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Classroom lesson 路 Qutab - thin stuffed flatbreads 路 馃嚘馃嚳 Azerbaijan

Qutab - thin stuffed flatbreads

Like a Mexican quesadilla, but Azerbaijani - and a thousand years older

A stack of golden half-moon qutab flatbreads dusted with herbs

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Qutab is a very thin flatbread folded in half, with a tasty filling inside. The most common fillings are spinach with herbs, minced lamb, or pumpkin in autumn. The qutabs are cooked on a hot flat pan for just a minute or two on each side, until golden and a little crisp. They are eaten warm, often with yoghurt on top.

Tell me more

The dough for qutab is made from just flour and water, rolled out paper-thin. Skilled cooks roll a piece of dough into a perfect circle, place the filling on one half, and fold it over into a half-moon shape - all in just a few seconds. Watching a qutab cook quickly speckles and bubbles is a bit like watching a pancake.

Different fillings change the colour of the qutab. Spinach makes it look greenish through the thin dough. Pumpkin makes it golden orange. Meat makes it a deeper brown. A plate of mixed qutabs looks like a half-moon rainbow.

Qutab is a brilliant lunchbox food. They are flat, sturdy, easy to hold and don't drip. Many Azerbaijani children take cold qutab to school, wrapped in paper, and unwrap it during the break. They taste just as good cold as warm.

Lots of cuisines around the world have flat stuffed breads - tacos in Mexico, parathas in India, calzones in Italy, dumplings in China. Qutab is Azerbaijan's brilliant version of the same clever idea: dough plus filling equals lunch.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might a flat folded food be a clever idea for a lunchbox?
  2. 02Lots of cultures fold food into a half-moon (qutab, calzone, empanada, samosa). Why might so many people have invented the same shape?
  3. 03What's your favourite filling for a folded food? Sweet or savoury?
Try this

Classroom activity

Each pupil designs the most exciting qutab they can imagine. Draw the half-moon shape and label what is inside. As a class, list all the folded foods you know from around the world and map them. Are folded foods more common in some places than others?

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