Khinkal is a real masterpiece of Dagestan cuisine, which has gained recognition far beyond the borders of the Caucasus. I must say that there are several varieties of this dish. For example, varnish or thin khinkal, for the preparation of which they use thinly rolled unleavened dough. There is also puff khinkal, which is very similar to German strudel. For its preparation, dumplings are used, rolled into thin cakes, which are sprinkled with herbs and onions, and then rolled into a roll. But today we’ll talk about cooking one of the most “capricious”, but also the most delicious versions of this dish - lush or Avar khinkal.
Firstly, you must immediately remember that the Avar khinkal, the recipe of which will be given below, has nothing to do with Georgian khinkali or large dumplings. Khinkal is not even a dish, but a whole complex lunch, which includes aromatic meat broth, boiled meat, sauce (sour cream or tomato, necessarily with garlic) and khinkal itself - lush dough cakes boiled in meat broth.
I must say that in order to cook a delicious Avar khinkal, the recipe of which, in principle, is simple, you need to have some experience in cooking, because, as already mentioned, the dish is quite “capricious”. Not without reason in Dagestan one of the determining factors when choosing a bride has long been considered the girl’s ability to cook khinkal.
Let's start cooking the Avar khinkal. The recipe includes the following ingredients: lamb pulp (as an option, you can use beef or chicken), onion, one hundred grams of cilantro and dill, salt, pepper. To prepare tomato sauce, we need a kilogram of juicy meaty tomatoes, half a head of garlic, one hundred grams of butter. For the test, take about a kilogram of flour, half a liter of fresh kefir or yogurt and half a teaspoon of soda.
So how to cook Avar Khinkal? First of all, we’ll wash and put the meat to cook, removing the foam from the broth so that it turns transparent. We sort through the greens of cilantro and dill, separating the leaves. We connect the stalks of greenery with a thread in a bunch and put in the broth, we will send the whole bulb there. By the way, onions can not be peeled, but simply washed and cut off well from the side of the roots. The onion husk, cooked in broth, gives it a golden color.
While the meat is being cooked, we will prepare the dough. I must say that it depends on how the dough is prepared, whether the Avar khinkal turns out to be tasty. The recipe for the dough is as follows. Sift the flour so that a mound is formed, on top of which you need to make a recess. We put salt and soda there and begin to pour yogurt or kefir, kneading a lush dough. It is very important to knead the dough well, but do not make it cool. We cover the finished dough with a napkin so as not to wind, and leave for proofing for half an hour.
Getting to the sauce. To do this, three tomatoes on a grater, add the tomato mass, add black pepper and pour it all into the dishes, where the butter is already melted. We wait until the liquid boils, and reduce the heating to a minimum, leaving the sauce to simmer for about twenty minutes. During this time, it should boil well, having decreased in volume by about half. Now we chop the leaves of cilantro and dill left and send them to the sauce, continuing to simmer it for another ten minutes.
Grind three or four cloves of garlic, put them in a gravy boat and add a couple of spoons of boiled cold water there. Then we pour the tomato mass into the sauceboat, cover it with a lid and put it in a warm place before serving.
By this time, the meat was cooked. We take it out of the broth and put it in the dishes with a lid, and filter the broth itself.
The dough is divided into several parts. We roll out a cake from each part so that its thickness is 0.7-10 mm. Cut the dough into small rhombuses (the length of the side of the rhombus is about 3-4 cm).
Throw the dough into a boiling broth (not all at once, in small batches, otherwise we will not have time to pull them out and pierce them). They threw the dough, mixed and covered the pan with a lid. As soon as the broth boils, remove the lid and mix again. We cook khinkal for one minute, during which time it turns into a magnificent cake. We take out the finished khinkal with a slotted spoon on a dish and immediately pierce it in several places with a toothpick (you can use a fork). If you do not make punctures, then the dough will lose its splendor and turn blue. We perform the same operation with the rest of the dough cakes.
Now you know how to cook Avar khinkal. How to serve this dish? On the table we put a large plate with boiled meat, which must be sprinkled with greens, a dish with ready-made khinkal, a sauce-boat with tomato sauce and cups or bowls in which a fragrant broth is poured.
Getting to the meal. Take a cake from the dough, dip it into the sauce, bite it off, washed down with broth and seized with boiled meat. Very tasty!