I want to tell you a little about the city of Baku and its gastronomic part, visiting the market and fruit shops.

“… - Padhadi, daragoy, smell-eat ripe persimmon, pomegranate with nucleoli, still warm lamb! - And here's a lemon! Just smell, warm in your hands, dear and listen to this sweet smell of the passion of your stomach! … ”- these are the words that traders meet at the Baku market.

Baku city impressed me with its freshness, cleanliness, hospitality and, of course, gastronomic preferences.

View of the city and the bay. A beautiful embankment with a coastal park stretches along Neftyannikov Avenue. The Caspian is beautiful.

Flame Towers, the famous skyscraper towers of Baku, which are visible from everywhere in the city.

Old Baku - Icheri Sheher

The guys are playing backgammon. Icheri Sheher

Maiden's Tower - got into the frame of the beginning of the film "The Diamond Arm".





It's like a local "sex shop"

Gastronomic shop where you can buy spices, cereals and dried fruits.

A visit to the market is sacred for a chef.

Baku market "Teze-Bazar" Here you can buy skewers, saji, barbecues, knives. Taste black caviar (merchants invite you to try it). A sea of ​​spices, preserves. Great lamb, cheeses and fish.

This is the kind of inventory a cook should have.



The aroma from spices, pickles and dried fruits cannot be conveyed. Everything is in huge bags. On the left, a Baku resident invites you to try caviar in his closet.

… - Padhadi, daragoy, smell-eat ripe persimmon, pomegranate with nucleoli, still warm lamb! - And here's a lemon! Just smell, warm in your hands, dear and listen to this sweet smell of the passion of your stomach! ...

Dried dogwood, saffron and sumac are popular spices in Azerbaijan.

Sumac is an acidic spice that replaces lemon and vinegar. It is widely used in oriental cuisine.

"Pamidor is delicious, padhadi pakupai"

Lamb everywhere - average age 2.5 months. The meat of these lambs is so tender that you can eat it with your lips.

Piti soup - cooking features

An important condition for the correct preparation of the dish is the presence of clay pots in which the ready-made soup is served.

I think every housewife has old clay pots lying around in the mezzanine or in the closet. Find them, wash them, fill them with water and let them stand to let the bubbles come out of the ceramic. Then, put the pots on the stove and let them simmer for a few minutes. Then again pour water to the brim, put a piece of lamb fat, but no smell! Renal type, but the main thing is that there is fresh or a few drops of oil and let it boil until there is no water left in the pot. Wash the pots well and they are ready to eat.

This is how pots for azerbaijani piti soup look like

The peculiarity of this preparation is that when a pot of soup boils on the stove, it heats up, mainly from below. And at the top, the temperature is about 80 degrees. Thus, convection covers the entire volume. However, it is not so important to adhere to such a custom. You can make piti soup in a saucepan or cauldron. This article explains how to properly prepare piti soup.

Serving piti soup

The serving of the piti soup is very interesting, since this is the second soup, it is eaten in two steps: first, slices of churek (Azerbaijani flat wheat cakes) are placed on the plate. Pour hot, strong broth into the slices from the pot. Add chopped red onion and sprinkle with sumac.

Second run: put whatever remains in the pot on a plate, mash the chickpeas and potatoes. Add fresh pink tomatoes, another 50 grams of onion and sprinkle with sumac.

Piti is a soup that belongs to Azerbaijani cuisine. For the first time I tried this soup at a party, and honestly, I was instantly subdued and in love. Of course, now this soup has been interpreted a little with more affordable ingredients that can be bought anywhere and anytime. So, for example, chestnuts began to be replaced with potatoes, lamb or beef - a matter of taste preferences. But it is imperative to add sour plum or cherry plum, mint and chickpeas to the soup.

The soup is cooked in the oven, instead of the lid, lard is used, which is used to cover the pots of soup, in the process of baking the lard is browned. Traditionally, piti is served to the table as two separate dishes: in one plate - yushka with lavash, in the other plate - meat, potatoes, chickpeas and onions with tomatoes. I propose to go from words to deeds, we will cook Azerbaijani piti soup at home.

