Submitted by:
James Wrocklage
Category:
Dinner
Country of Origin:
Azerbaijan
Cook time:
1 hour
Serves:
2
Ingredients:
1 cup onions
1 cup walnuts
Salt
Pepper
1 small chicken
1/2 quart sour cream
Steps:
1. Chop onions.
2. Put onions, walnuts, and a pinch of salt and pepper in a food processor and whip it up. It shouldn't quite be a paste - just a half step before that. This is the levengi.
3. Stuff the chicken with the levengi.
4. Cover chicken with a salt and pepper rub, as well as a coating of sour cream.
5. Bake chicken at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes per pound or until internal temp is 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Serve half a chicken along with some levengi for each person.
What makes this recipe special?
This is the quintessential dish of the southern regions of Azerbaijan (where I lived when I was in the Peace Corps). Levengi is the pride of Lankaran—the largest city in the south of Azerbaijan—and all of it's surrounding regions. All southern Talysh and Azeris love a good chicken levengi. As with all Azeri dishes, every southerner does their levengi differently, each adding their little spices from their own garden, but this is the recipe to make the archetypal Lankaran levengi.