In cafes and restaurants some national dishes are served in special crockery in which the dish is prepared. The majority of national dishes are mutton, beef, poultry and minced meat. The sturgeon and scale types of fish are mainly used in Azerbaijan. The variety of national dishes include many items such as rice, flour, vegetables and vegetable green. The Azerbaijan cuisine is inclined to use such spices as safron, caraway-seeds, fennel, anise, capsicum, laurel, coriander and spicetaste leaf vegetables as mint, dill, parsley, celery, tarragon, basil, savory, thyme etc.
Apsheron peninsula is the only place in the Azerbaijan where saffron is cultivated.
The national cuisine has 50 different dishes and 10 different flour confectionary with the saffron addition. A special place in the Azerbaijan cuisine belongs to salads prepared from fresh vegetables. When making salads of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum, coriander and basil these ingredients are finely cut. Salads are served together with main course. Pickled garlic, capsicum, eggplants, khyafta-bedjar, onion, pickled onion with sloe, pickled grapes, tomatoes are served separately accompaning different soups and meat courses.