Prepare all the ingredients according to the list, also prepare two pots or one large clay pot for the oven.

Chickpeas should be soaked in cool water in advance, you can leave it overnight or for three hours. My chickpeas increase in volume in three hours. Then drain the water.

Cut the young onions and potatoes into medium-sized pieces.

At the bottom of each pot, put 6-8 pieces of beef or lamb. The meat should completely cover the bottom of the mold. When we start filling the pots, turn on the oven and heat it up to 150 degrees.

Then spread the potatoes and onions over the meat. You can take an ordinary onion, it should be cut into rings or half rings.

Lay a handful of chickpeas on top, which has been soaked in advance. Also, one or two plums should be added to each pot.

Cut the tomato into cubes, add to each mold. Pour in a little water or broth. Add dry mint.

Cover each dish with lard. Also add sumac, salt and pepper to your taste. In addition, it is worth putting at least a clove of garlic in each mold. Bake piti at 150 degrees for an hour, then lower the temperature to 100 degrees, bake for another hour.

Serve the Azerbaijani piti soup to the table directly from the oven.

Good appetite!

The original recipe for piti soup is well known in the national Azerbaijani cuisine. For the local population, the preparation of this first course is not difficult. However, any culinary specialist can learn how to make a hearty, rich, aromatic lamb-based soup. In consistency, a properly prepared delicacy resembles a sauce made from meat, vegetables and spices. The spicy and deep taste of this dish is able to truly enchant. The combination of quince and mint gives it a special piquancy.

Cooking time - 2 hours 40 minutes.Servings - 8

Ingredients

To prepare the original Azerbaijani piti soup, you will need:

• large tomato - 1 pc .;
• lamb - 500 g;
• quince - 2 pcs.;
• onions - 2 pcs.;
• mint - 2 tbsp. l .;
• potatoes - 2 pcs.;
• chickpeas - 3 tbsp. l .;
• black pepper (peas) - 4 pcs.;
• ground pepper, turmeric and salt to taste.

How to make lamb piti soup

1. First, you need to prepare all the products for the Azerbaijani lamb piti soup.

1. Then you need to tackle the chickpeas. It should be rinsed and filled with water for 8 hours.

1. The next step is to prepare the meat. It must be fried in fat tail fat until a crust forms.

1. In the same fat, you need to fry the onion, cut into half rings or optionally. Turmeric is poured into it. Meanwhile, quince is cut into cubes.

1. Now you need to preheat the oven. It is necessary to bring it to 190 degrees. Further, quince, chickpeas, meat, onions are transferred to clay pots. Half the containers are filled with products, to which 1 glass of steep brew is poured. The dishes are closed with a lid and put into the oven for half an hour.

1. Then the containers are removed from the oven. They contain potatoes cut into large cubes and chopped tomatoes.

Note! You can add a little water to the pots.

The future lamb piti soup is peppery and salted. You can add a small slice of butter and put the dish back in the oven for another 40 minutes.

1. The pots are removed from the oven. Peas and finely chopped mint are added to the soup. The container is closed for 2-3 minutes.

1. Serve a dish prepared using a step-by-step recipe with a photo with pita bread. You can eat from a pot or pour into a deep plate.

Video recipes for cooking Azerbaijani piti soup

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09.12.14

In every country you can taste a national dish, which you then fall in love with from the first spoon. Piti is just such a dish, hearty, tasty, insanely aromatic. Piti is considered a national Azerbaijani dish, although in Armenian cuisine there is also a similar dish called “putuk”. The specificity of cooking the dish is the same, but the dish was widespread only as a national Azerbaijani soup.

