish on a festive table, because it looks really interesting.

4.Shakh-pilaf in dough

Ingredients

lamb or beef or pork - 600 -700 gr,
rice - basmati -1 glass,
butter - 100g, Onion - 1 pc.,
carrots-1pc,
bell pepper 1 / 2pcs.,
apricots, raisins, cherry plums (barberry), chestnuts, I replaced with Brazil nuts -6 pieces,
turmeric, salt, spices for pilaf

dough- 50/50, on sour cream and kefir 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup kefir, added salt, flour 2 cups and cut.

Preparation:

Apricot and raisins, preferably seedless, cherry plum or barberry add a well-perceptible sourness.

Rinse the rice, and cook until half-ready, add a little turmeric to the rice before finishing, you don't need much to your liking, otherwise the rice will taste bitter and the color will be ultra yellow, bright. Discard on a sieve and drain off the water. Transfer to a separate bowl and add butter 50g.

We cut the meat into ordinary medium-sized pieces as you cut into pilaf. We cook meat as for ordinary pilaf. In a preheated frying pan or cauldron, melt fat tail fat, or heat butter.

Put the meat in hot oil or fat, fry until golden brown, season with salt, pepper, remove from heat. Add spices.

In a separate frying pan, fry the onions, carrots, bell peppers. Fried and removed from the heat.

Pour apricots and raisins with boiling water for 5-10 minutes, depending on the degree of drying, drain the water.
We collect our Shah-pilaf.

We grease the cauldron with plenty of oil. We line the cauldron with rolled dough. Pour the bottom with a few tablespoons of ghee.

We spread some of the rice. Raisins dried apricots, cherry plums. Pour with oil, sprinkle with spices (gently, a little bit with spices!).
Put the meat on the rice. On the meat again, add a third of the rice, pour oil, a little spices, and put the raisins and apricots on top.

Put the remaining rice on top, pour with oil, add a little spices.
Cover with dough, pour over with oil. Knead the dough as for dumplings,
We close the cauldron with a lid and put it in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees, for 1-1.5 hours.
Holding the pilaf with a spatula, pour the oil over the edge of the cauldron (it will not be enough, but there will be), then turn the cauldron over onto a dish.

Cut with petals, with a sharp knife. Do not think that it will not be a casserole, this is a real crumbly pilaf, it just wakes up on a dish!

BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 15Trend:

The Novruz holiday is celebrated annually in Azerbaijan for five days, including March 20 and 21, the day of the vernal equinox. The holiday is celebrated in honor of the arrival of spring and the renewal of nature.

In the days of Novruz, according to folk tradition, fires are lit, various sweets are prepared (shekerbura, baklava, gogal), khoncha is dressed up (treats collected on a tray), semeni are planted, boiled eggs are painted, etc.

However, it is customary to pay the main attention to the festive table.

The pride of the table, of course, is festive pilaf, and the main of all its varieties is shah-pilaf.

Plov, or "Shah of solemn 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 kind of this delicious dish. The main attribute of "Shah" pilaf is gazmah - an appetizing crispy lavash crust in which pilaf is cooked.

For thousands of years, a verified combination of juicy meat, rice, raisins, dried apricots, in a crispy golden crown of lavash reveals the true hospitality of the East.

To find out all the subtleties of making shah-pilaf, we turned to the local housewife, mother and grandmother, Zeynab khanum.

She told us that the main secret in shah-pilaf cooking is the selected high-quality and fresh ingredients. She advised using long grain basmati rice, pitted dried fruit and chicken. Zeinab khanum prefers trusted producers such as the local chicken “Mərcan”, which, in her opinion, is ideal for pilaf, both in terms of taste and useful properties for all family members.

“I noticed that the texture of Mərcan chicken is somewhat different from other producers. After cooking, it tends to diverge into fibers, unlike other brands, when their meat during cooking turns into a kind of pasty mass, and even has a sharp unpleasant fishy smell. In the preparation of pilaf, such products are simply unacceptable, ”says the hostess.

