Georgia is famous for its plentiful feasts, where grilled meat is a frequent dish. Tkemali sauce will not only become a savory addition to superbly grilled meat, but will also help the stomach to cope with heavy foods.
Products required for making tkemali
To make a real tkemali sauce, you need to stock up on the following ingredients: 1/2 cup tkemali plums, a bunch of fresh cilantro, a bunch of fresh dill, 1 paprika, 3 cloves of garlic, ground coriander, salt, ombalo.
The tkemali recipe assumes the mandatory presence of cilantro, dill and coriander. However, depending on the taste, you can remove unloved greens. Plums for the sauce are selected whole, not damaged, with a rich color. Since it is difficult to get tkemali plums in Russia, unripe cherry plums can be used for cooking. Sweet plums are not suitable for sauce, as they give a completely different taste.
Ombalo is the name of the mint that grows on the territory of Georgia. The tkemali recipe allows for the use of fresh and dried leaves of this plant.
How to cook tkemali
Rinse plums thoroughly. Then, the plums are transferred to a saucepan and, flooded with water, they are put to boil over high heat. The water should completely cover the fruit. After boiling water, plums are cooked for no more than 10 minutes. They can be removed from the fire as soon as the skin bursts on one of the sinks.
After removing the pan from the heat, drain the water. Before further processing, plums must cool to an acceptable temperature, as they will need to be pitted. The fruit prepared in this way must be chopped to a puree-like consistency. Boiled plums are extraordinarily soft, so they are easily choked with a spoon. To speed up the process, you can use a blender or sieve.
Capsicums should be chopped as small as possible. Peeled cloves of garlic are rubbed through a fine sieve. The ingredients are added to the plum puree and mixed thoroughly. Salt is added to taste. Finely chop the herbs and add to the saucepan to the other ingredients. Now you need to bring the sauce to a boil. When heated, the color will become richer, and the components will harmoniously weave their aromas.
If tkemali is prepared for future use, you need to pour the prepared sauce into small sterilized jars. Pour a tablespoon of vegetable oil on top of the tkemali to protect the sauce from bacteria. Then, the containers are tightly closed with lids and stored in the refrigerator.
Now, during any feast, you can enjoy the extravaganza of taste. The combination of grilled meat with sour and incredibly aromatic tkemali sauce will leave no one indifferent!