Piti - lamb brisket soup. It is cooked in one-liter clay pots in the oven, which makes the soup with a rich taste and aroma. Piti can be thick soup and runny. Thick soup is eaten with a fork, thin soup - with a spoon. Lamb soup gives all its taste and aroma, which is pleasantly set off by cherry plum and fragrant mint. Modern chefs put ginger, edible chestnuts (baked or cooked in advance), chickpeas (chickpeas), potatoes, garlic, and onions in piti. But before, piti was a piece of lamb stewed in pots in a broth with dried cherry plum to neutralize and easier assimilation of fat, chickpeas and mint.
An important point in making piti is hermetically sealed pots. The lids can replace unleavened dough, which is then thrown away, the most daring eat the dough, because it becomes very hard in the oven or fat tail fat slices the size of the hole in the pot.

Where to buy piti products?

Chickpeas are sold in retail chains in the "groats" section; the packs may have the inscription chickpeas, nakhat or chickpeas. Replacing chickpeas with regular yellow peas is not recommended, because in taste and consistency, these are two completely different products.

Dried cherry plum can be asked at the market from dried fruit vendors, and chickpeas can also be purchased there. Cherry plum resembles dry dried apricots in appearance, but unlike dried apricots, cherry plums are not fleshy. If it is difficult to find cherry plum, cooks advise replacing it with lemon juice or quince.

Edible chestnuts are available in the market. Choose large, shiny and whole chestnuts that are firm and free from damage. It is better to buy lamb in the market. You can use pulp or lamb on the bone, it is better if it is the back part.

How to prepare piti?

Take 1 kilogram of lamb pulp, 300 grams of large dried chickpeas, 1 onion, 300 grams of potatoes or chestnuts, 150 grams of fat tail fat, 120 grams of fresh or 50 grams of dried cherry plum, 1/2 gram of saffron, 250 grams of tomatoes, a teaspoon of dried mint , salt and pepper to taste.

Chickpeas are soaked in cold water overnight. If the room is hot, the peas are removed with water in the refrigerator. Then the peas are washed, poured into a saucepan with clean water, brought to a boil, foam removed, salted and boiled for 15 minutes (peas can not be boiled, but placed in the soup raw). Chestnuts are boiled for 10 minutes, cut, whole kernels are removed.
Lamb is cut into pieces weighing 30-50 grams. Put the lamb in pots or one large pot. Add chickpeas, chestnuts, or peeled and sliced ​​potatoes. Pour water almost to the top. Cover tightly and put the pots in a cold oven. The oven is turned on, setting the average temperature, cook for 1 hour. After a while, remove the foam, if necessary, and add diced onion to the pots, dried cherry plum (if the cherry plum is fresh, cut and remove the bones), chopped and pounded fat tail fat. Saffron is poured with a spoonful of boiling water, insisted, poured into pots, tomatoes, cut into 6 parts, salt and pepper are added there. Cover and return to the oven for another hour. Sprinkle with mint when serving. If the piti was cooked in a large pot, the soup is served like this. With the help of a slotted spoon, they take out the meat and everything else, put it in deep plates. Then, with the help of a ladle, pour everything with broth and sprinkle with mint. Piti is eaten very hot.

Piti according to the recipe of Stalik Khankishiev

You will need lamb (back thigh - pulp), fat tail, onion, chickpeas, albukhara, chestnuts and saffron.
Put the meat in a saucepan, add water, wait for it to boil (after about 20 minutes) and remove the foam.
Put meat, peas, onions in pots. Salt (put a pinch of salt in each pot), add water. Put a slice of fat tail fat on top, which will act as a lid. Put the soup on the surface of a wood-burning stove or on a cast iron! a frying pan and on gas, on a quiet fire. Simmer the soup for 5-6 hours without boiling.
Dissolve the saffron in boiling broth, pour a spoonful into each pot, add 2 pieces of albuhara and 3 whole, pre-cooked chestnuts to the pots. You can serve the soup like this. Crumble unleavened flatbread or pita bread into plates, pour with broth from a pot, add thinly chopped onions on top, sprinkle with a pinch of dried mint and a pinch of sumac. First, the broth with pita bread is eaten, and everything else is transferred to a flat plate, kneaded in mashed fat tail with a fork. Meat with peas can also be sprinkled with mint, sumac and onions and eaten with gusto.

Prepare the starting ingredients. If the chickpeas are not canned, soak them overnight and boil until half cooked.

