Do more of what makes you happy

Passport & Plate - Gyurza

Azerbaijan | Thursday, March 13, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
For 30-40 little dumplings we need:

For the dough:

- 1 medium-sized egg

- 400 gr.of flour

- Water

- salt

For the filling:

- 380-400 gr. minced beef

- 1 onion

- Salt and pepper
- Turmeric (curcuma)
- Khmeli suneli

 

How to prepare this recipe
1. Let's start with the preparation of the filling. Preheat a frying pan, add oil and fry until golden finely chopped onion. Add minced meat, pour a little water and boil the meat under the lid until all the liquid has evaporated. You need to crush periodically the meat with a spoon. As soon as all the water is evaporated, remove the lid from the pan and give the meat a good fry on low heat. Season with salt and pepper. Let stuffing to cool.
2. Knead the dough from flour, egg, water and salt. Divide it into five equal parts and roll down each of them in the bun. Cover them with a towel and give a rest for five minutes. After the "rest" take one ball and roll out with a rolling pin in the large circle of 2 mm thickness. With the help of a glass cut out circles of dough.
3. Take each circle on your palm and put 1 tbsp. of meat stuffing. Start to braid your stuffed piece of dough. Be sure to leave the end of dumpling open. You can boil them immediately, or put on a tray and kept cold until use.
4. Put a pot of water to boil. When the water comes to a boil, season with salt and one teaspoon of turmeric. Turmeric is widely used in Azerbaijani cuisine, has a very pleasant and spicy flavor and bright yellow color. After seasoning water with this spice, you'll see how it will turn into a beautiful amber color.
5. Throw the dumplings into water and cook for 7-12 minutes.
6. Put Gyurza on a plate, pour a little melted butter and serve with garlic yoghurt. All you need is to pierce dumplings with a fork, dip in yoghurt and enjoy the taste!

 

The story behind this recipe
I guess which words and thoughts have ran in your minds when you looked at this picture for the first time. Aren' t these ones: «What is it?»,«What a beauty!»,«Wow!»,«Yummy!», «I wanna to eat it»,«Is it edible or it’s just another victim of photoshop”? Keep calm and let’s not dwell on picture, let’s cook it! Oh God, I didn’t even mention the name of this dish. Ladies and gentlemen, this dish is called Gyurza–the princess of azerbaijani feasts. Ask why not king or queen? Because the king of our cuisine is Plov and the queen is Dolma. Maybe someday and somewhere I’ll tell you about these salivating dishes more.
I prepared myself mentally 2,okay..2,5 days before proceeding to the preparation of this beauty. Like any country, Azerbaijan also has its own traditions. Before wedding lots of brides pass national cuisine cooking classes, which are held by their grandmothers, moms, aunts and etc. They do this more, not in order to pave the way to the heart of their husbands through the stomach, but in order to please their future mothers-in-law, who sometimes take places of professional food critics, who attack Michelin restaurants. Gyurza in some aspects can be compared with Viennese strudel. I read somewhere that in Vienna girl is considered ready for housekeeping, if she could roll with elbows superthin filo pastry for strudel. In specific case that means giving beautiful swirling braid on top of little elongated dumplings, stuffed with fried meat and neat shape for each Gyurza. As a child, I used to watch spellbound as the mother held in the palm of one hand single dumpling and fingers of the other hand gently and rhythmically, like playing a harp, formed a pigtail from the dough. I never thought that someday I’ll be able to do this too, so when I did, I felt myself ‘like a star’. Now I want to share the recipe with you all, because I think that such outstanding dishes should be cooked by everyone at least once in a lifetime. So we can start!