“There are no trifles in the preparation of pilaf, so even the water should be used not chlorinated, without foreign odors. Rice should be soaked with water of 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 your palms, as it may break. The main thing is that the starch should come off the rice. I rinse until the water is clear. "

The next secret from Zeynam khanum was the sequence of frying the ingredients for the gravy. “You need to start cooking the gravy with frying the onions. The mistake of many is that they first fry the chicken, and then wonder why the onion does not in any way become the desired shade. But properly fried onions give the smell of pilaf. Then put the meat, and only then the dried fruits. The mixture is not fried too much, since it will still languish in the pilaf itself. When frying I use stewed butter. "

According to the hostess, rice is cooked until half cooked in salted water.

The cauldron, oiled with butter, is covered with pieces of lavash. According to Zeynab Aliyeva, the dough itself should also be greased with ghee, otherwise a crispy crust will not form.

Rice and govurma (gravy) are alternately spread on pita bread in layers, pouring with melted butter and saffron tincture. On top of the 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 Novruzov family feast it is better to give preference to chicken govurma for pilaf. She told us an interesting fact, which, for sure, not everyone knows. It turns out that it is not customary to cook cattle meat on Novruz. The fact is that in the spring, the breeding stage of cattle is just beginning, and during this period it cannot be cut. Therefore, on the festive table, according to tradition, there are dishes from fish (a symbol of prosperity) and chicken on the table.

She advises choosing trusted local producers, such as Mərcan, not only to make pilaf for Novruz tasty and appetizing, but also for the safety of all family members, because only natural feed is used in the production of chicken meat without chemical additives, GMOs, antibiotics, anabolic steroids and hormones. ...

Bon appetit and happy holidays!

Shah pilaf is an original dish that is guaranteed to become the star of the festive table. We are sure that your guests have never tried anything like this and will be delighted. In fact, this is the same pilaf, but cooked in a completely different way. All ingredients are processed separately, then collected in a common dish and sent to the oven.

Pilaf in pita bread in the oven

Unusual look plus gorgeous taste - what else do you need to win hearts?

Ingredients for shah-pilaf in lavash

We give a list of ingredients based on a glass of rice and a pound of meat. You can choose pork, beef, lamb, chicken - in any case, the meat is very soft and tender.

Also prepare:

lavash - thin Armenian (some housewives use unleavened dough);
three large onions;
two large carrots;
a pack of butter;
vegetable oil;
large head of garlic;
large raisins;
a tablespoon of dried barberry;
red pepper, saffron, smoked paprika - to taste, but focus on 5 grams of each spice;
black pepper, salt.

Method of cooking shah-pilaf in lavash

Boil rice in salted water. When it boils, add a tablespoon of butter. Hold on the window for 10 minutes, then turn off the stove and leave to infuse under the lid.

Boil rice in salted water

Cut the meat into medium-sized pieces. Choose cubes, then it is convenient to divide the dish into portions. Fry the meat in vegetable oil until half cooked, then add onions to it (cut as you like).

Cut the meat into medium-sized pieces

Pre-soak the raisins in boiling water. When the onion is translucent, squeeze the raisins and transfer to the skillet. Add barberry, saffron and red pepper there. Salt right away as needed, when the dish is assembled and ready to be prepared, it will no longer be possible to add salt.

From the history of the dish

Eastern pilaf is so ancient that historians cannot reliably establish its origin. It is assumed that the basic principles of its preparation originated in the Middle East and India in the 2-3 centuries BC. This time, in principle, coincides with the beginning of rice cultivation in the region. In China, the plant began to grow much earlier, but the technologies of how pilaf is prepared (including shah) do not fit into Japanese or Chinese cuisine. Probably, the historical roots of the dish go back to the gastronomy of India. There are similar methods of cooking rice in the country, but they are vegetarian. The meat component of pilaf most likely appeared in ancient Persia. In favor of the Indian origin is also the tradition of dyeing rice in an appetizing yellow color using turmeric and saffron threads.

