Those who visit the south of our country for the first time in their life, especially the Black Sea coast, look with great bewilderment at small multi-colored sausages sold at bazaars and beaches. They are especially surprised by their unusual name - churchkhela. What is it and how it is being prepared, we will try to find out now.
This is a national delicacy of oriental cuisine. Despite the fact that it is widespread both in Armenia, and in Georgia, and in Azerbaijan, as well as in Greece, Georgians consider churchkhela to be originally their "invention", and even applied for a patent for it. Now, along with khachapuri, chacha and suluguni, churchkhela is also the Georgian brand.
What it is? It is a nutty low coated with dried boiled fruit juice. According to legends, this delicacy appeared in antiquity, when warriors, going on hikes, took tasty and nutritious sausages with them, which did not require any hassle in preparation and perfectly restore strength. Since it was often necessary to fight, churchkhela was procured for the future, not being afraid that it would deteriorate. It will definitely last a year, and from the next harvest you can make new tasty sausages with nuts called churchkhela. What is it - you already have an idea. Now let's talk about how it is cooked.
How to cook churchkhela at home
To prepare this product, you will need to stock up on nuts, grape juice, sugar, flour and a harsh cotton thread with a needle. You can take any nuts, although walnuts and hazelnuts are traditionally used . Hazel is strung whole on a thread, and the walnut kernels are divided into two halves. The optimal length of the nut low is about 30 cm. This is just enough to ensure that a thick decoction of juice, called Tatara, can cover it with a dense layer. And it is best to choose the length of the thread depending on the depth of the pan in which the syrup will be cooked. The dependence here is this - it should be low completely immersed in the Tatars without bends and kinks.
After all the nuts are tightly strung, you can do cooking Tatars. Three liters of freshly squeezed grape juice is poured into a saucepan (it is advisable not to use an enameled one), a glass of sugar is added to it, all this is put on a small fire. You need to boil the juice with constant stirring until its volume is reduced by half. Do not forget that the foam formed during the cooking process must be removed. What happened in the end, the Georgians call Badagi.
Pour about a couple of glasses of badagi into a wide bowl and cool the contents. Bred in a cooled syrup two glasses of flour, carefully breaking the lumps formed. To ensure uniformity of mass, it can be wiped through a sieve at the end. We connect both parts of the juice and again send to the fire. Do not leave the stove. You must constantly stir the mass, otherwise it will burn. After the contents of the pan thicken and acquire a shine, you can turn off the fire and consider the process of cooking the Tatars finished.
Letting it cool slightly, take a nutty low and completely dip it in a hot mass. After waiting about 20 seconds, we take out the thread, let it drain to the last drops, and send it to dry. After two hours, repeat the entire sequence of actions. Ideally, the Tatars should reach one and a half centimeters.
Since you will have to make churchkhela in this way for a long time, you can slightly reduce the total time for preparing goodies by tying several threads with nuts to the rail at once and dip them into the tartar at the same time. After you consider that the layer thickness is satisfactory, send the semi-finished churchkhela for a couple of weeks in the sun to dry. Readiness can be judged by touch - if it does not stick to your hands, then drying can be considered finished. Now you need to wrap the sausages in a cloth and leave to ripen. After a month, you can treat your admired loved ones with a treat called Churchkhela.
What is it, you now know and, as a true culinary specialist, you can engage in experimentation by changing varieties of nuts and fruit juices. And you can do without a thread, just by mixing the finished Tatara with nuts. This will, of course, not churchkhela in the classical sense, but no less tasty treat.