B.F.T (a cousin of B.L.T)

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Maryam

I was at a restaurant the other day for lunch and saw something extremely interesting on the menu: Bacon Feta and Tomato sandwich (B.F.T). Now come one, I had to try it. I mean, I love bacon. I love sandwiches. I love love love Feta. Done deal. And so it was probably one of the best sandwiches I have ever tried. The bacon was smoky beyond belief, the bread was sourdough and toasted and the tomato honestly just got lost in the mix, but added a good palate cleanser. So of course, after having an almost orgasmic sandwich experience, I had to try one at home. I was pleasantly surprised. It’s easy to make. All you need to cook is the bacon. And since I love bacon, I piled it on high. It ended up being more of an open faced sandwich with lotsa bacon, but still worth it.

Yum

and Yum

Beautiful right. I know. I suppose you could also put some Arugula on their for even more freshness. Oh and those are heirloom tomatoes from Trader Joe’s. Not sure how I lived this long without them in my life.

BFT

Time: 15-20 minutes
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Bacon
Mayo
Bread (sourdough, ciabatta)
Tomatoes
Feta Cheese (any hard white salty cheese will do; also the best feta cheese (and white cheese) comes from Turkish stores-like the one pictured)
Arugula (optional)

Cook the bacon. I don’t like mine to be super crunchy, makes it harder to eat.
Toast the bread (i did not, but if I wasn’t so lazy, I would spread just a little bit of butter on it and toast it in a pan)
Cut the tomato into circles
Mayo the toast/bread; add tomato circles; then the bacon strips; and finally crumbles some feta on top (or a lot); and add arugula if desired.
Now eat. All of it.

Buglama – a classic

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Maryam

Ok, so it would seem that Azeri people love their stews. I never though of it that way, but it would seem that we do! Buglama is another version of a “stew”. It is more formal (if food can be formal) and is usually served at weddings or other gatherings. To tell you the truth, I do not remember one occasion where my grandma made buglama at home.

Another beauty of Azeri kitchen is that dishes can be versatile. Buglama for example can be made with fish, chicken, lamb or beef (or I suppose tofu if you are a vegetarian). I have made this dish twice now, first time using swordfish. Was not a success. According to my husband it was too bland. Since traditionally it is made with lamb (like so many Azeri dishes), I opted for beef (because my husband does not like lamb all that much). All the while I worried about the flavor. See, the dish is just meat and vegetables and if no flavor is infused into it, it will taste…well like meat and vegetables. So I decided to remedy that by frying up the meat first. I chose some oxtail and ribs (the thick kind). After frying up the meat, I fried some onions. Then I layered the dish with vegetables and left it to stew for about an hour. I was not disappointed with the result this time.

Buglama

Time: 2 hours
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1 – 2 LB oxtail and beef ribs (or you can use lamb ribs)

2 tsp salt (or to taste)

2 tsp coriander

2 tsp pepper

2 cloves of garlic, diced

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

3 tbs butter or olive oil

2 green peppers, julienned

1 large tomato sliced

1/2 cup water

Melt the butter in the dutch oven (or any deep pan). Wait for butter to really heat up, then add the meat and quickly fry on all sides. Remove the meat to a plate. Chop up the onion and add to the pan, fry for a few minutes or until the onion softens and becomes clear. Add salt and pepper. Place the meat back into the pan, mix up with the onions. Add salt, pepper, diced garlic and coriander. Layer the rest of the vegetables on top (pepper and tomato). Add half a cup of water and let it boil/stew for about an hour or until the meat is softened up. Serve with white rice and garnish with dill!

Adjab Sandal – Azeri beef stew

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Maryam

There is nothing more comforting than Meat and Potatoes, especially on a rainy, gloomy somewhat depressing (for other reasons) night. I must have made dozens of dishes whose main actors include the aforementioned. One thing always hold true: they never fail in taste. Be it the slow cooker beef stew, or the main character of this post (very similar to beef stew), they always taste great. They do evolve, but always remain true to their intended purpose: to satisfy and soothe the soul.

Adjab Sandal is the Azeri version of Beef Stew, with a few twists. One, there are tomatoes and eggplant present. Two, cinnamon. Yes. Cinnamon. It’s an ingredient present in main dishes, especially meat dishes quite often (among other spices). It gives the meat flavor unlike any other. It adds a certain kick to the dish. I love this dish. It’s relatively easy to make too.

