Azerbaijani Plov

History

Plov is the national dish of Azerbaijan, long-grain rice steamed and delicately mixed with saffron, melted butter, and sometimes dried fruit, chestnuts or meat depending on the regional variant. The country is said to have over a hundred variations, each named after its filling or its town of origin.

Its technical hallmark is the gazmakh, a thin golden crust that forms at the bottom of the pot during the rice’s steam-cooking, made from dough, flatbread or sliced potatoes; this crispy base, flipped out and presented separately at the table, is considered by many guests to be the most prized part of the dish.

Ingredients — serves 6

• 500 g long-grain basmati rice
• 1 dose saffron threads, steeped in a little hot water
• 100 g melted butter
• 2 potatoes, thinly sliced (for the gazmakh)
• Dried fruit (apricots, raisins) and cooked chestnuts
• Salt

Azerbaijani plov, step by step

1. Soak the rice in salted water for about an hour, then drain.
2. Parboil the rice for a few minutes in boiling salted water until still firm, then drain again.
3. Line the bottom of a buttered pot with thin potato slices to form the future gazmakh.
4. Mound the rice on top, drizzle with melted butter and the steeped saffron.
5. Cover tightly with a cloth then a lid, and steam over very low heat for about 40 minutes.
6. Turn the pot out gently to unmold the rice with its golden potato crust, and serve with the dried fruit and chestnuts.

Cooking method

Technique: steaming the parboiled rice, with a potato base forming a golden crust (gazmakh) served separately from the rice.
Traditional equipment: a heavy-bottomed pot, a cloth stretched under the lid to capture condensation.
Signs it’s ready: the gazmakh is successful when it comes away in one piece, golden and crisp, without sticking to the pot.

One rice, a hundred regional names

Azerbaijan’s plov sits within the same broad family as Zanzibar pilau and the plov traditions of Central Asia covered elsewhere in this collection — long-grain rice cooked with fat, aromatics and sometimes meat or dried fruit. What sets the Azerbaijani version apart is the gazmakh: a crust, usually of thin potato slices, deliberately built into the base of the pot and then flipped out and served on its own, treated by many as the best part of the meal rather than a byproduct of the cooking process.

Nutrition, per serving

Calculated from the raw ingredient quantities above, divided by six servings.

This recipe’s plov is meat-free, built around dried fruit and chestnuts rather than lamb or chicken — one of the dozens of regional variants — so protein is modest and carbohydrate dominates; a meat-based version would shift the balance substantially toward protein.

Economic context

Saffron, the dish’s signature aromatic, remains one of the costliest spices in the world by weight even in tiny quantities; butter, rice and potatoes, by contrast, are inexpensive local staples, which is part of why so many regional plov variants exist — home cooks substitute what’s affordable while keeping saffron for the version that matters most.

Source: World Bank / FAO, Food Prices for Nutrition database (Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet) v4.0, 2024 data, CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.57966/41AN-KY81. Retrieved 29 July 2026. This figure describes the cost of a healthy diet in Azerbaijan generally — it is not a costing of this specific recipe.

Who this dish suits

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