Chicken Chakhokhbili

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all doing just fine.

Now I want to tell you about this recipe, that was originally called “Chakhokhbili” of chicken, however, then I changed it a little and tried this new thing, and, well, you know, I’m pretty good at making some new things and that was the case here now, too, and I just made it a little bit different, however, I guess, it was all different then, you know. Well, to be honest, I wanted to prepare something not that simple, but something with stock and things like that, you know, that would be pretty delicious and with chicken, because we had this chicken in our freezer and we wanted to have it cooked and I could cook it just in a very simple way, I mean, I could just put it into a boiling water and cook it that way and then I would just take it out and have it cut and have it like that, just like my grandmother used to cook that chicken, which we liked to eat very much and it was just this chicken and nothing more, if you want to know the truth, so that she had its stock set aside and then she would prepare some stock from it called Bulioni and it just needed to add some salt and garlic or she would prepare some Chikhirtma, which my sister loved so much and I didn’t. I used to love that Bulioni and my brother loved it, too, however, all the other ones loved Chikhirtma, I guess. This Chikhirtma was this chicken stock with some eggsand flour and fennel and it was pretty delicious, too, however, I preferred that Bulioni, if you want to know the truth.

Anyways, we decided to have some chicken Chakhokhbili, however, we didn’t really know how it was prepared, but we could google it, of course, and read the recipe and prepare it that way and I googled it , of course. Well, there were some web pages suggesting chicken chakhokhbili recipe and there were some differences between them, however, they were pretty similar in most of the ways, if you want to know the truth. So that I chose the most efficient one and I wanted it to be a simple recipe, so that I could prepare it fast, I mean, I wanted to put all those ingredients into the saucepan and then leave it like thatto get the dish cooked and then I could do some other things, that I had to do, you know. So that I chose that recipe, which kind of needed some time, but not as much attention after that preparation process, as some other recipes. Well, it was like cooking from scratch and I collected all the things that I could find in the fridge or on the shelves there in the kitchen and put all of them together and started the preparation process.

Well, first of all, let me tell you about this Chakhokhbili. To be honest , I really don’t know why this dish has that name, because this word is in Georgian and it consists of this word “Khokhobi”, which means this bird pheasant and the word is like something made out of the pheasant, I guess, however, there’s no pheasant in that dish, so that it has always been a mystery for me, if you want to know the truth. Well, that’s the thing, I don’t really know about that name and how it came and where it came from, though I know that dish and I’ve tasted it many times and it’s very delicious and if the chicken pieces are good, it’s even more delicious, if you want to know the truth. However, they have those chicken pieces in it and they are the whole ones, I mean, you have to chose the meat and separate it from the bones and the skin while eating this dish and that’s the thing, that I don’t like in eating it, you know, because it’s too much effort in eating. I just like to eat comfortably and eating those pieces is not that comfortable, because there are bones, too, and you can’t really eat those pieces without paying some attention and things like that, while being it prepared with just chicken fillets or something like that would be just great, because then it wouldn’t need any separating things from each other or whatever and you would just eat the dish without any worry or bothering and I just like that, it’s simpler and it’s more comfortable, of course.

So, my aunt prepares this dish very often and almost every week they have Chakhokhbili at home, because my cousin loves chicken so much and he can eat plenty of it, so that she prepares this dish, so that there will be some stock with the chicken , too, and you know, stock is a perfect thing for children especially, because that way they get hydrated and it’s an essential thing throughout the day, of course, and it’s very good for the body as a whole. And I must say, that I have tasted this dish some other time, too, however, I mostly ate that one at my aunt’s home and I really liked the taste of the dish and it was pretty well seasoned and everything and I just really wanted to prepare it myself, too, so that this day I decided that since we had this chicken in our freezer, we could take it outand prepare it in some delicious way. And, of course, this chicken needed  to be melted, so that we took it out and put it into some warm water, so that it would get ready for preparing.

Ingredients:

• Chicken, 1 medium
• Tomato paste, 3 tablespoons
• Fennel, fresh
• Coriander, fresh
• Salt to taste
• Red pepper to taste
• Ground coriander
• Ground thyme
• Ground tarragon
• Hot chili sauce, 2 tablespoons
• Water, 2 litres
• Bay leaf, 2 medium
• Onions, 3 medium
• Potatoes, 6 medium
• Butter, 100 grams

Preparation process

Well, as I’ve already mentioned, the preparation process started with that chicken being melted in some warm water, and it was pretty much frozen, so that it needed quite some time to get melted. And I could melt it in the halogen oven, however, it was not that necessary, since we were not in a hurry or something like that and we could just wait for it to get all melted and stuff, you know, so that we left the chicken in the water while we were doing some other things.

