Snacks

3 recipes

Goghal

A spiced flaky pastry from Azerbaijan's tea table, traditionally baked for Novruz alongside pakhlava and shekerbura, eaten with strong sweet tea any time of year. You make a yeasted milk-and-egg dough and let it rest for an hour, while you build a savoury-sweet spice mix from black pepper, caraway, fennel, saffron and a hard cheese-like crumble (Azerbaijani gurut, or a substitute). The dough rolls thin, brushes with butter, gets a scatter of spice; folds, rolls, sprinkles again, repeated three times in the same lamination motion you'd use for puff pastry. The final dough rolls to a centimetre thick, cuts into rounds with the rim of a glass, takes an egg wash for shine, and bakes at 180°C for twenty-five minutes until deep golden. Eaten with sweet black tea and a small dish of jam on the side.

2 hours 25 minutes Serves12

Kete (Azerbaijani Herb-Stuffed Flatbread)

A bread from the mountain villages of Azerbaijan and the wider Caucasus, the kind of thing a family bakes on a Saturday morning and eats through the week with cheese, with stew, on its own with tea. You make a simple yeasted milk-and-egg dough and let it rise for an hour, while you slowly soften onions in butter until they're pale gold and sweet. The onions cool and mix with chopped fresh coriander, dill, mint, spring onion and a knob more butter for the filling. The dough divides into six balls, each rolls flat, gets a heap of filling, gathers up into a purse, presses flat to a twelve-centimetre disc, then rolls under a pin to a centimetre thick. Pan-fry on a dry hot skillet for four minutes per side, or bake at 200°C for fifteen minutes if you'd rather a more even browning. Eaten hot, torn and shared, with a glass of buttermilk or strong tea.

1 hour 50 minutes Serves6

Qutab

Azerbaijan's folded flatbread, the proper name for what the diaspora sometimes labels kutab or gözleme depending on where they learned to make it. You knead a dough from flour, warm water and salt to a smooth firm ball, rest for thirty minutes, then build a filling: half a kilo of mixed greens (chard, spinach, sorrel, whatever is around) wilts briefly with onion in a pan, drains hard, then mixes with pomegranate seeds and fresh herbs for the classic herb-and-pomegranate combination. Each ball of dough rolls into a twenty-five-centimetre circle so thin it's translucent. The filling spreads over one half, the other half folds over, edges press to seal. Onto a dry skillet for ninety seconds per side until the dough is blistered and the filling is steaming. Brush with melted butter while hot, sprinkle with sumac. Eat folded in half, the sumac sharp against the herby green inside.

1 hour 24 minutes Serves4