Azu in Tatar

The aboveground part of this plant looks like a huge number of greenish fleshy arrow leaves, and the underground part looks like a juicy, large onion of snow-white or purple color.

Carrots are as popular as potatoes, and some people like them even more. The best carrots are young, spring, starting in April, warm, sweet, crunchy. Known for its high content of carotene, which is indescribably beneficial for vision.

The best tomatoes are in the summer, starting in May, when you can buy Uzbek and Azerbaijani tomatoes in the markets, and until October-November, when our Moscow tomatoes ripen and also become sweet and fleshy.

Savory, crunchy pickles are a popular snack, and those who are afraid of excess calories appreciate them for their low calorie content, which is only 11 calories per 100 g.

With any tasty sauce, potatoes are no less interesting than Italian pasta; they mix well with other vegetables, are very good in salads and as an accompaniment to fish or meat.

Tomato paste is obtained by heat treatment of tomatoes. Ripe fruits are peeled and seeded and boiled to a dense mixture, a tomato concentrate.

How to cook Tatar-style beef from beef - step-by-step recipe with photos

Azu in Tatar style with pickled cucumbers is a very tasty and satisfying dish. There are few recipes for making it, the only difference is the sequence and quantity of certain ingredients. Right there you will see the most common, ordinary recipe. The result will amuse both you and your household. This dish is perfect for treating guests.

Azu in Tatar style beef with pickles

The process of making azu in Tatar - what ingredients are needed

To make the basics, any kind of lamb or beef is suitable. We will cook with beef. In the windows of hypermarkets you can often find so-called stewing meat - it’s perfect! It is better to cook the basics in a cauldron, or you can use a saucepan or frying pan with a thick bottom. The ingredients should not be fried, but should be stewed properly.

There are few ingredients for the basics:

• meat - 500 grams
• onions - 100-150 grams
• garlic - 2-4 medium cloves (to taste)
• carrots - 1 piece (medium)
• potatoes - 4-5 pieces (medium)
• pickled cucumbers - 300 grams
• spices - to taste (salt, dark pepper, meat seasonings, bay leaf)
• tomato paste - 2 tablespoons
• vegetable oil (for frying ingredients)
• greens - cilantro, parsley, dill, basil (it doesn’t matter which one will do)

Note : because azu is a meat dish where potatoes play a secondary role, the amount of meat must prevail over the amount of potatoes. Azu is meat with vegetables, not vegetables with meat. It is important to keep this in mind if you want to follow the recipe correctly.

But, if you add 2-3 times more potatoes, this will not spoil the taste of the basics, it will just make the dish more satisfying and much more economical to prepare.

Looking ahead, we note that there are several recipes for making basics. Some people boil potatoes, others fry them. We will prepare this dish of state Mongolian cuisine according to the most classic recipe.

Manufacturing sequence

First, you need to heat the oil. Add chopped meat into well-heated oil. We will cook at medium temperature. It is important that the frying pan heats up and the meat is lightly fried on all sides. This way the meat juice remains inside the slices and the meat will turn out juicy. Once one side is fried, turn the meat over and begin to simmer it over low heat, evenly adding water (200 ml per 500 grams of meat). The braising time depends on the toughness of the meat. Usually it is 30-45 minutes. If you put the meat on an unheated frying pan, it will immediately release its juice and stew in its own juice, but we don’t need that.

Beef roasting process

While the meat is being fried, you need to cut the pickles into strips. If the cucumbers have very rough skin, it is better to cut it off. To remove excess acid from cucumbers, you can lightly boil them in slightly bubbling water. You can also use pickled cucumbers. The taste will be slightly different, but no less excellent. There is no need to boil pickled cucumbers.

In a separate frying pan, fry the carrots cut into strips.

Chop carrots and fry in oil

When the carrots are already lightly fried, add the chopped onion and fry everything together until caramelized (it’s important not to overcook so that the carrots and onions remain juicy).