When the chicken was melted, it needed to be prepared and that process is something that I don’t really like, I mean, I hadn’t done it before, but I had seen my aunts and grandmothers prepare that chicken some other times and it was a pretty awful process, because they had to get it cleaned and then they used to hold it above the gas and see if it had some hair left on its skin and if there was any, the gas would burn it and there wouldn’t be any of them, you know. Well, the thing is, that it’s really bad when you get some hair in the dish, of course, and if it’s this hair of chicken, it’s not  that great when eating the dish, so that everyone tries to get the chicken all cleaned and stuff, so that there won’t be any hair left on its skin and the dish will be perfect. However, I really don’t get why you should leave the skin on the meat,  I mean, you shouldn’t eat the skin and you should take it and leave it on another plate or something while eating that Chakhokhbili dish and it all will be just fine, you know. It’s not that big of a deal, if you ask me. Anyways, they cook that chicken with the skin on and I’m not against cooking it with the skin on, because it gives the dish it’s own great taste, however, I’m talking about after preparation and stuff like that, you shouldn’t just eat those skin pieces and you should leave them and set them aside and eat the meat instead. 

Anyways, when I had that chicken melted and cleaned and washed, I had to be sure, that all those hair pieces were off or whatever, so that I had to hold it above the gas heat and roll it on the sides, so that everything would get burned or whatever it’s called. You know, it’s not like the process is easy, but it’s easier, if you have the whole chicken hold above the gas, however, I didn’t really think, that I would need it to be hold above the gas and first of all, I cut it into some pieces and then I realized, that I had to do that thing, and though I didn’t really want to do that, I still had to, because otherwise it could have had the hair pieces on the skin and it would be kind of embarrassing if someone told me, that they bumped into some hair pieces in the dish, you know. So that, I tried my best to burn all the hair that was left on the skin of that chicken pieces and I had some time wasted on that, you know, and the smell was just terrible and I remember, that I didn’t like that smell when they were doing that thing to that chicken and I always went outside when this process was being done by my aunts or grandmothers or whatever, because it was a really terrible smell there. And though now I had this window open and that thing, that absorbs the smells turned on, it still had that terrible smell all around the room, if you want to know the truth. However, it was a necessary thing to do and it had to be done.

So, as you see, I had that chicken cut into pieces, until I hold them above the gas and cutting the chicken was not that easy either, I mean, I cut the legs and the wings off that chicken and then my father helped me to cut the rest of it and he did a great job in doing so. Well, to be honest, I have cut the chicken for two times, I guess, and I don’t really know things about cutting it, so that I really needed some help in there. And I hadn’t cut the raw chicken before, I had just cut the cooked ones, which is simpler to do, because if you can’t really cut it, then you can break it, because it’s cooked and everything, you know. And you can just cut it by force or whatever, or even take some bones out, and if it’s very well cooked, it can be pretty easy to do so.

Well, after that unwanted process, I had those chicken pieces washed thoroughly and cleaned and everything and then it was time for the real preparation process. So, I had to put them into the saucepan and cook them on a medium heat for some time like 10 minutes or so. It needed some large saucepan for the chicken pieces to be very well cooked, I mean, the pieces were plenty and they were not very small, so that it was really necessary to have them in a large saucepan with a large bottom. So that I took the largest saucepan that I had and put those pieces into it and then I would pour that dish when it was ready in a smaller saucepan, because it wouldn’t need that large saucepan, you know. And I put those chicken pieces into the saucepan so that their skin would be on the bottom, so that the pieces wouldn’t get burned and, besides, the skin would emit a little bit of fat that it had and it would be kind of roasted and fried and stuff like that, you know.

So,  after 10 minutes or so that chicken pieces had been frying in that saucepan without anything else and I had been stirring from time to time, I just had to add some onions. And I already had those onions peeled and washed and chopped and I added them to the saucepan with those chicken pieces and let them get fried and then I added some butter to them, so that everything would get cooked well. Well, I would stir occasionally so that nothing would get stuck on the surface of the saucepan. After a couple of minutes, when the onions got golden in colour, I decided, that it was time to add the tomato paste to the dish and had that tomato paste dissolved in some water and added it to the dish. I also added some hot chili sauce and let it be mixed with the other ingredients in the saucepan.

After that, I added some salt to the mixture and I also added the spices, like coriander and thyme and red pepper and things like that, and, well, you can add any spice, that you like, I mean, it’s up to you how your dish will taste and it should taste as you wish, so that I usually add some spices, which I like and you should do that, too. I also added 2 bay leaves, so that it would give the dish some special taste and I usually love adding bay leaves to my dishes, where I use meat especially.

