Cooking a block of soup

On a cold day in Azerbaijan a fellow prepares a meal. In the title for the post I joked that it was a block of soup, it is actually a dish known as an aspic or a meat jelly. It is made by, after cooking the ingredients, placing them in a mold and pouring the broth over them which, when cooled, becomes gelatinous.  

In the video it comes out looking good. However, as I've mention before, my grandmother was Slovakian and she would make this from time to time and I found it to be ghastly, although some people do like it.    

 

Harvesting and preserving cucumbers

Above an Aberjhani grandmother gathers cucumbers and then preserves them. When she's done she prepares a simple lunch. I'm always fascinated by the little details in these types of videos: the designs on the front of her toaster oven, the flowers painted on the side of her pot, the decorative lids she closes the jars with.

Below we have some men doing masonry as she prepares a meal of chicken stew.  We end with grilled beef kebab. I wouldn't turn down an offer of a plate of that.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner for house builders

These are three videos of meals served to some fellows building a wood house in Azerbaijan. They are in order of how far along the house construction is, not in order of the time of day the meals are served. The lunch looked delicious; chicken breast stuffed with potatoes, peppers and carrots with cheese melted on top.

The videos are done in a common style of a type of cooking video. They rely on no narration, sparse captioning, ambient sound and an emphasis on simple rural life. I am always a sucker for this type of video.

Azerbaijan grilled fish with salad, bread and tea

The video starts with an Azerbaijani couple planting onions and garlic in their garden. They then move to the side of a river where they cook a meal of grilled fish over an open fire, accompanied by bread and a salad. The scenery is spectacular and there is sparse captioning naming the ingredients.