Adjab Sandal

Time: 2 hours
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Adjab Sandal

1 LB beef stew, or beef chuck cut up into small pieces

2 tsp salt (or to taste)

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp pepper

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

1 clove of garlic, diced

1 large onion, sliced into half rings

1/2 cup olive oil

3 large russet potatoes, sliced into circles

1 medium eggplant, or 1/2 a large eggplant

1 large tomato, sliced

1 cup water

Dill, chopped for garnish.

Combine the first 6 ingredients in a medium size bowl. Set aside for about 20 minutes. Heat up olive oil in a dutch oven ~~pan~~ (what is the proper name for them?). When oil is substantially hot, add the meat and fry up for a few minutes.

Marinated Meat

NOTE: this is where I always mess up, not sure why. My meat never starts frying right away. It releases juices, boils a little and then when the juices evaporate, starts frying. It may be because I crowd my meat, or because I don’t dry it enough so it retains water. Either way, I am yet to discover a way where I can fry it right away.

Once the meat is fried up add the garlic and onion and sauté until the onions soften.

Once done, add about 1 cup of water and let the mixture simmer for about 40 minutes on low heat, with the lid closed.

Then, add the sliced eggplants, potatoes and tomatoes (in that order) and simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes. Don’t worry if this dish is ‘wetter’ than you’d like. It’s supposed to have water, so you can dip your bread in it!

When done, add chopped dill for garnish and additional flavor.

Enjoy!

Kufte Bozbash – Azeri Meatball Soup

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Maryam

I am a pretty determined cook. I mean, if I get it into my head that I absolutely have to make something, I usually have to do it. But that kind of determination is a double-edged sword: if I am not feeling it, and I make myself make it, chances are, it will not turn out good. My father always said that you have to cook with love, and put your heart into it no matter what. If you don’t, it will be felt. And he is right. Not in the cheesy, food-is-love kind of way, but in a very logical way. When you put your love into it, it will be obvious and the lack of enthusiasm will be reflected in your dish.

So one very lazy Saturday afternoon, I was doing nothing at all. And I mean nothing. Sitting on the couch watching Netflix all day kind of day. It wasn’t particularly great weather outside and nothing fun was going on. So I was determined to stay in. My husband was upstairs, working on his stuff. All of a sudden I remembered that I needed to make dinner…stat…it was getting closer to lunch/dinner time and I knew my husband would definitely be getting hungry soon.

Now, I’ve made a promise to myself to make more of the traditional dishes, and was saved by the fact that I had a meal planned already: Kufte Bozbash (or meatball soup). A note I should make about all Azeri meat dishes is they taste best if the meat is lamb and super fresh. Unfortunately, it cannot always be the case (because lamb is expensive, not available everywhere for me and my husband would prefer beef), so I make do with beef.

This dish is not a favorite by any means, but it is hearty and was perfect on a cold weather. It’s relatively easy to make, if you are not making the broth from scratch, or in my case, just using water. My meat came out a little bit dry, but it was ok, because the way to eat this soup, is to crush the meatballs, and pieced of bread and eat it like one mushy mixture (doesn’t sound appetizing, but it is ).

Kukfte Bozbash

Time: 1 hour
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Kufte Bozbash:

2 LB Ground beef or a combination of Lamb and Beef

1tbsp white rice, washed

Salt (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

¼ cup dried mint

Dried sour plums (same number as you will have the meatballs)

2 medium potatoes, cut up

1 can Chickpeas

For the broth:

10 Cups water, boiled

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp tomato paste, mixed with water and added to the broth

Mix the salt, pepper, dried mint and rice in with the meat. Combine well. Form meatballs about a size of a small apple. As you are forming the balls, put 1 dried plum into each meatball. Set them aside.

Kuftes

Meanwhile, mix the tomato paste with water, in a small bowl and add it to the 10 cups of water on the stove. Add salt and pepper and bring to boil.

Broth

Once the broth has boiled, add the meatballs, potatoes and keep everything on medium low heat until the meatballs and potatoes are cooked. Towards the end, add the chickpeas. Sprinkle more dried meat on top when serving.

Enjoy!

Cooking with love: Badimjan Dolmasi or Stuffed Eggplants

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Maryam

All right…at some point I’ll get on schedule where I blog as soon as I cook, or cook as I blog…but for now I’ll share with you a recipe that I haven’t made in over a month. The reason why I share this is because it’s by far one of my favorite Azerbaijani dishes: Badimjan Dolmasi (Eggplant “stew” or stuffed Eggplants is the best way to describe it). Don’t worry, the dish is not composed of Eggplants only, it also contains tomatoes and bell peppers, all three stuffed with sautéed ground meat and stewed to perfection. I couldn’t really tell you why it’s my favorite dish, but it is. The flavors are just perfect; it’s savory, filling and homey (at least to me). It’s also simple to make, once you’ve gotten used to making it. I’ve only made it 4 times in the past year (I don’t know that may be a lot for some folks) but I can at this point make it with my eyes closed (ha-ha I almost believed that one).