Carrots fried with onions

When the meat is almost ready, add salt and spices (don’t forget about pickles, which will add a little more salt to the dish), add tomato paste and simmer for another 5-7 minutes.

Add tomato paste

Add cucumbers to the meat, mix and simmer everything together until the cucumbers become a little softer.

Pickles and meat

Add pre-fried onions and carrots to the meat, as well as chopped garlic. Stir and simmer everything together for another 5-10 minutes. If necessary, add a little water so that the dish simmers and does not burn. Add the bay leaf either now or in the early step.

While the meat is stewing, cut the pre-peeled potatoes into large slices. In a separate, perfectly heated frying pan, lightly fry it until half cooked (it’s important not to cut the potatoes thinly). We need to get a crust on the potato slices. Lightly salt and pepper the potatoes (don't forget about the pickles).

Potato slices fried in oil

Combine the meat and potatoes, mix gently, cover with a lid and put on a slow fire. The task is to bring the potatoes to readiness. We taste the dish (is there enough salt and other spices).

Azu in Tatar

The dish is ready! All that remains is to put it on plates and call everyone to the table.

This easy-to-make and very tasty dish will not leave anyone indifferent. Having tried to cook the basics in Tarar style with pickled cucumbers, you will remember this taste more than once and will begin to cook it again and again.

Azu in Tatar

Azu has such a long and harsh tradition in long-standing Mongolian cuisine that it is overgrown with countless editions. Approximately the same as Ukrainian borscht.

Azu in Tatar, like any folk dish, exists in almost all editions. But the main thing is a constant set of ingredients: meat, potatoes and spicy tomato sauce with pickles, which brings everything together into a single whole.

The result is a tasty, fragrant, slightly spicy (and from time to time very spicy) dish that the whole family, and especially the male half, will probably enjoy...

Ingredients

• 600 g beef for stewing
• 600 g potatoes
• 3 pickled cucumbers
• 1 onion
• 200 g tomatoes in pieces from a can or 2 tomatoes and 1 tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 cloves garlic
• vegetable oil for frying
• 1 tbsp. flour
• cilantro or parsley
• salt
• dark ground pepper
• reddish hot pepper to taste

Manufacturing

Cut the beef into pieces 5 cm long and 1 cm wide across the grain. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a deep frying pan and add the meat there.

Cook over medium heat, turning occasionally, until the meat is browned. This will take about 20 minutes.

Pour hot boiled water over the meat until it just covers it. Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat and simmer the meat for about an hour and a half until it becomes soft. There is one trick: if you stew the meat for a long time, and it is still hard, add a piece of dark rye bread or a pinch of soda, so it will cook even faster.

When the meat is ready, open the lid and turn up the heat, let the rest of the water boil away and the meat brown.

Add onion, peeled and cut into small cubes, and flour to the meat, stir everything. Fry until the onion becomes soft.

Add tomatoes from a can (I often take skinless tomatoes, cut into pieces, in my juice, Greenish Giant office) or grate a couple of new tomatoes, having previously cut them in half. Hold them with the cut side towards the grater, then the skin will remain in your hands, and only the crushed pulp will be in the plate. Add tomato paste with fresh tomatoes. Simmer the meat and tomatoes for 5 minutes over medium heat.

Cut the pickled cucumbers into strips and add to the meat, stir and heat everything together for another 5 minutes.

While the meat is stewing, peel the potatoes and cut them into slices. In a separate frying pan, heat 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and fry the potatoes in it. Lightly salt the potatoes while frying, about half a teaspoon of salt.

Add the potatoes to the meat, stir everything and simmer together under the lid for 5 minutes. Peel and chop the garlic, finely chop the greens. Check the base for salt, add salt and pepper to taste if necessary. Then add garlic and herbs to the basics, stir and cover with a lid. Turn off the fire. Let the finished dish sit for 10 minutes so that it settles.

