Chikhirtma

The introduction

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

In this article I want to tell you about one great recipe, which I really love, however, I don’t usually prepare this  dish. It’s called Chikhirtma in Georgian and it’s a great dish, if you want to have something like soup, but without potatoes or vegetables in it.

Well, my grandmother often prepared this dish and she knew, that I loved it, so that whenever we had chicken for dinner, she would prepare Chikhirtma that day, too, because this dish usually needs chicken stock to be prepared with.

So, let me tell you about Chikhirtma recipe, which I usually use and it’s pretty good, I must say.

Ingredients:

• Chicken, 1 whole
• Onions, 4 medium
• Eggs, 5-6 medium
• Fresh coriander, 100 grams
• All-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons
• Vinegar
• Salt to taste

Preparation process

Well, the preparation process is not very difficult. And it’s pretty easy, I must say and preparing this Chikhirtma is not a time-consuming thing, if you want to know the truth. The only thing is , that you have to prepare the chicken and it kind of needs some time. You usually prepare the chicken and have it inside the saucepan and covered with water and then let the water boil and then you just wait for the chicken to be cooked, so that you will have some chicken stock for the Chikhirtma dish. However, you can just have some water and not chicken stock and that’s what they call it “Pseudo Chikhiartma” or something like that, which means, that it’s not really real, I mean, it’s not prepared with the chicken stock, however, it’s more delicious, than when it’s prepared with the chicken stock,if you ask me. And some people say, that you shouldn’t use the stocks in your dishes, so that it’s better to have some water in your Chikhirtma, than the chicken stock, I guess. however, some people just love having chicken stock in their Chikhirtma, which gives the dish more of a chicken taste, so that keep that in mind. And the dish becomes more oily, than when using the usual water in it.

Anyways, after you have prepared your chicken, you can take it out and have its stock like that. However, I usually boil some water and put a Galina Blanca cube in it, so that it will have a chicken taste and I let the water be boiling for some time.

In a separate bowl I take the separated egg yolks from its whites and whisk them together. When they are pretty much mixed, I take that whisk spatula and pour the egg yolks into the stock while whisking the stock, so that the egg yolks will become small pieces of eggs.

When the stock starts boiling, you should add some drops of vinegar to the stock and some salt.

In the meantime, you should peel the onions and chop them into very small pieces. I usually use my chopper-blender machine for that and it’s a very good way to chop the onions, if you want to know the truth. You should then put those chopped onions into a ffrying pan covered with oil and let the chopped onions get cooked for a couple of minutes occasionally stirring, so that they won’t get burned. They are ready when they get golden in colour and then you can turn the gas off.

Well, when the onions are ready, you should add them to the dish and you should also add the all-purpose flour while whisking the stock,so that there won’t be some balls of that flour into the stock.  This will make the dish a little bit thick and it will be not just water.

After some time of boiling, you should chop the fresh coriander and add it to the dish, too. And that is the final step in preparing the dish, however, some people even add some pieces of that chicken to the dish.

You can even add that flour to the chopped onions in the frying pan when you are cooking them and cook those two together, so that the flour won’t have its characteristic taste and it will be even more delicious.

Well, you can eat the dish right away when it’s ready, because it doesn’t need to be set aside for some time for the ingredients to get blended and stuff like that, however, I must tell you, that, usually when you prepare some stocks or dishes with stocks, they are usually more delicious, when you eat them some hours later or even the following day, because then all the ingredients are blended together and the dish has its great taste by that time. The Chikhirtma gets a little bit thicker the other day, too, because of that flour and other ingredients, so that  you should know that and while some people like eating some stocks, which are mostly like water, some people just like them as rague or something like that and they like those dishes to be thicker than just water.

So that, this is the recipe of one of my favourite stock dishes called Chikhirtma, which my grandmother used to prepare and that’s how I know about it and that’s why I love eating it. It’s a very simple and cheap dish and you can even prepare it without a chicken or its stock, so that you should definitely try it and prepare it once and then you will realize, that it’s worth preparing!

Enjoy your cooking!

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