So the basic concept is simple enough: sauté ground beef with some spices; “gut” the vegetables, fill them with meat, place them in a pan, add butter and water and let cook for 30-45 minutes. However, with this recipe it’s the little details that make or break it. The timing is very important; you don’t want your vegetables to turn to mush while cooking. Also, the technique: should you roast or boil your eggplants to make them softer? And what about peppers? Should you keep the tomato pulp? And so on.

Perhaps this is why I love this recipe: it requires a lot of attention to details and personal touches. It took me 2 times making it until I was able to get everything just where I liked it: the meat tasting just right, the tomatoes staying in shape and not becoming too mushy. I tend to get frustrated when something doesn’t work EXACTLY how I want it to, so I was very relieved when it all finally came together.

This is what you’ll need

Badimjan Dolmasi

Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
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What you will need:

1-1 ½ lbs of ground beef, good quality, or a combination of lamb and beef (Whole Foods has great quality ground beef)

1 tsp salt

1tsp pepper

1tsp cinnamon

1 tbs dry mint

½ cup butter

*you can use olive oil as well, but them eat will taste much better with butter

4 green peppers

*I use Cubano ones usually, but this time I used bell peppers

4 medium to large tomatoes

4 medium to small sized eggplants

*now this is where I always encounter problems where I live. The only eggplants I can find are the really huge ones, and they just do not work for this recipe. They take up too much space and it makes no sense. I’ve gotten lucky a few times where at my local grocery store I was able to find small, individually wrapped eggplants. But that does not happen often. So if you have a place nearby that sells “normal” size eggplants, great. If you don’t, you can try the big ones.

A pinch of salt

Preparation:

1) Ground the lamb, or any other meat if you need to (like i did in the picture above). Place the ground meat in a frying pan, preferably a deep one, and add some water to it (about ¼ of a cup, little by little, don’t overdo it). Steam the meat in the water for a few minutes, breaking the meat up with a wooden spoon as you go along.

2) Once the water has evaporated completely (and you have to make sure it has evaporated, no ifs ands or buts) add the butter and sauté the meat up until it gets a nice brown color, continuing to break up the meat with the spoon. You don’t want the meat to sauté in chunks.

3) While the meat is cooking, you can add all the spices: salt, pepper, cinnamon and mint. Mix it up very well

4) Wash the tomatoes, and one by one cut off the top, and take care not to cut off too much. Do this by placing the tomato on its side, and making a vertical cut off the top, make sure to save the tops, you will need them again. Take a teaspoon and “gut” the tomato and clean out all the pulp; reserve the pulp Take care not to pierce through the tomato while cleaning it out.

5) Wash the peppers and also cut off the top and clean out the seeds with your hands. Save the tops of the peppers, with the stalk in tact.

6) Wash and dry the eggplants. Make a vertical slit on the inside of the eggplant, the side that curves in, not out. Salt inside the slits and set them aside for 10-15 minutes. Take a deep pan and place it on the stove, warm it up. LAY the eggplants side by side inside the pan (if your eggplants are too big, or pan too small, you can do this one by one, it will just take longer). Turn them around frequently, just until all sides have been roasted and the eggplant is semi-soft. This is done so it will be easier to stuff them. Once the eggplants have softened and done roasting, set the eggplants aside so they can cool. Once cooled, you can try and scoop some of the inside of eggplants out as well, be very careful, do not poke holes in them.

The eggplants are ready to go

7) For starters, take a tablespoon of the meat and stuff the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants one by one. Then keep adding meat, until all vegetables are full, but not overflowing. You have to be able to put the tops back onto the tomatoes and the peppers. Eggplants are the trickiest in stuffing, so BE VERY CAREFUL not to pierce through any of the vegetables, but especially eggplants, because they will get very soft.

8) Once all the vegetables are filled, place the tops back onto tomatoes and peppers and lay them inside a deep pan or a pot. I use a pot most of the time. Place the eggplants first, and then if you have space on the same level, place the tomatoes and peppers side by side. If you don’t have the space, then make layers: eggplant, peppers and then the top layer should be tomatoes. The peppers and tomatoes should stand no problem, the eggplants you will need to lay on the side, and just squeeze them side by side so they support each other.

