A spicy mixture of many components - adjika - the invention of Caucasian cooks. The cuisine of the mountainous peoples abounds with hot spices and seasonings, which other peoples began to use, having tasted Georgian or Abkhazian dishes.
Seasoning queen
Adjika is the main seasoning on the tables of the peoples of the Caucasus. Depending on the recipe, it can be powdered and pasty, as well as in the form of a sauce of fresh vegetables and spices.
Adjika is originally spicy seasoning. Its composition, and hence its severity, can vary. Then adjika turns out different colors: it happens brown, red, orange and green. Each of these types adds to the dish pungency and sweetness or pungency and bitter. For any hot dish and even snacks, you can prepare an original adjika.
Where she came from
Adjika is of Abkhaz origin. There, this word has the meaning of "salt." When pronouncing “adjika”, Abkhazians mean salt with pepper - the main components of adjika.
Adjika was invented in the mountains by shepherds grazing sheep. Their owners gave the shepherds salt with them so that they would add it to the food or water of the sheep, then the animals ate more grass from thirst, which means they would recover. Shepherds were forbidden to touch the salt, using it anywhere else than to feed the sheep. So that the shepherds did not scream for salt, their owners interfered with pepper and zira, thinking that this would not be successful with the shepherds.
But it turned out the other way around. So, shepherds modified pepper salt, adding to it other components that only improve the dishes. No matter how stupid it may sound, however, adjika gradually became adjika, which everyone knows, and from then on salt, hot pepper and garlic have been mandatory components, and other dried herbs and spices are added depending on the recipe and the region where the dish is prepared.
Main component
Dry adjika consists of many herbs and spices. The main thing is to know how to mix the components. Adjika (hot) has red pepper in its composition, and there are a lot of it. It turns out that it is very tasty!
The basic recipe, from which delicious dry adjika is obtained, includes several essential ingredients, and salt is not the main component there, surprisingly. The first violin is played by red pepper, the pungency of which creates the familiar taste that everyone who has tried classical adjika knows.
Do not forget about one of the most famous Caucasian spices - hops-suneli. This is an indispensable component, which includes dry adjika. This is a multi-component spice: as many herbs as are included in the hops-suneli, it’s even difficult to find separately. Now it is already being sold as a mixture of the right components, and you only need to add it to the dish.
Caucasian women rubbed spices for adjika on a special stone. Now a kitchen mortar is enough for you to get Georgian adjika - a dry mixture of fragrant spices and herbs.
The consistency of the seasoning mashed on a stone turned out to be suitable for spreading it on pita bread or other bread products.
No tomatoes
Adjika in the Caucasus is eaten with almost all dishes, even sometimes with desserts.
By the way, they never put tomatoes in real adjika. This is a Russian innovation that has turned the Caucasian national seasoning into a snack akin to eggplant caviar.
Forget about tomatoes when you decide to make classic adjika.
In addition, adjika can be prepared from dried herbs and spices - dry adjika will come out. It will remarkably shade any of your meat or fish dishes.
And if you take herbs and spices freshly picked, you get adjika spicy and fresh. Add it to rice or to a side dish of beans. Believe me, it is very tasty.
Red pepper gives adjika a red color, and a huge number of fresh herbs, more often it is cilantro, which takes half of the total sauce, gives a green color.
Why breed adjika?
Here you already have cooked dry adjika. How to dilute it and how to make a sauce or pasta like tomato? Just take the water and pour into your mixture until it has the necessary consistency. You can replace water with red wine or wine vinegar, then your adjika will turn out to be spicy and suitable for a festive feast.
The peoples of the Caucasus can not imagine their life without adjika. Residents of Georgia and Abkhazia argue among themselves who owns the primacy in the invention of this outstanding sauce.
By the way, the recipe for Abkhazian and Georgian adjika is different. Cinnamon was never put in the first, and Georgians used to cook adjika, adding such a dessert seasoning to it.
According to the residents of the Caucasus, adjika strengthens health, starting from the digestive system, ending with masculine strength. This is no wonder, considering how many vitamin supplements are included in this sauce. What is one garlic, famous for its medicinal properties.
Basic recipe
Still, as you see, dry adjika is very popular. How to cook it, any Caucasian housewife will tell you. But knowledge can be enriched at home. Here is dry adjika, the recipe of which is easy to test.
For thirty hot peppercorns, take one and a half or two heads of garlic, a spoonful of salt, two tablespoons of zira, four tablespoons of coriander seeds, one tablespoon of dill and two tablespoons of sunflower hops. Mix everything and cease in a mortar. That’s all the wisdom in preparing a seasoning such as dry adjika, the recipe of which is given above is basic, and you can vary the ingredients to your taste, adding spices as you like.
Do not forget that when using fresh vegetables and herbs, you will first have to fry all this in a pan in a small amount of oil, and then mix with each other, adding or not adding water (it depends on how thick and sharp the adjika will turn out).
Additional recipe
So, take about 600 grams of ground bitter red pepper, 4 tablespoons of dry coriander mixture, 2 tablespoons of dill seeds, and 2 tablespoons of sunflower hop seasoning. In addition, salt should be added to taste. Do not forget to mix. So we have prepared dry adjika!
Hurry to cook
You already know what seasoning is dry adjika. How to breed it, you also know, so feel free to proceed with the preparation of the Queen of Middle Eastern seasonings, the Queen of the Caucasian feast.
Take plenty of pepper, you can have sweet if you plan to serve fresh sauce, don’t even think about adding tomatoes, the adjika will get a rich red color from red pepper, and you will preserve the authenticity of the seasoning.
Prepare dry adjika as you like, because you can put as many herbs and spices in it as you like. It can come out of you with fiery spicy, suitable for hot, and soft-spicy, and sweet-spicy, and with saturated greens, and with the prevailing aroma of garlic, and with a complex inflorescence of spices. Whatever it may be. The main thing is that if it is based on a basic recipe, this adjika will be perfect.
There are as many adjika recipes as there are hostesses who cook it.
Find your recipe and remember that you can’t do without experiments!