Pork Azu

Azu is a national dish of Tatars, it is meat stewed in a spicy sauce with vegetables. The sauce is made from fresh tomatoes or tomato puree, in extreme cases - from tomato paste, and pickled cucumbers give it a piquancy. Other vegetables are added arbitrarily: any are suitable, but onions, carrots, sweet peppers, and potatoes are more often used. But with meat the situation is more complicated. Traditional azu was made from beef, lamb or horse meat. However, today this Tatar dish was so fond of the representatives of other nations that they mastered its recipe, having made changes in it. This is how the pizza aza appeared. The Tatars themselves for the most part do not eat pork for religious reasons, as they are Muslims. However, if they had undertaken to cook a dish of this type of meat, they would have stewed it in a spicy tomato sauce with pickles and other vegetables, including potatoes.

Cooking Features

If you want the stewed pork to resemble the Tatar azu to the taste and aroma as much as possible, several points should be taken into account when cooking this meat.

A delicious azu can only be made from quality meat. When choosing pork on the azu, it is better to take a neck or another part of the carcass, where the meat is succulent and rather fat. In this case, preference should be given to fresh or chilled meat. If the pork is frozen, it should be allowed to thaw out on the top shelf of the refrigerator. Only in this case, it will not lose its succulence.
At the first stage, it is customary to roast meat for aza. Fat pork can be fried, without adding oil to the pan, that is, on the fat that is melted from it.
To make the sauce thicker, flour is added to it.
You can add cucumber pickle to the sauce to make it spicy.
Cucumbers in the basics are always cut into strips, meat - into thin cubes, like beef stroganoff.
It is best to cook azu in a cauldron or a thick-walled pan, but it is also possible in a large frying pan.

If you put out the meat immediately with the potatoes, you won't need a side dish.

Pork azu with pickles

Composition:

pork - 0, 4 kg;
vegetable oil - 50 ml;
onions - 100 g;
tomatoes - 0, 2 kg;
parsley - 10 g;
pickles - 0, 4 kg;
garlic - 2 cloves;
tomato paste - 50 g;
ground black pepper, salt to taste.

Method of preparation:

Pork wash in warm water, pat dry with paper napkins. Cut it into strips across the grain. Salt lightly and pepper.
Peel the onion, thinly cut the quarters into rings.
Chop parsley with a knife.
Finely chop the garlic with a knife.
Slice pickled cucumbers.
Dissolve tomato paste with a small amount of water or brine, season it, add salt if necessary, and mix with garlic and parsley.
Tomatoes scald with boiling water and peel off the skins. Pulp cut into small cubes.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan, put the meat in it and fry it, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes over medium heat.
Enter onions, cucumbers and tomatoes. Fry them for 5 minutes with the meat.
Pour sauce, cover and reduce heat. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve ase of pork with pickled cucumbers with a side dish. Well suited to him potatoes or rice.

Pork azu with pickled cucumbers

Composition:

pork - 0, 7 kg;
pickled cucumbers - 0, 35 kg;
carrots - 100 g;
onions - 100 g;
wheat flour - 20 g;
ground paprika - 5 g;
dried parsley - 5 g;
peppercorns, ground black pepper, salt - to taste;
meat broth - 0, 25 l;
vegetable oil - how much will leave.

Method of preparation:

Having washed and dried meat with napkins, cut it into thin strips, like noodles.
Free the onions from the husk and cut them into thin half rings.
Peel the carrots and cut them into thin strips. It is even better to use a grater for cooking Korean salads to grind it.
Slice pickled cucumbers into thin strips, better gherkins.
Fill the pan with oil and heat it. Put onions, carrots and cucumbers. Pass them within 10 minutes.
Add meat to vegetables. Fry it with vegetables for a quarter of an hour.
In the center, spreading the vegetables, pour the sifted flour, fry it a little and mix with the vegetables.
Pour in broth, mix. Instead of broth, you can use water.
Add seasonings and simmer the dish under a lid over low heat for 15 minutes.