9) Once all the stuffed vegetables are set in the pan/pot pour just a little bit of water, about ½ cup just so they can steam. Place the reserved pulp from tomatoes on top. The tomatoes will release a lot of water themselves, so do not overdo it with the water (I’ve done that and the end result were tomatoes that fell apart when trying to pick them up to serve, which resulted in the meat being all over the pot and not on your plate).

10) Cut up half a stick of butter into chunks, and place them all over the vegetables. The thing with Azerbaijani dishes is that flavor is everything and butter is everything (ha-ha). You want this dish to be savory and butter helps with it a lot.

ready to cook

11) Turn the heat to medium-low and let it cook/steam for about 30 minutes. Check the vegetables from time to time. Once the peppers and eggplants look like they’ve steamed enough, the dish is done!

Serve with some garlicky yogurt and bread!

The Beauty of Roast Chicken

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Maryam

There is nothing more satisfying than roast chicken, cooked just right. It’s both a simple and a complex dish. Simplicity in it is that it doesn’t require over the top ingredients or techniques to prepare. But the beauty of this dish is in the little details, which give it complex and delicious flavors. The truth is that there are about dozens (if not more) ways to make this dish. You can use minimal number of ingredients or go crazy and bring out the Ina Garten in you (I love Ina).

That’s the beauty of this dish, it’s totally up to your taste buds and the flavoring you prefer. I think that’s a pretty awesome way to cook. And I also think that if anyone is trying to “learn” how to cook, they absolutely must perfect Roast Chicken first. If you can let your imagination run wild and succeed with this dish, you can pretty much take on any recipe (feel free to correct me).

A word of advise for this recipe, or any chicken-oven related recipe: Be Patient. That’s right. If you take it out too soon, even if the bird looks like it’s roasted to perfection and the coloring is just right, you are running the risk of it still being under-cooked. But at the same time, you have to watch for it not to dry out. And that is where stuffing the chicken with fruits and/or vegetables helps. The juices that will run from these, will keep the bird moist, and add amazing flavor to it.

To ensure the golden crust, you have to rub something all over the bird. What I’ve always used, without a fail, is a combination of whole milk plain yogurt,good ol’ mayo and/or melted butter. That’s right. That’s what my grandmother used, and that’s what I’ve been using for as long as I’ve been cooking. For this particular recipe, I used butter and yogurt, It doesn’t only add great color to the bird, it also makes the skin crunchy and of course adds flavor to the whole thing.

So, in conclusion, to get a great bird you need : imagination and patience. The rest is easy 🙂

Stuffed Rosemarie Roast Chicken

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
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1 whole chicken

2 melted butter

2 tbs plain whole milk yogurt

½ tsp of salt

½ tsp of pepper

1 large garlic clove, crushed

optional: dried oregano, cilantro, dill any other herbs you’d like

1 medium onion, cut up into quarters

1 orange, cut up into quarters, not peeled

A few branches of fresh Rosemary

Preparing the rub:

Combine the melted butter and the yogurt in a medium bowl. Add salt, pepper, crushed garlic and any other dry spices/herbs. Mix well.

Rinse the chicken, remove the giblets, place the chicken on a tray and pat try (I just use paper towels and then toss them right away). Rub the chicken with the butter/yogurt mixture all over. Make sure you get it under the wings, even under the skin a little.

Place the cut up onion and orange into the cavity. Sprinkle some Rosemary leaves over the chicken. Just a FYI, Rosemary tends to have a strong flavor and becomes even more evident while cooking, so if you don’t like that, skip the Rosemary. It does add heavenly flavor to this dish though.

That’s pretty much all the prep.

Ready to go

Roasting the Chicken:

Preheat the oven to 400F; place the chicken into an over proof pan, I use a glass one, and place into the oven for about 1-1.5 hours, until the juices run clear. The only way I am able to tell, is I use a meat/poultry thermometer that has a guide as to when the chicken is ready. The internal breast temperature should usually be around 165-170. Again, this depends on your preference of readiness and what kind of oven you have.

Out of the oven

Stuffed with oranges, onions

I served the chicken with some orzo in tomato sauce and carrots sauteed with honey and olive oil. I also served the onions that were inside the chicken. It was delicious!

Dinner is served

Azerbaijani Girl Cooks

I cook, I eat, I repeat.

Tag Archives: Recipes

B.F.T (a cousin of B.L.T)

BFT