The main components of pilaf

There are thousands of recipes for making delicious and aromatic pilaf. However, not all of them meet the basic requirement. The dish should consist of two parts: zirvak and cereal. Shah-pilaf in Azerbaijani (the recipe with the photo is presented below) meets these conditions. Zirvak means a meat or fish component (including ready-made minced meat in the form of meatballs), game, vegetables, dried fruits, spices. In Azerbaijan it is called "gara". The cereal part does not always consist only of rice, sometimes chickpeas, corn, mung bean, wheat, jugara, or even a mixture of these components are used. There is a lot of variability in the set of ingredients. The main secret of this oriental pilaf lies in the cooking process. There are two options - Central Asian and Iranian, the latter, in particular, adopted in Turkey and Azerbaijan.

According to one of the versions, pilaf shah is named so because of the way of serving. The finished dish resembles the crown of a medieval eastern ruler. According to another version, pilaf cooked in this way tastes so good that it is worthy of the Shah's table and the most solemn ceremonies. On ordinary days, women prepare it, but during the preparation for the holidays, men and even specially invited masters take up the work. We offer a recipe for a traditional Azerbaijani dish from a famous chef. Everyone can cook it, you just need to show patience and put a particle of the soul into the process.

Shah - pilaf in azerbaijani: ingredients

Of course, the most delicious pilaf comes from products that are produced in his homeland. The market is perhaps the most suitable place to buy them. The products are mostly homemade, fresh and delicious. The main component of pilaf is rice. A long-grain variety such as Basmati works best. The second important ingredient is meat. This can be lamb, beef, or chicken. The choice depends on your personal preference. Don't forget about butter, too. It will take quite a lot. In Azerbaijan, buffalo butter is often used, which has a characteristic, completely white color.

In order to cook shah - pilaf in Azerbaijani style (photo from the text), you will need another extremely original ingredient - an iron horseshoe. For what? Read on - and you will learn one ancient secret.

So, the required ingredients:

basmati rice - 500 g;
butter - 500 g;
meat - 500 g;
hot onions - 300 g;
walnuts - 500 g;
pomegranate juice - 1 glass (can be squeezed out of ripe fresh fruit);
cherry plum puree - 1 tablespoon;
pita bread - 5 pcs.;
saffron to taste.

Stage 1. Cooking rice

Before starting to cook the groats, soak a few strands of saffron in a cup of boiling water and let it brew for at least one hour.

Rinsing rice before boiling it is a process that has become almost an axiom for us. In this case, in order to cook pilaf shah, you do not need to do this. In a large saucepan, bring enough water - 2-3 liters - to a boil, add salt and dry rice. Boil the cereal until half cooked, in time it will take about 5-10 minutes. Remember that you are only steaming it lightly, not cooking it. Then place the rice in a colander.

Stage 2. Meat preparation

Meat (chicken, beef, lamb) must first be boiled in order for it to be soft. This should be done within 2-2.5 hours. Quite a long process, so it's best to do it beforehand.

Scroll spicy onions through a meat grinder and squeeze dry from the juice. In a preheated frying pan with a small amount of butter, fry it over low heat.

Step # 3. What is a horseshoe for?

This is another secret of how to cook shah-pilaf in the best traditions of the East. The use of metal objects (in this case, horseshoes, which is very symbolic) when preparing food was practiced by the ancestors of modern eastern peoples for a very long time. This served as a kind of natural source of free and available iron for the body. Now the horseshoe is used more for entourage.

Combine pomegranate juice with sour cherry plum paste and mix thoroughly until smooth. Heat the horseshoe to red on the fire. Then, using tongs, dip it into the pomegranate juice. Ideally, the procedure should be repeated three times.

Stage 4. Cooking meat

In a frying pan, combine the onion, boiled meat chopped into large pieces, crushed walnuts, pomegranate juice. Stir all the ingredients, and put the same horseshoe in the middle. Simmer the meat over low heat for 10-15 minutes. It should take on a dark, almost black color.