Then I had those herbs washed and chopped and they were fennel and coriander, however, you can either use just coriander or just fennel, in fact, the recipe said, that it needed some fresh coriander, however, I had some fennel , too, and I used it in my dish. So that, I added those chopped herbs to the dish and added the remaining water and let it cook on a low heat for some time.

After all those things, I thought and had this idea of adding some potatoes to the dish, because potatoes make such dishes taste more delicious and it’s pretty good to have some potatoes in them, and, besides, my brother just loves eating those potatoes from the dishes and he just takes them out and eats them just like that without any stock or whatever, and I thought, that he might like this one, too, so that I decided to have some potatoes in my dish. And I took 6 medium potatoes and peeled them and washed them and cut them into small pieces and added them to the dish. Well, to be honest, it was just the time of adding them, because if I had added them to the dish right in the beginning, they would be cooked earlier than the chicken pieces and then they would get overcooked and they would get crashed or whatever. And now that I had added them some time later, both the chicken pieces and those potatoes got cooked just at the same time and it was just perfect, of course.

So that, now that everything was in the saucepan and nothing was to be added, I put the lid on it and let it be like that on a low heat and left it for another hour to get everything cooked.

After an hour, I checked the meat and the potatoes and both of them were cooked fine and it was time to turn the gas off and let the dish be cooled down and then I could taste it. Well, I mean, then I could eat it, because I tasted it until I decided that it was all ready and done , of course.

So, the dish was all ready and very delicious and it was pretty much nourishing because of those potatoes and that kind of thick stock. And everything was just perfect and I knew, that it would be even more delicious the other day,so that I would wait for it to get all blended and stuff and I would eat it another day, too, of course. Well, to tell you the truth, that one thing was still bothering me, I mean, separating the bones from the meat is not that easy and that made me use the fork and spoon and my hands and everything while eating the dish and it was not that pleasant, of course, because no one wants to have their hands dirty and everything while eating and they just want to eat something in a comfortable way.

Anyways, that was my recipe for this Chakhokhbili dish, however, you should know, that Chakhokhbili doesn’t have potatoes in its original recipe and that I just added them to my dish and don’t remember it that way, that Chakhokhbili has potatoes in it, because that’s not true. I added them, so that the dish would become more interesting, and, besides, meat is always good with some potatoes and potatoes are really good in soups and things like that and I really love eating them when they are in these kind of dishes, so that you should have them in your dishes, if you ask me. It’s not that difficult just to peel them and add them chopped or cut into smaller pieces to the dishes and just enjoy them in it, you know. And many people love it, when those soups have potatoes in them, because that way, they can have them without the stock or just get themselves feel not hungry anymore with the help of those potatoes in that soup or whatever. You know, if you add the potatoes to the soup or something like that in just that very moment, when  it’s the right time to add the potatoes, then they become very delicious and they will have that special taste of tomato sauce and other stuff and that’s what many people like and that’s why it’s really delicious to eat just those potatoes in the dish without anything else, because they have this special taste, especially if you have added some tomatoes or tomato paste to the dish, which makes it very delicious and we just love adding tomato sauce to everything, I guess. And there are all those different types of tomato paste and tomato sauce and stuff like that. You know, usually they have canned tomatoes or ripe peeled tomatoes used in Chakhokhbili and other dishes like that and they are pretty good, too, however, I really like tomato paste to be in my dish and not those ripe tomatoes, and, besides, they need to be peeled, so that their skin won’t be in the dish. The tomatoes should be peeled, because their skin is hard and rough and it’s not good to have it in the dish, of course. No one really likes having something strange in their dish and imagine, that there’s this skin of tomato in your bowl or cup or whatever! It’s not that good, of course. I remember, there was this dish, which my mother used to prepare and it was prepared with tomatoes and once when I tasted it somewhere, it was not the same as my mother used to prepare it. Then I realized, that she used to peel those tomatoes and prepare the dish like that, and those other people would not peel the tomatoes that well or I don’t really know, but there were those tomato skin pieces in the dish and it was pretty terrible, when you were eating it and suddenly you felt something strange, of course. It was then really uncomfortable and you would want to see what that strange thing was and you would get it out and see, that it was nothing bad, just this small piece of tomato skin.

Well, I hope, that you will find this recipe pretty interesting and that you will prepare it and you will like it. It’s very delicious dish, if you want to know the truth, and it didn’t really take much time to be prepared, and it didn’t need too many ingredients either, so that you should really prepare it some time.

Enjoy your cooking!

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