A harmonious combination of vegetables and meat, greens, aromatic herbs and hot spices have won many Georgian fans around the world. One of the typical dishes of Georgian cuisine is chanahi. Traditionally, chanahs are cooked in pots, but if they are not available in the house, then there is a saucepan with a thick bottom and the same thick walls, the dish can be made in it. The cooking technology in this case will be slightly different, but as a result, the chanahs in the pan will turn out to be as tasty and fragrant as in the pots.
Cooking Features
Chanahi is a meat stewed with vegetables. Most often, the products are laid out in pots in layers, after which water is poured into the pots and sent to a preheated oven for quite a long time. Similarly, preparing and chanakhi in the pan.
- I must say that in Georgian cuisine there are other dishes that are stewed meat and vegetables. Chanahi differs from them in both the method of preparation and composition. So, one of the main ingredients of the dish is potatoes. Also in its composition must include eggplants, tomatoes and sweet peppers. Chanahi is seasoned with chopped garlic. And if you want to make the dish sharper, Georgian adjika is added to it. In order for the dish to turn out to be delicious, having a harmonious taste and a pleasant aroma, several important points should be taken into account when cooking it.
- Despite the fact that you can find recipes for chanahi without meat, most often the dish is still cooked with it. In this case, preference is given to lamb and beef. Often, chanakhs are cooked from chicken. Recipes from pork or duck are less common in Georgia itself, but they are popular among our compatriots. Whatever type of meat you choose, preference should be given to the meat of young animals. The most delicious of the chanakhi comes out of the brisket or scapula.
- Traditional chanahi recipes do not involve roasting food before stewing, but this can be done, especially if you are cooking in a saucepan. Roasted vegetables and meat are cooked faster, they keep their shape better, they are even more tasty.
- When stewing a chanahi in a saucepan, you can pour a little wine into it. This will make the taste of the dish more refined.
- Eggplants before heat treatment must be removed from the corned beef. This substance makes vegetables bitter and can cause harm to the body. Remove it from the eggplants with salt. In the dry method, sprinkle the incision sites with coarse salt, and after 15 minutes, wash them with running water. With the wet method, a saline solution is prepared by adding a teaspoon of salt to a liter of water. In this solution, the pieces of eggplants are kept for 20-30 minutes, after which they also need to be washed well.
They serve chanakhs cooked in a saucepan, hot, spreading them in deep plates and sprinkled with crushed garlic and chopped greens. At the same time, a sauce is generously added to the plate, in which the products were stewed, since ideally the chanakhi resemble a very thick soup.
Lamb Chanahs
Composition:
- lamb - 1, 5 kg;
- fat tail - 100 g;
- eggplants - 0, 7 kg;
- sweet pepper - 0, 7 kg;
- potatoes - 0, 7 kg;
- tomatoes - 0, 7 kg;
- onions - 0, 5 kg;
- fresh coriander - 20 g;
- parsley - 50 g;
- fresh basil - 30 g;
- garlic - 5 cloves;
- salt, black pepper powder - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Cut the fat tail into small pieces. If necessary, it can be replaced with butter.
- Wash the lamb and cut it into small pieces. If chanahi is prepared from ribs, they need to be cut.
- Peel the seeds and cut them into large half rings.
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes about one and a half centimeters in size.
- With eggplants, remove the skin and slice the flesh into about the same pieces as the potatoes. Dip them for 20 minutes in salted water, rinse and dry, laying out on a kitchen towel.
- Peel the onion and cut it into half rings, not too small.
- Cut tomatoes into medium-sized slices.
- Coarsely chop the greens.
- Finely chop the garlic with a knife.
- Put the fat on the pan and melt.
- Place pieces of meat in the pan and brown them.
- Salt and pepper, place the eggplants on top. Put tomatoes on them, put pepper on top. Salted and pepper.
- Put the potatoes on it - onions, sprinkle all the chopped greens, setting aside a little to decorate the finished dish.
- Pour in water so that it covers the entire contents of the pan.
- Cover the pot with a lid, reduce heat. Stew chanahi 2 hours.
- Add the garlic and the remaining greens, if you like, pour in a glass of dry white wine. Put out another quarter of an hour.
Lamb chanakhs - classic Georgian cuisine. The dish is tender, fragrant and very satisfying. The process of its preparation is so simple that even an inexperienced cook will cope with the task.
Pork chanax
Composition:
- pork - 1 kg;
- onions - 0, 2 kg;
- carrots - 0, 3 kg;
- eggplant - 0, 2 kg;
- tomatoes - 0, 7 kg;
- sweet pepper - 0, 3 kg;
- potatoes - 0, 7 kg;
- parsley - 50 g;
- cilantro - 50 g;
- garlic - 6 cloves;
- adjika - 50 ml;
- salt - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash meat, blot with a paper napkin. Cut into small pieces and place on the bottom of a thick-walled pan.
- Eggplant, without peeling, cut lengthwise into 4 pieces. Sprinkle with salt, leave it for 10-15 minutes. Rinse well, blot with a tissue. Each strip cut into pieces with a width of about 7-8 mm.
- Boil in tomatoes, peel, cut into small cubes.
- Peel the onion and cut it into small pieces.
- Carrots, peeled, cut into small pieces or cubes.
- Peel the potatoes, cut into cubes.
- Pepper, cleared from seeds, cut lengthwise into 4 parts and cut into thin strips across.
- Finely chop the greens, skip the garlic through a press.
- Ajiku dissolve in a glass of water.
- Put the vegetables on the meat, observing the following order: onions, carrots, eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, garlic and greens.
- Fill all with adjika sauce, add water so that it covers the vegetables. Put the pot on the fire.
- When the water boils, reduce the heat and cook the pans with the pork for an hour and a half.
A dish that is prepared according to this recipe, it turns out quite hot. It will appeal to those who love spicy dishes. If garlic is not immediately added to it, but 10 minutes before it is cooked, then the chanakhs with pork will be even hotter.
If desired, in the pan can be cooked and chanahi without meat. In this case, instead put the grain beans. Green beans can also be added to the chanahs, no matter what recipe you use to make this dish.