Stage 5. Baking rice

In order to cook pilaf shah, it is best to take a small rounded lavash, which is sold in a package of several pieces. In this case, you will need 5-6 pcs. Dip the lavash in pre-melted butter and gently overlap in the cauldron, gradually closing the bottom and walls of the dish, as shown in the photo above. Then sprinkle the cooked rice in layers, pouring saffron infusion and oil over it. Close the top with the edges of the pita bread. It is preferable to use a conical cauldron, then the finished dish will even more resemble the crown of the shah. Put the rice laid in this way into the oven or oven for 35-40 minutes at 200 degrees.

Stage 6. How to serve the dish

From the photo we presented in the article) has one more feature. In Azerbaijan, meat and cereal components are not mixed at the cooking stage. This is done only during the meal. The finished pilaf is taken out of the oven, transferred to a large serving dish and the toasted crust is carefully cut. Aromatic, juicy and soft meat is spread around the "crown". The dish looks very impressive and luxurious. Let's say the option with portioned serving, as, for example, in the photo below. For beauty, dried fruits are used when serving.

Pilaf shah: recipe in a slow cooker

Shah-pilaf is a dish that differs not only in its special ingredient composition, but also in its preparation method. Is it possible to do without a special cast-iron cauldron in this matter? This is a rhetorical question. Pilaf and cast-iron cauldron is a duet, without which it is impossible to get a traditional and truly delicious dish.

However, now almost every housewife has a slow cooker. A miracle technique that hides a huge functionality. The principle of its operation in many ways reminds everyone of the familiar oven, since the bowl is heated evenly from all sides. In the case when there is a great desire to cook shah-pilaf, but there is no cauldron, a slow cooker will come in handy. How to do this - we will tell you below. The recipe is slightly different from the one above in terms of ingredients, but no less interesting.

Ingredients for pilaf with dried fruits

As mentioned above, the composition of the ingredients can vary significantly depending on the recipe. Above, a traditional version was presented, including a minimum set of products, spices and spices.

In one of the regions of Azerbaijan, shah-pilaf (photo above) is prepared contrary to the principle of separating cereal and meat components. Here it is customary to lay out the ingredients in the cauldron, alternating them, so during the baking process they are saturated with the smell and taste of each other.

Now we suggest you try pilaf with dried fruits. Prunes, dried apricots, raisins - all this is very popular not only in Azerbaijan, but also in the East in general. Dried fruits retain their aroma and taste, moreover, it becomes even richer. In traditional cuisine, such a dish is called turshchi-kaurma-pilaf. In this case, chestnuts are optional and may be absent. So, in order to cook traditional Azerbaijani (5 servings), you will need:

basmati rice - 500 g;
fatty lamb - 500 g;
butter - 500 g;
onions - 300 g;
cherry plum paste - 3 tablespoons;
chestnuts - 200 g;
dried apricots - 150 g;
raisins - 300 g;
lavash - 8-10 pcs.;
pepper, saffron, salt - to taste.

Step # 1

Boil rice in salted water until half cooked for 5-10 minutes. Then fold the cereal in a colander and let the excess moisture drain. Cut the meat into large pieces and boil until soft. The broth can then be used to make soup.

Prepare the onion in the same way as indicated in the previous recipe. Namely, peel and scroll through a meat grinder. Then squeeze the juice and fry in a pan with a little butter over low heat.

Cut the finished boiled meat into portions. Add it, dried fruit, cherry plum paste and chestnuts to the onions. Bring the mixture to the desired harmonious taste with salt and pepper, heat for 10-15 minutes over very low heat, stirring occasionally, not allowing it to burn.

Step # 2

Melt the butter. Dip sheets of thin pita bread into it one by one. Then put them in an overlap in the multicooker bowl, closing the walls and bottom. Place about 1/3 part of the cooked rice on the bottom, sprinkle with pre-cooked saffron water, add 1/2 part of the meat mixture. Next, cover it all up with another piece of rice. Top with a little saffron water and butter. Spoon the leftover meat and cover with a third portion of the rice. Cover the pilaf with lavash on top, thereby creating something like a basket.

