This week's post marks the first milestone of the challenge! This is the last country that starts with the letter A. And what a better way to close this first chapter than with: Azerbaijan!

Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental country at the boundary of Western Asia and Eastern Europe.

The territory of what is now Azerbaijan was first ruled by Caucasian Albania and later by various Persian empires.

By the late 19th century, an Azerbaijani national identity began to emerge, and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918.

In 1920, the country was conquered and incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan SSR. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on August 30, 1991.

Nowadays, Azerbaijan is a unitary semi-presidential republic. It has diplomatic relations with 182 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations, including the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the NATO PfP program.

Azerbaijani cuisine makes abundant use of seasonal vegetables and greens. Fresh herbs — including mint, cilantro (coriander), dill, basil, parsley, tarragon, leeks, chives, thyme, marjoram, green onion, and watercress — are popular and often accompany main dishes at the table. The country's climatic diversity and fertile land are reflected in its national dishes, which are based on fish from the Caspian Sea, local meat (mainly mutton and beef), and seasonal vegetables and greens.

Another tough decision this week. Azerbaijani cuisine relies heavily on dried fruits, and to be honest, neither my girlfriend nor I are exactly fans of dried fruits. Raisins and dried cranberries are my sworn enemies — and they show up in many of the signature dishes. So I had to search thoroughly for a popular dish that preferably avoids dried fruits. That's how I found: Beef Qutab!

Beef Qutab is a popular street dish that's easy to prepare, with various variations to accommodate different diets and preferences. There are vegan, vegetarian, and meat options.

A Qutab is basically a filled flatbread, and as the name of this version suggests, I'm preparing Qutabs filled with a mix of minced beef and a couple of herbs.

I'm just getting started and I'm already running into two issues with the same root cause: pomegranate molasses is not easily available in Mexico. It can be bought, sure, but I'd have to order it from Europe — and shipping takes anywhere from 4 days to 2 weeks… if customs decides not to hold my package. And time is something I don't have in abundance.

Luckily, molasses can easily be replaced with pomegranate seeds… which brings me to problem number two: it's not pomegranate season, so fresh pomegranates are impossible to find.

So while searching for solutions and trying to find a store or vendor that could get me either fresh pomegranates or molasses, I found ground pomegranate!

It's pure, no-sugar-added pomegranate — dried and ground. It's supposed to preserve the flavor and benefits. So I hope I don't offend any Azerbaijanis by using ground pomegranate… but it's precisely because I want to do this as close to the Azerbaijani way as possible that I'm committed to using pomegranate instead of just leaving it out. So… sorry not sorry. 😄

As for the rest of the ingredients, they were easy to find at my local supermarket. 🙂

Well, it turned out better than I expected. I had doubts about how long I needed to leave it on the stove for the meat to fully cook without burning the bread. But the secret is to have a very thin dough and put enough filling to cover half of it — but not so much that it becomes too thick.

I have to admit that making circular dough is still not my strongest suit, but with eight dough balls to work with, by the third one they were starting to look acceptable.

And after they were cooked, buttered up, and spiced, I'd say the result was great.

I liked them, but I think they could've used a bit more salt. My girlfriend — the judge — said it was seasoned perfectly. Matter of personal taste, I think.

I also think this happened because the recipe was a bit hard to follow: not one recipe I consulted had exact amounts for the ingredients. Most of them just listed ingredients with nothing else, or used vague measurements. One even explicitly said the measurements were estimated.

After preparing them, I think the most important measurements are for the meat and water — which I was able to nail down after comparing a ton of recipes, and which I've explicitly included in my ingredients list above.

We have this idea that street food isn't healthy because it tends to be fast and therefore fatty. But this being my second street food recipe, I know that's not always the case.

Sure, fast and fatty street food exists — but that's not the norm. ☝🏼

For these Qutabs, the only fat required is a little butter after they come off the stove. It wasn't even needed to cook them. And while I went with the meat version, Qutabs can easily be made 100% plant-based.

I'm excited to see what other street food dishes I find along the way.

Another fun thing I learned is how to make round dough. 😜

Before this recipe, the only time I had to make round dough was for Australia's pies — and even then it wasn't hard because I used the aluminium dish as a cutter to get a perfect circle. 

This time, I had to flatten it myself and actually give it the shape.

And I have to admit, the first two were… not round. 🥲😅

But from the third one on, I started to grasp it and got better. Not a perfect circle yet — but I'm close, and ready for whatever 

comes next.

With this, I wrap up all the countries starting with the letter A! 23 more letters to go. See you next week to explore the Bahamas!