Cut the meat into small pieces, as for roast.

By the way:

In shape, chickpeas (nukhut) resemble the head of a ram with a bird's beak, therefore in Azerbaijan it is also called mutton peas. Compared to regular peas, chickpeas are softer, lower in calories and contain high quality proteins and fats.

Dip the meat in boiling water, cook over high heat.

Skim off the foam as it appears.

By the way:

Sheki chefs put raw meat into pots and then skim off each pot. But in the city of Sheki, this soup is cooked on the stove, not in the oven, so access to the pots is easier, but even then it is a hell of a job. Stalik Khankishiev suggested boiling the meat and I completely agree with the Master.

As soon as foam stops appearing, stop cooking.

Fill the pots with the soup ingredients. By the way, real piti pots look like this.

By the way:

If the pots are not trough, they should be soaked overnight to prevent cracking. Sheki chefs prepare piti in special non-pouring pots with a small bottom, in shape and size resembling a beer mug with straight walls (see photo by Stalik Khankishiev).

Dice the onion.

Put a handful of onions on the bottom of the pot.

By the way:

Do not be confused by the size of the pot - piti is a very satisfying dish. Sheki residents play a prank on newcomers, making a bet with them that the newcomer will not eat more than one pot.

Put a few pieces of meat on the onion.

Put a layer of chickpeas on the meat, salt.

By the way:

I have canned chickpeas, i.e. boiled, but the chickpeas are not boiled. so it can also be put in the beginning.

Sheki cooks put the ingredients in the following sequence: Chickpeas - meat - onions - fat tail fat.

Pour the contents of the pot with broth from cooking the meat.

Add dried cherry plum and peeled chestnuts. Spice up. (optional).

By the way:

Cherry plum is put to add sourness to the broth, chestnuts - for satiety. These products are exotic, therefore compassionate Azerbaijanis allow us, the poor, to replace them with tomatoes and potatoes, respectively. But not Sheki residents! They believe that with tomatoes and potatoes, the piti will turn sour faster. And when will he turn sour?

In many recipes, chestnuts are pre-boiled or baked. Why - I do not know, for so much time of extinguishing they will be ready anyway without preliminary processing. But the Sheki cooks boil chestnuts in water, as they say, to make them easier to peel, and put them in a ready-made piti.

Spices are practically not used in piti. Why - you will understand when you try.

Put a slice of fat tail fat on top of all the ingredients.

Put in an oven preheated to 180 C and leave for 3-4 hours, making sure that the soup does not boil.

By the way:

In this case, fat tail fat serves as a lid. We have nowhere to get it, so I use regular mutton fat, which I then just throw away.

In Sheki, the petit is cooked for 2 hours, but firstly, the Sheki residents have not heard anything about frozen lamb, and secondly, the pots are on the stove, so the cooking process proceeds in a completely different way.

If you want to follow the traditional technology, put a cast-iron frying pan on the burner, and on it - pots, but this is your responsibility if you are confident in your pots (I'm not sure in mine).

Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into semicircles and cut the small tomatoes in half. Forgive the Sheki people - well, we are accustomed to our version of piti - without this it seems to us incomplete.

After 4 hours, open the oven, add potatoes and half a tomato to the pots, return the pots to the oven.

Meanwhile, put a pinch of saffron in a cup, boil it with boiling water, and insist.

By the way:

Saffron is added for the color of the broth and is said to be for flavor. Apparently, this refers to high-quality, very expensive Iranian saffron. I have an inexpensive saffron, which I bought in a market in Jerusalem, where prices for it vary several dozen times depending on the variety. As they say, "how much money - so many songs" - there is color, no taste.

After an hour, remove the pot from the oven, taste the potatoes. If it's tough, continue cooking.

By the way:

In some recipes, potatoes and tomatoes are cooked in the oven for 20 minutes. This is the opinion of theorists. Potatoes are cooked for 20 minutes on the stove, not in the oven, and the presence of an acidic environment (cherry plum + tomato) slows down this process 2-3 times.