Recently, one can often hear in cafes and restaurants about such an unconventional dish as kutaby. But those people who are familiar with the cuisines of other countries will be able to explain what Kutaby are.
What is it?
This dish came from Azerbaijani cuisine - it is traditional there. This baking externally resembles small cakes with filling, molded in the shape of a crescent. Compared with Russian cuisine, the Kutaba seem very similar to chebureks, but this is only at first glance.
The filling is usually seasonal. It may contain ingredients such as meat, ripe pumpkin, cheese. Sometimes grains of ripe pomegranate are added to it, and kutaba with greens are also prepared. They are prepared according to one principle - from unleavened dough similar to dumplings, and differ only in the filling inside.
Now you understand what Kutaby are. Next, we consider the general principles of cooking.
The main thing in cooking
When preparing these pies, it is important to knead the dough correctly.
Cooking it is quite simple, the only condition is: it must be fresh. If you cook the dough with the addition of yeast, Kutaby will become ordinary Russian pasties.
For the correct test, you need to take:
- 400 g flour;
- 600 ml of water at room temperature;
- a few pinches of salt.
Cooking dough
- Sift flour and mix with salt.
- Pour in water at room temperature. Knead the dough until smooth.
- If it does not turn out steep enough, then you need to add a little more sifted flour and knead again.
- Put the dough in a plastic bag and leave it alone for 30 minutes.
- When the specified time has passed, the dough is ready. It remains only to roll it out and, adding the filling, form kutaba.
To do this, divide the dough into even pieces and roll out the rolling pin into sheets with a thickness of not more than 1 millimeter. Using any round plate, cut the same circles. On this, the manipulations with the test are finished.
Now you can do the filling. Kutaba must be fried in deep fat or confectionery fat.
They are different
With what Kutaby are and how the dough is prepared for them, we figured it out. Now let's get into the filling. You can stuff them with almost everything at hand.
In summer, the filling can be found even in the garden. And cook great kutaba with herbs. You will get a light diet dish, which is also quite suitable for vegetarians.
For the filling, you can take any edible herbs: basil, cilantro, parsley, dill, tarragon, sorrel, green onions, tarragon, spinach and others - to your taste and discretion.
For the filling to succeed, the herbs must be thoroughly washed in running water and dried on a towel. Then you need to sort through them, remove all the thick and hard stems and finely chop, adding a little salt. The filling is ready.
On the rolled and cut out dough, put a little prepared filling. It is necessary to spread it on one half, then, wrapping the second, pinch the edges so that a crescent is obtained.
Kutaba can be fried in two ways: deep-fried or in an ordinary dry frying pan, without any additives. Serve them with sour cream or kefir.
Meat filling
If you don’t like vegetarian dishes, you can cook hearty kutaba with meat.
For the filling you need to take:
- 200 g of mutton (can be replaced with other fatty meat);
- 200 g of beef or veal;
- 200 g of onions;
- ground spices and salt to taste.
Rinse and dry the meat. Pass through a meat grinder along with peeled onions. Mix everything thoroughly, adding salt and spices. You can begin to form pies. You need to sculpt them the same way as the previous ones. In some cases, pieces of vegetables can be added to the meat filling so that it is less oily.
You can fry them only in boiling oil or fat, so that the meat filling is completely fried.
Cheese filling
Another option for cooking this dish is kutaba with cheese. In this case, they can be made both salty and sweet. It all depends on the type of cheese and additives to it.
Any cheese (hard and cottage cheese) is suitable for their preparation, and cottage cheese will also work perfectly.
For the filling, you need to take any type of cheese and grind it on a grater (if possible), and cottage cheese can be mashed with a fork. Adding a little sugar and sour cream to the product, you can make great pies with a sweet filling that will appeal to both adults and children. This filling option is only possible if the cheese or cottage cheese does not contain salt. By the way, you can add some fruits or berries to the sweet filling.
In the case of salted cheeses, you can make these pies stuffed with only one cheese, they will still turn out to be unusually tasty, with a pleasant creamy aroma.
And if you add a little greens to the stuffing from crushed cheese (cilantro, dill, green onions are perfect for this), you will get kutaby with cheese and herbs. Herbs with their indescribable and peculiar smell slightly flavor the cheese.
To summarize
In this article we talked about what Kutaby are. As it turned out, this is a kind of Azerbaijani pies with a variety of fillings. Prepare them from fresh yeast-free dough.
This kind of baking can surprise your family and friends, as well as decorate the holiday table.
Kutaba is best served with butter on the table. You can drink them with milk, black tea or kefir.
Kutabs are prepared quite easily and simply, and due to the variety of fillings, their taste can be completely different. The main thing is not to be afraid to cook and experiment.