Lavangi

Lavangi is baked chicken and fish, stuffed with walnuts and cherry-plum and usually served with boiled rice, seasoned with melted butter. You’ll find this Azeri dish in southern Azerbaijan, especially in Lankaran, Masalli, Salyan and Neftchala districts, but you can also taste it in Baku. There are two types of lavangi. Toyuq lavangi (stuffed chicken) and baliq lavangi (stuffed fish) are treasured dishes of Azerbaijani cuisine. For stuffed chicken lavangi pilaf, the stuffing is prepared by making a puree with onions, which is squeezed into a cloth, to remove the liquid, and mixed with crushed walnuts and prune puree (probably of the sour plum type). The stuffed fish version is usually prepared for Novruz. The preferred fish is the Caspian kutum, or carp of the Caspian Sea, but white-fish beluga (sturgeon) is also suitable. The other condiments for the filling are sour prune, sour cherry or a pomegranate juice syrup called “narsharab" ("nar" is the local name for pomegranate in Azerbaijan). These condiments are added to the mixture with crushed walnuts and chopped onions; if the fish has caviar, these are also used in the filling. After the fish is roasted, it’s served with pieces of lemon, bread and narsharab.