How to cook chakhokhbili, many housewives are interested in who want to surprise their loved ones or guests. This is a famous Georgian dish, which is guaranteed to be the decoration of any festive table. It is noteworthy that it is relatively easy to cook it, only it takes time. Chakhokhbili takes about two hours in the kitchen.
Georgian cuisine
Learn how to cook chakhokhbili, you can from this article. This is a classic Georgian food, its main ingredients are chicken and vegetables. Almost all vegetables that are in the refrigerator can form the basis of this popular dish. These are onions, tomatoes, sweet peppers, herbs, carrots, all kinds of spices and, of course, poultry itself.
At the same time, there is a unique feature in how to cook chakhokhbili, this is a special technology, which is the key to success.
It is interesting that sometimes chakhokhbili is prepared not only from chicken. For example, in Georgia itself, a pheasant recipe is very common. The main thing here is the cooking technology, which can be extended to anything. Its essence is to extinguish the main meat component in a very onionic acidic environment. Initially, it was only onion with the addition of wine vinegar. Over time, Georgian cooks began to actively add tomatoes, without which it is now impossible to imagine how to cook chakhokhbili.
List of ingredients
So, if you decide to cook chakhokhbili in Georgian, for this you will need the following products:
- one gutted chicken, the weight of which should be from one and a half to two kilograms;
- 6 red onions;
- about half a kilogram of ripe red tomatoes;
- one red bell pepper;
- one medium-sized carrot (it is not necessary to add it only if you want to diversify the color of this dish);
- four cloves of hot garlic;
- a bunch of green basil and cilantro;
- several bay leaves;
- half a glass of vegetable oil;
- salt and freshly ground black pepper - to taste;
- special spices are also useful - adjika, hot green or red pepper, uchi-suneli - you can not add them if you do not want the dish to be too spicy.
Cooking process
The recipe for cooking chakhokhbili is completely uncomplicated. The only thing is, it will take you a lot of time. You need to start by putting the chicken in a pot of boiling water. Boiling water should be enough to cover the bird almost completely. Remember that in this recipe it’s important to cook tasty meat, not broth.
We bring the chicken to half-preparedness, this will take about forty minutes. It is worth remembering that if the chicken is rural, then it can take much more time - about an hour. After laying the chicken out of the pan, let it cool for a quarter of an hour. After that, cut the meat into pieces of approximately the same size along with the bones. The broth needs to be filtered.
Now take a cauldron or pan with the thickest bottom. If the chicken is very oily, then you can fry it completely without oil, if it is somewhat dry, then it is recommended to pour a little vegetable oil. Fry over high heat on all sides until an appetizing golden brown crust forms.
In parallel, cut the onion into small cubes, pour it into a pan with chicken, mix and continue to fry them together until the onion is browned. This usually takes about ten minutes.
We thoroughly clean the bell pepper, freeing it from all partitions and seeds. Finely chop the remaining pulp. If you want, at this stage you can grate the carrots on a coarse grater - it will give the dish its original color and soften the taste of tomatoes. We put sweet pepper and carrots in a pan, simmer on low heat for about five minutes.
Stew Chakhokhbili
Pour one glass of strained chicken broth into the mixture (the rest of the broth will not be useful to us). Together with the broth, cover your future chakhokhbili with a lid and simmer for at least forty minutes until the chicken meat is completely softened.
It's time for another important ingredient - tomatoes. Following a step-by-step recipe on how to cook chakhokhbili from chicken, make a cross-shaped incision on tomatoes and pour over steep boiling water. Then immediately pour cold water over, so you can easily remove the skin. Wipe the pulp of tomatoes through a strainer or finely chop with a blender. Put the tomatoes in a pan to the rest of the ingredients and simmer for another ten minutes.
At the end of the classic recipe, how to cook chakhokhbili from chicken, chop large cilantro and garlic, crush them in a mortar with salt until you get a homogeneous gruel. All this is also added to the pan.
Finely chop the basil and send it to the chakhokhbili together with a pinch of sunnel. If you want the dish to be sharper, add adjika or hot pepper as much as you want, the main thing is not to overdo it.
Now simmer with bay leaf until tender ten more minutes. Turn off the heat on the stove and let it brew a little under the closed lid. Important: the dish should be served hot.
How to simplify your life?
As you can see, preparing this dish is not easy, but you can at least make your life a little easier. For example, use not a cauldron on the stove, but a slow cooker. In modern cooking, there are enough ways to cook chakhokhbili from chicken. A step-by-step recipe in a slow cooker will help you. In addition, so your chakhokhbili does not lose most of the vitamins and nutrients.
For this version of a Georgian dish, take:
- one and a half kilogram chicken carcass;
- four onions;
- four tomatoes;
- one hot red pepper;
- four cloves of garlic;
- a bunch of cilantro and basil;
- a tablespoon of butter and suneli hops;
- half a glass of red wine, it is best to take semi-sweet;
- salt to taste.
Cooking in a slow cooker
My chicken, dried with paper towels and cut into small pieces, which should approximately be the same in size. Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and peel them.
We cut the flesh into cubes, and cut the peeled onions in half rings. The washed greens need to be chopped finely, and the garlic first chopped, and then shredded in a mortar. We remove the stem and seeds from pepper, finely chop.
We send all the ingredients to the multicooker. Only after that we add spices - salt and hops-suneli. Put a little butter and pour the wine, which will give your dish an original taste.
We select the "Extinguishing" mode on the multicooker, set the chakhokhbili to cook for an hour and a half. Garnish can be served with potatoes or boiled rice.
Original Chakhokhbili recipe
As we already noted, it is not necessary to take chicken to cook chakhokhbili. A photo in which other birds are used as the main ingredient will help you cope with the original pheasant chakhokhbili.
Sometimes it bothers many that the chakhokhbili itself has recently been considered a very ordinary and ordinary dish, so letting such an exotic bird like a pheasant, which is not often on our table, simply does not raise its hand. But believe me, the game will be worth the candle.
It will take a pheasant, two large onions, cilantro, tomatoes and spices.
Pheasant on Chakhokhbili
To begin with, we cut the bird into portion pieces. Note that the pheasant's bones are thicker than that of a chicken, so you will likely have to use a pruner. Cut the onion into small cubes.
We take deep dishes with thick walls, for example, a ducklings will work well, put meat, onions in it and simmer for ten minutes, stirring constantly.
Soon the meat will turn white, the onion will become transparent, and mouth-watering juice will appear at the bottom. After that, add the tomato. Remember, you cannot spoil a chakhokhbili with a tomato. The bigger, the better. It is better to take at least five to six large tomatoes.
After that, it remains to bring the dish to a boil, and then cook on the slowest fire until the meat is completely cooked. It takes about an hour for a pheasant carcass. At the end, sprinkle our chakhokhbili with chopped herbs and serve.