Azu in Tatar - afterword

It is quite difficult to argue about what an authentic Tatar recipe for basics should be. Like any popular dish of folk cuisine, it developed, transformed and became overgrown with new details, legends and traditions, and in the case of Mongolian cuisine, which can be endlessly divided into Siberian, Kazan, Perm and dozens of others, it is completely unrealistic to find the original source . Over the years of its existence, the unique recipe has changed hundreds of times, but the base has remained constant: meat, tomato sauce, pickles, potatoes. Let's say that the basics are essentially an ordinary stew, which means you can cook it creatively and on a whim.

Nowadays the Tatar basics are found in very diverse interpretations. Someone prepares it so that the mixture of the dish is something between the second and the first. Others prefer the basics with a minimum of sauce, evaporating excess liquid and leaving the ingredients almost “dry”. Everyone has their own, “homemade” set of spices and herbs. The degree of spiciness is adjusted depending on the preferences of the cook, but usually the basics are offered in a fairly spicy version. The vessel in which this dish is stewed is chosen taking into account the fact that it needs to be stewed for a long time and thoroughly, but there are also “fast” recipes.

In different sources, in addition to tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and potatoes, other vegetables are also added to the basics - carrots, sweet bell peppers and even mushrooms, eggplants, zucchini and cabbage. A separate topic for debate is meat: it is believed that the basics are usually prepared from horse meat, but these days most often the base is lamb, beef, and less often or almost never pork (this point is due to the fact that most Tatars profess Islam).

The general development is ordinary: all the components of the basics are fried separately, and then combined in a thick-walled cauldron and stewed together. Often the Tatar basics are prepared in clay pots in the oven. From time to time, a fermented milk component - cream, sour cream or yogurt - is added to meat and vegetables.

In general, if you are in doubt about how to cook the basics in Tatar style, just do it as you think necessary, the main thing is that it is tasty and your family likes it. And if someone is loudly indignant that this is completely, completely not what it should be, you can always authoritatively declare that “but my grandmother, whose great-grandmother was a Tatar and was famous for her basic skills throughout Kazan or Astrakhan (select whatever you personally like best), I cooked it exactly like that!”

Azu in Tatar

Ingredients

Potatoes – 5 pcs.

Young garlic – 0.5 heads

Tomato paste -1 tbsp. l.

Vegetable oil - 0.5 cups

Pickled cucumber – 2 pcs.

Greens, Pepper, Salt, Sugar - to taste

• 143 kcal
• 1 hour 10 minutes
• 1 hour 10 minutes

Photo of the finished dish

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Step-by-step recipe with photos

Azu in Tatar is a savory, satisfying meat dish with an oriental flavor. To make it you will need a cauldron or dishes with thick walls. I’ll immediately make a reservation that it’s not necessary to use carrots, it’s optional. If there are no tomatoes, you can only add tomato paste. Adjust the spiciness according to your taste preferences. It is better to use barreled, salted cucumbers, because pickled ones contain vinegar, and it delays the process of making potatoes.

So, to make Tatar-style basics with pickled cucumbers, we will need the following ingredients (see photo).

Cut the meat into cubes and fry in very hot oil to seal in all the juices.

Place the fried meat on a plate.

Cut the potatoes into cubes and fry in the remaining oil until half cooked. Post it.

Cut the onion into slices.

Carrots - in small cubes.

Cut the pickled cucumbers into smaller strips.

Return the meat back to the saucepan, add the onions and carrots, fry for 10 minutes until the onions are soft. Salt and pepper.

Finely chop the tomatoes and add them together with tomato paste to the meat and vegetables. If the pasta and tomatoes are very sour, you can sweeten them slightly to even out the taste. Add water and simmer for 10 minutes.

Then add cucumbers and simmer for 30 minutes.

The liquid should boil to half.

Now you need to combine the fried potatoes, chopped garlic with gravy. If you don’t have young garlic, just chop 2 cloves. Heat for 5 minutes, sprinkle with herbs. Season with salt and sugar.

Azu in Tatar style with beef is ready and can be served.