Turn the multicooker to Bake mode and cook for 50 minutes. During this time, the rice will completely steam out, but remain crumbly. Finally, place a small piece of butter on top of the pilaf, close the lid and let it "rest".

Serve the pilaf shah, the recipe for which is presented, whole on a wide flat dish so that each guest can put as much as needed. In Azerbaijan, the dish is placed on the table not very hot, but only warm (so that the butter does not freeze). It is traditionally eaten with hands, without stirring rice and meat on a plate.

Lavash for pilaf

For pilaf shah, as you already understood, lavash is required. You can certainly buy it at any grocery store. However, if you set out to cook a delicious dish with your own hands from start to finish, then you may need Thin unleavened dough cakes not as difficult to prepare as it might seem at first glance. They are traditionally cooked in the oven, but in modern conditions, a non-stick frying pan or even an ordinary cast iron pan is quite suitable.

In order to make pita bread, you will need approximately 700 g of flour, 300 g of water and salt to taste. Knead a tough dough from the specified ingredients, divide it into parts and roll out a very thin (no more than 2 mm thick) cake out of each. Fry it in a dry hot skillet without adding butter.

I like to cook pilaf, so I am happy to add these recipes to my piggy bank. If you like it too, cook it with pleasure.

INGREDIENTS

Medium-grain rice "Italica" ("Mistral") - 300 gr.

Armenian lavash - 2 pcs. (I have a "Wheat roll for making rolls" 1.5 sheets)

Meat (chicken, lamb) - 500 gr.

Onions - 2 pcs. (medium size)

Butter - 70 gr.

Dried apricots - 100 gr.

Raisins - 50 gr.

Garlic - 3-4 cloves

Pinch of saffron

Pinch of turmeric

Spices for pilaf or a mixture of spices: salt, pepper, cumin, barberry, paprika

Vegetable oil for frying meat

_______ _________ _________

HOW TO COOK

Rinse the rice. Put in a saucepan in layers (1 cm thick), shifting with thin slices of butter. Add salt (to taste), a pinch of saffron and turmeric. Pour rice with water in a ratio of 1: 2 and cook until tender.

Meanwhile, cut the meat into small pieces and fry until golden brown in vegetable oil.

Cut the onion into small cubes and add to the meat. Fry for 5-7 minutes.

Soak raisins and dried apricots in boiling water for 5 minutes. Then cut the dried apricots into small pieces. Add raisins, dried apricots and spices to the meat, mix. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Chop the garlic and add to the mixture removed from heat. Mix.

Cut the pita bread into strips, about 5 cm wide.

Melt the butter. Lubricate a cauldron (baking dish) with it. Lay strips of pita bread in the form of a fan (overlap), while lubricating them with melted butter. It is necessary to leave the hanging parts of the lavash.

Put a layer of rice on the bottom. Then lay out a layer of meat. Alternating, lay out all the rice and meat.

Cover the rice with hanging pieces of pita bread, brush with butter. Cover the top of the cauldron with foil.

Bake in a preheated oven for 40-45 minutes at 160 degrees. Remove the foil 15-20 minutes before the end.

Put the pilaf from the cauldron onto a dish. Cut the resulting "pilaf cake" in portions using a sharp knife!

Vegetarian Azerbaijan shah-pilaf with dried fruits in lavash No. 1

The highlight of pilaf is that it is prepared with dried fruits, including raisins, but itself is salty - and naturally there is absolutely no meat in it! Plus, it is served very festively - baked in lavash sheets like a cake - it is not for nothing that this is a traditional wedding dish in his homeland. And here's how to cook it - a step-by-step recipe with a photo.

Ingredients

Basmati rice - 0.5 kg

Raisins - 150 gr

Dried apricots - 150 gr

Cherry plum / dogwood (or other dried fruit with a sour taste) - 150g

Walnut - 250 gr.

