Khashlama recipe

If you have been following my blogs, you would see in Georgian Cuisine article, that Khashlama is a dish very much loved in Kakheti region, that's where I am from. And, to be honest, it's a dish worth everything. You can't get enough of it and it is so delicious, you will ask for more and more.

This is nothing fancy, nothing royal. But if you have heard, simple is great. And simple is more elegant and rich, if you ask me.

Many people come to Georgia and the main dish they are looking for is Khinkali (and, okay, I will write a recipe for Khinkali in another blog), but they don't know what they can miss by only looking forward to eating Khinkali _ one of the greatest dishes of all the meat dishes! That is Khashlama.

Ingredients:

• Beef 1 kilogrammes
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 onions
• Parsley 50 grams
• Celery 50 grams
• Salt
• Red or green pepper

Buying the ingredients

Okay, so first of all, we should buy beef that is bony, because, as they say, bones make the dish an additional taste. And it's right, if you ask me. Generally, they prepare Khashlama with beef that is from breast, and the ribs' part is also good too. So, just try to buy beef which is not from an old cattle, of course! Then, it should not be very lean meat, it should have some fat, well, maybe, lots of fat, because it gives the dish a special taste just like bones and it gets really delicious. The beef should be cut into not very small, but also not very large pieces, just some normal ones. And then they wash the beef. Well, some say beef is not to be washed, as it then has to boil and bacteries and stuff like that would be killed in the process, and what's more, while washing you spread the bacteries on all over the beef pieces. But I don't know. I wash the beef one, or maybe twice. But still, it doesn't need to be a thorough wash. Now that we have done all these procedures, we can put the beef pieces into a saucepan and pour some water in. The water should be just 10 centimetres above the beef pieces. Or, in my case, I usually pour water just so the saucepan is almost full, because in the process much water will evaporate and my saucepan is just of a size that is perfect for this amount of Khashlama.

Preparation process

So, we have bought all the ingredients, cut beef into pieces, washed them, put them into the saucepan and poured in some cold water. You can put a lid on the saucepan until the water comes to a point where there is a little time left until it reaches its boiling point. Then you should remove the lid. Or just don't put the lid on the saucepan, in the first place. I'll tell you later why that moment is important.

So, now, we have to wait until the water boils, and when it does, there will be some foam produced and that's why I told you about whether or not putting the lid on the saucepan. If there is no lid, the foam will be produced, but it will stay in the saucepan until you skim it off. But if there's a lid on the saucepan, it will just "blow up" _ I mean, it will come out, it will be spilt and the foam will be all over the place. So, you just have to be careful, so that when the water starts boiling, the foam will start appearing and you have to skim this foam off. You may want to use the gas on a high level, because it's easier to boil the water and foam to be produced quickly and you won't have to wait for it to be produced to skim it off for ages! That is really an important step, so, remember to be careful!

Now that you have skimmed all the foam off, you can just relax! The hard part has gone!

Okay, let's go back a little bit and, I think, it's good if you prepare some ingredients and have it all in a "ready, set, go" shape until you are waiting for the water to boil. It's nothing that you can't do. You'll just have to peel those two onions, wash them and cut them into halves and set them aside. You should wash the pepper and those bay leaves, too. And, so, when the water boils and you skim off the foam, the dish is ready to get additional ingredients and those ingredients are these already prepared and ready onions, pepper and bay leaves. And you will just add them to the dish. Then you may want to turn the gas down to a normal level or even slightly below that and let the beef be cooked.

Don't hurry the beef to be cooked quickly. Well, first of all, it won't cook quickly even if you try your best, and secondly, if you don't wait until it's really ready, it won't be as good as it should have if you'd had just let it cook. So, it can take up to a couple of hours. And what I do meanwhile is that time to time I just get one small piece out of the saucepan, let it cool a little bit and just taste it. Remember, that the beef should be soft and kind of easy to bite and chew and swallow. If it is not, then it is not ready yet. So you just have to wait. Be patient! The dish is worth waiting, I have told you that already.

And, meanwhile, you can just take some parsley and celery and take their leaves, wash them and chop them, so that when the dish is ready, you can just add them.

So, if you feel and taste that the dish is ready, the only thing that is left is to add some chopped parsley and celery and salt to taste. I think, you should not spare salt, I mean, it won't be enough if you just season the dish with one teaspoon of salt, right? And if you don't know, you just add salt little by little and taste the dish time to time _ just take some stock and taste it and if it needs more salt, then add some salt.

And, of course, taste the dish if it's spicy enough or something like that. If it's spicy enough, then you might want to take that pepper out. If it's not, then leave it and take it out after some time. Or don't take it out at all. It's really up to you and how spicy you like your dishes. But, perhaps, Khashlama doesn't need to be very spicy.

When you add those parsley and celery and salt, you might need to watch the dish boil for 2 minutes or so, and then just turn it off.

So, that's our Khashlama, it's done, it's ready, you just have to eat it now!

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