Ojakhuri

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Introduction

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

In this article I want to tell you about this dish, which people in Georgia really love and we used to have it pretty often, because usually children really love it and they eat it with pleasure. The name of this dish is “Ojakhuri” and it’s like a “family dish” or something like that. It’s a dish very easy to prepare, I mean, it doesn’t need too many ingredients, however, it may take some time, but the preparation of every dish needs some time. Of course, it’s not as easy as baking an egg, however, it’s not difficult, either.

Anyways, let me tell you about the preparation of ojakhuri.

Ingredients:

• Potatos, 3 medium
• Meat, 500 grams
• Onions, 2 small
• Salt to taste

Preparation process

The preparation process starts with preparing the meat. Children love the lean meat and it’s a pretty good idea, of course, however, many people love having lean meat pieces with some fat on them in this dish, so that the fat will give a special great taste to it, you know. It’s a really good idea to have both lean and fatty meat on it, so that people will eat those meat pieces, which they like.

You wash the meat and then you cut it into medium cubes or you can even cut them into small cubes, it all depends on you. However, you shouldn’t cut them into very small cubes, because in that case, you will have those small cubes become even smaller when roasted, so keep that in mind.

To tell you the truth, I usually prepare the meat this way: I cut the meat into smaller pieces, wash them and then I just put them into my convection oven on a 230 degrees Celsius for some time and then I check on them and see whether they are ready and cooked or not. It may need about 30 minutes or even more, it depends on the meat and the size of the pieces. However, you should be careful not to have them burned. You may find it useful to sometimes turn them around, so that they will be cooked on both sides. Well, the convection oven not only cooks them from the outside, but it kind of boils them, so that the meat pieces are pretty much moist inside and roasted on the outside. This way they are delicious. You should also not forget to sprinkle some salt on the meat pieces, so that they will be more delicious. But if you sprinkle the salt on the meat pieces in the end of cooking, then they won’t absorb the salt and it won’t be as delicious as they would be if you had sprinkled the salt just when you put those pieces into the convection oven.

And, you should know, that the meat has to be pork, because roasted pork is pretty delicious and, usually, people prepare ojakhuri with pork pieces and not beef or any other kind of meat. You can also prepare it with chicken meat, I guess, or even beef, however, it won’t be as delicious as it is when you use pork.

In the meantime, you can prepare the potatoes. They just need to be peeled, washed and cut into small pieces. Usually I cut them into pretty thin pieces, so that they will be cooked really fast, however, you can cut them with whatever size and shape you like the most. If the potato pieces are too large, they will need to be in the frying pan a really long time. It will be harder to cook them, because they are large, however, some people like it that way and they have large pieces of potatoes into their dish.

When you finish preparing the potatoes, you should pour plenty of oil into the frying pan and you have to wait for it to warm up. After that you can add the cut potatoes into the frying pan. Then, you should add salt to them and stir them occasionally, so that the potatoes can be cooked on every side. They need to be cooked for about half an hour.

Sometimes, people just put the meat into the frying pan and when it's cooked, they add the cut potatoes and cook them then together. That way, if I'm being honest, the potatoes have a better taste. However, I don’t really like putting the meat pieces into the frying pan and that’s why I use the convection oven for that process.

When the pork pieces are ready and cooked, you can add the potatoes to the frying pan and cooked them together, or if you have prepared the potatoes in another frying pan, you can put them in the same frying pan where you have cooked the pork pieces and have them mixed together.

After that, you can peel the onions and slice them into circles and you can add them to the frying pan. You can also cook them with the pork and potatoes a little bit or you can add the onions to the dish after you have turned the cooker off. Some people like the onions to be cooked before putting them with the rest of ingredients of the dish and some like them raw in it, so that it’s up to you. Some even don’t like the onions in the dish at all and they don’t use them, so it depends of the preference.

You can serve the dish hot with the onions and some parsley, too, because that way ojakhuri is pretty much beautiful from the outside.

This was how you prepare ojakhuri, which is a pretty popular dish in Georgia and it’s a very good option to prepare it for parties and things like that. It’s pretty easy make and that’s why people like it, I guess. Meat is not very cheap, however, it’s not very expensive either to buy the amount of pork that is necessary to prepare this dish. I mean, usually it isn't very cheap to buy a big piece of pork, however, you don’t need too much of it for ojakhuri and you can just have a lot of potatoes into it and less pork pieces and it will still be very delicious. Of course, you can use chicken meat in ojakhuri and it will be cheaper, if you want to know the truth, and, well, I don’t think that it will be less delicious, though everyone knows, that fried pork is a very delicious thing and that’s why they use pork when frying Mtsvadi or steaks. It has a different taste, you know. Chicken meat is pretty much different, though it’s dietetics and people prefer eating chicken than beef or pork and things like that, because it’s less caloric.

Anyways, enjoy your cooking, prepare this dish whenever you feel like it and i think everyone will just love it. You can even use it as an appetizer and have it with some sauce like Mexican sauce or anything like that.

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