Kutaby is a national Azerbaijani dish included in the treasury of the culinary art of the peoples of the Transcaucasus. The tradition of feeding them to the family, treating guests dates back to the pre-Islamic era. Today, kutabs are cooked not only in Azerbaijan and the CIS countries, but also in the best restaurants in Europe; these crescent-shaped thin dough pies have firmly won the hearts of Europeans.
How to cook kutaba: video recipe
For the dough: – flour – 800 g; – water – 1,5 cups; – baking soda – 1 pinch; – vegetable oil –2–3 tbsp. l.; – salt to taste.
For the filling: – lamb pulp – 800 g; – onions – 8 pcs. (0,5 kg).
For the final preparation: – tkemali sauce – 2 tbsp. l.; – natural yogurt – 0,5 l; – butter – 150-200 g; – vegetable oil for frying – 1 glass; – dry seasoning for sprinkling – to taste.
You can replace tkemali sauce with marshmallow or cherry plum paste, pomegranate sauce or plum puree, that is, any acidifier traditional in Azerbaijan. Seasonings of sumac, cumin, savory, as well as pomegranate seeds are suitable as sprinkles.
Sift the flour over a bowl through a fine sieve. Add a pinch of baking soda, salt to taste, and vegetable oil (recipe allows you to substitute softened margarine for vegetable oil). Gradually adding warm water, knead the dough. Cut into small pieces (70 grams) and form them into balls. Leave them on a cutting board, covered with a clean towel.
You can not knead the dough, but buy ready-made thin pita bread (round) with a diameter of ≈25 cm.But in this case, the meat filling should be fried / stewed in a pan until tender, before wrapping in pita bread
Peel the onion and cut each onion into 4 pieces. Cut the lamb pulp into pieces as well. Pass the meat and onions through a meat grinder, salt to taste, mix thoroughly.
Sprinkle flour on the working surface of the cutting board, take a bun of dough and roll it out with a rolling pin to a diameter of ≈20-25 cm. Grease half of the resulting circle with tkemali sauce (if you use cherry plum marshmallow, soak it first, and then whisk it in a blender until it becomes a paste) and then yogurt. Place a small layer of minced meat on top. Cover the filling with the free half of the circle, lightly pressing with your palm, as if squeezing out the air. Firmly close the edges of the dough (you can curly), as when forming dumplings, or walk along the edge of the kutab with the teeth of a fork, pressing them to the dough. The first kutab has been formed. Place the go on a floured board and cover with a towel to keep the dough dry. Form all kutaba in the same way.
Put a frying pan on fire (a cast iron pan is ideal), brush with vegetable oil and, when it warms up well, put kutabs – how many will come in, usually two. Reduce heat to medium. Fry on both sides until browned. If the kutabs begin to “inflate”, press them down with a wooden spatula or pierce them with a sharp knife in 2-3 places. Grease the finished kutabs with butter and put in a dish.
Always serve kutabs hot. Sprinkle with seasoning after placing them in serving bowls. Bon Appetit!