Any national cuisine is famous for its dishes. The approach to cooking in each country is different. Cooks take into account these features, so there are dishes that are the hallmark of a state. These include tkemali sauce. In Georgia, almost no meat dish is complete without it. It is served with chicken, shashlik, meat on a spit, fillet cooked in different ways. This sauce complements many pasta and potato dishes.
In the classic version, tkemali sauce is made from sour plums. In addition to them, garlic, pepper and lots of greens are added to the sauce. Most often it is dill and cilantro.
A prerequisite is the addition of marsh mint to the sauce. It is believed that without it the preparation of the sauce can not be fully completed. Thanks to the swamp mint, fermentation of the plums during the cooking process is eliminated.
But there are rules, and there are exceptions. Therefore, cooks often allow liberty, replacing some ingredients with others. For example, instead of plums, many take cherry plum - its sour relative. But this does not make tkemali worse, and he has many admirers around the world.
Tkemali sauce made of cherry plum: cooking details
- For sauce you can use cherry plum of any color: yellow, red, green. Since the cherry plum is boiled for the sauce and in the process of heat treatment it becomes four times less, you need to take care of its sufficient quantity.
- Herbs and spices are added to the sauce, depending on the grade of cherry plum. Yellow goes well with fresh greens. Red sauce is best flavored with dried spices and herbs. Green cherry plum goes well with both fresh greens and dry spices.
- If the hostess can not get swamp mint, then you should not worry. The sauce can be prepared without it.
- Due to the large amount of citric acid that is in cherry plum, tkemali is well kept in a cold place. If there are no suitable storage conditions, immediately after cooking, the sauce is poured hot into sterile dry jars and sealed.
- Tkemali packaging is best of all in small cans, so that by opening a jar in winter, the sauce can be quickly used.
- In addition to the natural preservative citric acid, a large amount of garlic, pepper and salt is put into the sauce. All ingredients for it undergo a thorough heat treatment in the form of cooking, so the sauce does not need sterilization. If you follow all the rules of cooking, and the finished product is packaged in sterile dry jars, then it is well kept.
Tkemali sauce made of yellow cherry plum for the winter
Ingredients:
- plum yellow - 1 kg;
- garlic - 125 g;
- red pepper - 5 g;
- cilantro and dill greens - 150 g;
- salt - 50 g.
Method of preparation
- Prepare half liter jars in advance. To do this, first wash them with soda, and then sterilize, do not forget to process the lids.
- Fetch the cherry plum, remove, spoiled. Cut off the stalk. Wash thoroughly with plenty of cold water.
- Cut the plum from one side and remove the bones.
- Put the fruits in a saucepan, add salt to them and leave for some time for cherry plum to give juice.
- Put the saucepan on the fire and boil the cherry plums with a soft boil until soft. It may take you 30 minutes.
- Put a soft cherry plum in a sieve with a decoction. Wipe it into the pan. All the pulp will be in the dish, and the skin will remain on the sieve.
- Over low heat, grind the cherry plums to a cream thickness. The time spent on this will depend on the cherry plum variety and its richness.
- While cherry plum is boiled, chop greens and garlic.
- Add spices and pepper to cherry plum at the very end of cooking. Mix well. Boil for 4-5 minutes.
- Remove from heat. Immediately pack in heated dry sterile jars and tightly close with sterile caps. It is advisable to cool it upside down by wrapping it with a blanket.
Tkemali sauce made of yellow or green cherry plum for the winter
Ingredients:
- green or yellow cherry plum - 5 kg;
- fresh cilantro - 2 bundles;
- cilantro seeds - 3 tsp;
- fresh fennel - 1 bunch;
- fresh mint - 2 bunches;
- dill greens - 2 bunches;
- garlic in the heads - 5 pcs .;
- paprika (ground) red pepper - to taste;
- salt - 2 tbsp. l .;
- sugar - to taste;
- water - 1 tbsp.
Method of preparation
- Select the cherry plum, remove the branches and the spoiled fruit. Also there should not be wormy cherry plum. Wash fruits thoroughly with plenty of cold water.
- Pour the cherry plum into a saucepan, pour water. Put on a moderate fire and cook until soft fruits.
- Put the boiled plum in a colander, which is set on the pan. Leave it to cool slightly. Now start to wipe it through a colander. The process is long, but it is worth it to suffer a little.
- After some time, only bones with a small amount of skin will remain in the colander, and in the pan there will be an excellent cherry plum puree.
- Then prepare greens and spices. Crush the dill, fennel, mint, cilantro. Divide garlic into cloves, peel, wash.
- Crush cilantro seeds. Instead, you can use ground coriander (which is one and the same).
- Put garlic and greens in a blender. Turn them into a homogeneous mass.
- Place the pot with cherry plum on a small fire and bring to a boil. Add milled herbs with garlic, as well as pepper, salt and sugar (if cherry plum is very sour). Add some boiled hot water if needed. Cook on low heat for 30-40 minutes.
- At the end of cooking, scoop a little bit of the sauce, cool, try to determine if there is enough salt and pepper. If you add spices, then cook another 10-15 minutes.
- While the sauce is boiling, you must prepare sterilized jars with lids. At the time of pouring the sauce into them, they must be hot, otherwise the temperature drop may burst.
- In a boiling state, pack the sauce in jars and immediately roll up hermetically. Cool it upside down under a blanket.
Tkemali sauce made from red cherry plum for the winter
Ingredients:
- red plum - 2 kg;
- garlic - 10 cloves;
- cilantro fresh - 1 bunch;
- hop-suneli - 2 tbsp. l .;
- sugar - 1-2 tbsp. l (optional);
- salt - 2-3 tbsp. l .;
- red pepper - to taste.
Method of preparation
- Select the cherry plum, remove the fruits damaged by insects and rot. Wash thoroughly in cold water.
- Remove the stones from the cherry plum.
- Pour the prepared cherry plum into a saucepan, add salt and leave until the juice is extracted.
- Place the saucepan on a slow fire and boil the cherry plum until soft.
- Place the slightly cooled mass in a blender and grind to a puree state.
- Transfer it to the pan again and bring to a boil over moderate heat.
- Peel garlic cloves, wash. Pass through the cooking press. Chop greens. Connect with cherry plum. Put pepper, hop-suneli, and sugar here. Stir. Boil it all together for 15 minutes.
- When hot, pack into sterile, dry jars. Seal hermetically with sterile caps. Turn upside down, wrap with a blanket and cool.
Mistress to note
Instead of fresh herbs you can use dry spices. In this case, they are crushed into powder and added 15-20 minutes before the end of cooking.
Tkemali sauce can be stored without sealing. Ready sauce in hot form is poured into jars and cooled. Cover with conventional lids and store in the refrigerator. In this case, the sauce should be enough salt so that it does not turn sour.