Pork azu blends in well with mashed potatoes, boiled rice, and pasta.

Azu in Tatar

Composition:

pork - 0, 5 kg;
potatoes - 0.5 kg;
pickles - 0, 3 kg;
butter - 100 g;
vegetable oil - 50 ml;
lemon - 0, 25 pcs .;
garlic - 2 cloves;
bay leaf - 1 pc .;
onions - 100 g;
tomato paste - 25 g;
salt, black pepper and ground - to taste;
fresh parsley - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Pork wash, blot with a towel, cut into pieces of about 1 to 3 cm.
Peel the potatoes, cut them into bars of approximately the same size as the meat.
Peel and chop the cucumbers into thin strips.
Finely chop the peeled onions.
Heat the oil in one pan and put the meat in it.
Put the potatoes on another pan with hot oil.
After frying the meat for 10 minutes over medium heat, add onions to it, fry them for 5 minutes together.
Fry the potatoes on medium heat until crusted.
Cut the lemon quarter into several slices.
Finely chop the garlic.
Put meat, cucumbers in a saucepan, cover with water. Add tomato paste and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add potatoes to meat and cucumbers. Put pepper and bay leaf, add salt to taste. Put the chopped garlic and lemon wedges. Continue to simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Azu in Tatar is a hearty dish, it is not necessary to prepare a side dish for it.

Pork azu with bell peppers

Composition:

pork - 0, 5 kg;
Bulgarian pepper - 0, 25 kg;
meat broth - 0, 25 l;
flour - 40 g;
carrots - 100 g;
onions - 100 g;
vegetable oil - 100 ml;
parsley - 10 g;
turmeric - a pinch;
black ground pepper - a pinch;
salt - to taste;
salted cucumbers - 0, 2 kg.

Method of preparation:

Wash onions, carrots and paprika. Peel the onions and carrots, remove the seeds from the pepper by removing the stem.
Cut vegetables into thin strips. Pass them in butter over low heat until soft.
Cut the pickles in straws, add to the vegetables and continue to fry the vegetables, stirring for another 7 minutes.
Wash, blot pork with napkins. Cut into thin, oblong pieces. Put to the vegetables.
After the meat is reddened, slide the meat with vegetables to the edges of the pan, and pour the flour into the center. Stirring it, fry until golden brown. Stir with the contents of the pan.
Pour the broth over the meat and vegetables, season with salt and stew under a lid for 15 minutes.

Before serving, sprinkle with a dish of finely chopped parsley or garnish with a whole twig.

Pork Azu with Red Wine

Composition:

pork - 0, 4 kg;
sweet pepper - 0, 4 kg;
red onion - 100 g;
pickles - 0, 2 kg;
potatoes - 0, 6 kg;
tomato paste - 50 l;
vegetable oil - 50 ml;
dry red wine - 100 ml;
garlic - 2 cloves;
paprika - 5 g;
red hot pepper (ground) - 5 g;
cumin - a pinch;
parsley - 50 g;
salt - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Rinse the meat, dry, cut into small cubes or bars.
Cut onions into rings or half rings.
In butter, fry the meat until golden brown. Then add the onion and fry for 10 minutes.
Pepper wash, clean the seed. Cut into strips. Just cut the cucumbers.
Peel potatoes, cut into small cubes, like in soup.
Add cucumbers, pepper and tomato paste to the meat, diluted with a small amount of water (not more than half). Simmer for 10 minutes.
Put the meat and vegetables in the pan, pour the wine into it. Simmer for 10 minutes without potatoes, then add potatoes, add half a liter of water and simmer the dish for another 15 minutes.
Finely chop the parsley and garlic with a knife, add to the bowl. Salt and spice up the dish. Continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.

The dish is tasty and looks very bright and appetizing. In addition, it turns nourishing.

Azu of pork is not a real Tatar dish. More precisely, it can be called a dish made based on the Tatar cuisine. But at the same time it is difficult to argue with the fact that the pork azu is a tasty, fragrant and nutritious dish for every day.