🇦🇿 Azerbaijan and 🇬🇪 Georgia · and Georgia (Kakheti)
BozbashCaucasian lamb and vegetable soup
A lamb or beef soup of the Azerbaijani and Georgian kitchens built on a meat broth with chickpeas or peas, potatoes and other vegetables, flavoured with saffron or turmeric and finished with coriander and mint.
Origin and history
Georgia's tourism board says the name comes from Farsi, where it means goat's head, and from Azeri, where it means grey head. It was long regarded as a dish of the nobility, tasted first by the master of the house and cooked for special occasions, and is now far more common; mutton, lamb or beef have replaced the goat's head. It is cooked in Azerbaijan and in Georgia, notably in Kakheti.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 1 kg2.2 lb bone-in lamb shoulder or shank, cut in moderate chunks; beef works too
- 200 g1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and drained
- 100 g3.5 oz fat-tail or lamb fat, finely diced; use extra lamb fat or sunflower oil if unavailable
- 3 medium onions, finely chopped
- 50 g3 tbsp tomato paste
- 600 g1.3 lb potatoes, peeled, left in large pieces
- 1 bay leaf
- 8 black peppercorns
- 1 pinch saffron, steeped in 2 tbsp hot water; or 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, optional
- 2.5 l10 cups water, cold
- 1 bunch fresh coriander (cilantro), chopped
- 2 tbsp fresh mint or 1 tbsp dried mint
- salt, to taste
Method
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1. Rinse the lamb in cold water and put it in a large pot with the soaked chickpeas.
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2. Cover with the 2.5 l (10 cups) of cold water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
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3. As soon as it boils, skim off all the foam so it does not sink back into the broth.
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4. Add the bay leaf and peppercorns, lower the heat and simmer gently, partly covered, for 1 h 15 min, until the lamb is tender and the chickpeas are nearly soft.
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5. Meanwhile fry the diced fat in a skillet over medium heat until it has rendered, then add the onions and cook for about 10 minutes until golden.
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6. Stir the tomato paste into the onions and fry for 2 minutes, then scrape the whole mixture into the soup.
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7. Add the potatoes and simmer for another 25 minutes, until they break when pressed with a spoon.
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8. About 10 minutes before the end add the saffron infusion, the red pepper if using, and salt to taste.
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9. Stir in the coriander and mint, simmer for 2 minutes more and ladle into bowls with a piece of meat, chickpeas and a potato in each.
Notes
- This parent recipe is the everyday form: meat in chunks, chickpeas, potatoes, tomato and herbs. The kufta variant swaps the chunks for large meatballs of mince and rice with a dried plum hidden inside each.
- Georgia's tourism board gives the base as 1 kg lamb or beef, about 100 g of sheep-tail fat, 50 g of tomato paste and 2 to 3 onions with a bay leaf, finished with coriander and mint. It does not give amounts for chickpeas or potatoes, so those are scaled from the kufta-bozbash recipe at AzeriFood (100 g chickpeas and 4 potatoes for 4). It also describes the classic form with peas and chestnuts, with potatoes or chickpeas as optional extras, and says the meat is boiled first and then fried with the onions.
- Regional touches: in outer Kakheti tkemali (sour plum) replaces the tomato; Kakheti versions use sour or dried fruit such as pomegranate, dried plums, barberry or cornelian cherry. Carrots, turnips, radishes, eggplant, tarragon and basil appear depending on the season, and Kakhetians say boiled beef khashlama makes the best bozbashi.
- Serve hot with flatbread (lavash in Azerbaijan, shoti in Kakheti) and pickles; Georgia's tourism board stresses serving it hot because it is fatty. It keeps about 3 days in the fridge; add the herbs fresh when reheating.
- If you cannot find fat-tail, use fat trimmed from the lamb; if dried chickpeas are not an option, add canned ones for the last 20 minutes.
Adapted from Georgia Travel (Georgian National Tourism Administration): Bozbashi, Azerifood: Kufta-bozbash (chickpea and potato quantities), and Advantour: Azerbaijani soups (saffron added near the end, garnish of coriander or dried mint).
Variants
At the festivals
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