Carrots - 3 medium pieces

Butter - 1 pack 200 gr

Thin lavash - 1-2 pack

Cooking instructions

The secret of proper Azerbaijani pilaf is in properly cooked rice. Basmati is used for pilaf (the longer the grain, the better). Rice must be soaked for half an hour in plenty of cold water and then rinsed well under running cold water until the water becomes clear. After the rice is washed, it must be poured 3 times with a large amount of boiling water, salt and cook for about 3-5 minutes. The rice should be cooked to the aldente state - so that the inside of the rice is of a uniform color, but the taste is still raw. Rice with all excess liquid must be thrown onto a sieve / fine colander and poured over boiling water and left to drain in a sieve. It is ready for further pilaf cooking.

Wash dried fruits, dry and cut into small pieces (of course, you do not need to cut raisins). In a frying pan, melt a third of a pack of butter and begin to brown the chopped dried fruits, after a few minutes add 2 tablespoons of sugar and a little salt to them so that they seem to caramelize a little (this will happen literally a few minutes after adding sugar). Turn off the pan.

Cut the carrots into small cubes and sauté in vegetable oil until almost cooked. Salt.

Break the walnut into pieces and fry a little in a dry frying pan.

Cut the lavash into long strips about 5-6 cm wide. Melt the remaining butter. Now you can start forming the pilaf itself.

In a deep form with a wide diameter (better - a thick-bottomed cauldron or a frying pan) we spread overlapping strips of pita bread, lubricating with oil. Let the rest of the length of the lavash hang on the sides - we will cover the top of the pilaf with them. When the entire surface of the bottom and sides is covered with 2 layers of pita bread, it's time to stop and start putting the ingredients inside.

The first layer is rice (no more than 1 cm thick), evenly distribute dried fruits on it. Drizzle a little with melted butter. Rice again, evenly distribute the carrots and walnuts on it. Drizzle a little with oil. And so on until you run out of ingredients or the height of the pan - finish with rice.

Cover the rice with strips of pita bread on top, turning them as if on the other side. Grease the pita bread with the remaining oil on top.

Put the pan to bake in a preheated oven to 200 degrees - for 20-30 minutes - until the pita bread is golden brown.

After our vegetarian pilaf is "baked" it must be turned over from the pan onto a festive dish and served. You can cut it in front of guests - it turns out very effectively!

Vegetarian Azerbaijan shah-pilaf with dried fruits in lavash No. 2

Cooking time: 1 hour 10 min.

Preparation time: 1 hour 20 minutes.

Servings: 10

Ingredients for the Shakh-pilaf recipe:

Barberry dry 20 g Water 640 ml

Zira (Cumin) dry 1 tsp Light raisins 20 g

Dark raisins 50 g Dry coriander 1 tsp

Dried apricots 100 g Chicken drumstick 350 g

Turmeric 1 tsp Thin lavash 1 pc.

Onions 2 pcs. Refined olive oil 2 tbsp. l.

Butter 70 g Melted butter 40 g

Carrots 1 pc Basmati rice 250 g

Salt 1 tsp Dried dates 100 pcs.

Garlic 3 cloves

Cooking shah-pilaf in pita bread in azerbaijani

Lavash is a very popular ingredient for making snacks, salads, and baked goods. Today lavash serves as a cauldron in which pilaf is prepared. The pilaf retains its juiciness, does not burn, gets a crispy crust thanks to the lavash. Lavash is like a huge kazmah around the whole pilaf. I am pleased to inform you that the recipe for this pilaf in lavash was invented by the Azerbaijani chef Shah-Huseyn Kerimov.

Of course, I want to focus on the type of rice. Basmati rice should be of dense grain (the first time the rice was fine and thin - it was boiled). A very diverse set of dried fruits adorns the taste and appearance of pilaf. Chicken meat should be taken from the thigh, because breast meat does not give juiciness. Lavash used thin. The result is a crispy top layer, like a baked filo dough. Learn how to make a filo dough recipe.

How to cook a dish step by step with a photo at home

1. To cook pilaf, you need to take Armenian lavash, rice, chicken meat, carrots, onions, garlic, raisins, dried apricots, dates, raisins, barberry, cumin, turmeric, salt, coriander, water.