Chanakhi in a saucepan. Recipe for chanakh in pots from an expert in home Caucasian cuisine

Georgian cuisine is highly popular in different parts of the world; one of the most famous dishes is Chanakhi. It consists of lamb, vegetables (usually onions, eggplants and potatoes), spices and seasonings. The influence of national characteristics of other countries led to changes in the classic recipe; the dish was often prepared with pork, chicken and beef. It is better to cook canakhi in a clay pot. The reason is not only that the dish is traditionally prepared this way, but that the taste and aroma are enhanced.

Composition of the dish

Let's consider the classic version of preparing chanakhi; this recipe will allow you to understand what the taste of this dish originally was. If necessary, lamb can be replaced with pork, beef or chicken if you really want to cook this delicacy, but you can’t find suitable meat.

Usually cooking is done for several servings at once. To prepare 4 pots, you will need the following ingredients (quantities in parentheses):

eggplants (2 pcs.);
lamb (400 g);
potatoes (4 pcs.);
tomatoes (2 pcs.);
sweet pepper (2 pcs.);
fresh herbs;
beans in pods (120 g);
bulbs (2 pcs.);
a small amount of lamb fat;
garlic (8 cloves);
chili pepper (0.5 pcs.);
adjika (4 teaspoons).

To improve the taste, you can use various means; many housewives add bay leaves to the dish.

To prepare a dietary option, lamb and lamb fat can be replaced with lean meat and vegetable oil. In Georgia, meat replacement is viewed negatively, but the dish has already become a global treasure. The use of pig, cattle and even poultry meat for cooking (turkey is sometimes used as a dietary option) gives the traditional Georgian dish new flavor shades.

Cooking features

It is customary to cook chanakhi in a pot, but it can be cooked in vats, in the oven, and even in a frying pan. All this is good, but the use of clay pots with a volume of 3 to 4 liters is the best time-tested option. Previously, pots were placed to simmer in ovens; the flavors and aromas of the components were mixed in the container; the peculiarity of the clay did not allow them to disappear. The finished pot is served on the table, where the dish is laid out on plates. In Georgia, chanakhi is eaten with fresh flatbread.

The pots used must be made of clay; in products made of cast iron or ceramics, the dish may dry out or burn.

In modern conditions, Georgian chanakhi in pots is prepared in the oven, the container is designed for one serving. This allows each guest to serve their own pot without having to lay out anything. Food in such a container does not spoil; the canakhi will have the same amazing taste the next day. For this reason, one-pot meals are popular among people who don't always have time to cook every day.

Before you start cooking, you should take a responsible approach to the set of ingredients. This will help you prepare a beautiful chanahi in pots that will look like in the photo. The following features of product selection can be highlighted:

You need to prepare small and round eggplants; bitterness is rarely found in them;
although carrots are often present in cooking videos, they are not found in the traditional recipe;
if there are no fresh tomatoes, you can use tomato paste, but this will worsen the taste;
the set of herbs and spices can be changed according to your preferences.

Cooking method

We use the chanakha recipe for cooking in pots, which should be prepared in advance. They need to be filled with water for an hour. At this time, you can cut meat and vegetables into large pieces. Potatoes, onions and tomatoes are cut in half, peppers are cut into 4 parts, eggplants - into 8. When the pots are hot, put a small piece of fat, half an onion, half a potato, a handful of beans and 4 pieces of eggplant into each.

The pots are placed in a cold oven, only after that the heating is turned on. When placed in a hot oven, the dishes may crack.

A layer of meat is placed in the center of the pot, 2 pieces of pepper, half a tomato, herbs with garlic and spices are also placed there. Place 2 pieces of chili and a spoonful of adjika in the next layer. The Chanakhi recipe allows for the use of warm red wine instead of hot water when cooking. Liquid is needed to fill the entire contents of the dish. The treat takes an hour and a half to prepare, then all that remains is to season it with herbs.

There are several secrets to improve the taste and get a beautiful dish like in the photo. Here are the most common ways to improve chanakhi:

fry some ingredients in advance (eggplant, potatoes, chopped red pepper);
don't be afraid to experiment with spices;
Observe the order of the layers.

When using the same recipe, you can change the ingredients, use chicken meat, change the set of spices. Certain techniques can significantly increase cooking time. If we just cook the contents of the pot in the oven, it will take less than two hours. If we decide to pre-fry some components, the process will take much longer. Before eating a dish, you might be interested in its history; to do this, you can watch one of the many videos.

In a saucepan, the same principle of laying out ingredients in layers applies as when cooking in pots. The following layers are laid out:

eggplant rings at the bottom;
thin pieces of meat and half rings of sweet pepper on eggplant;
peeled tomato rings, thin onion rings;
finely chopped garlic, hot pepper and herbs, sprinkle all with salt;
if the edges of the pan are high, a few more rows may be needed;
the top layer will be potatoes cut into circles;
The whole mass should be poured with oil and a little salt.

Whatever utensils are chosen, be it a cauldron, a saucepan, a frying pan or other things, the canakhi will delight guests with its rich taste. The dish does not have to be cooked in a pot, although this is the traditional way. Sometimes such an opportunity is simply not available; this is not a reason to refuse your favorite treat. Chanakhi is suitable for family dinners and large holiday celebrations; additional decorations are used for the holiday.

Chanakhi is a famous dish of Georgian cuisine, translated as “roast in a pot”. Traditionally it is made from lamb and vegetables. Meat in the classic recipe should be about half the weight of all products. The following vegetables are placed in this dish: potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, onions. They occupy the other half. Chanakhi is served on the table in the same container in which it is prepared.

This dish has undergone changes in modern cuisine. Even in Georgia, the exact traditional recipe is not always followed. Lamb is often replaced with beef, and cereals and legumes are added to the vegetable gravy. This is how several recipes appeared, which, despite their novelty, were satisfying and tasty. What a real chanakhi should be like.

Traditional lamb chanakhi

Traditional chanakhi is prepared the same way as 100 or 200 years ago, according to a very simple principle: a clay pot is filled with vegetables and meat, then the roast is left to simmer. Only before it was a stove, but now it’s an oven. The result is not only very tasty, but also a filling dish that can replace a whole lunch. The liquid can be eaten as soup; meat and vegetables go second.

For the dish you need:

1 kg lamb;
2-3 large potatoes;
2 eggplants;
2-3 tomatoes - 200-250 g;
2-3 onions;
a glass of walnuts;
salt;
hot pepper (optional);
vegetable oil for frying or fat tail;
garlic 3 cloves;
green cilantro.

Preparation:

The lamb needs to be washed, cleaned of films and cut into small pieces.
In order for the dish to cook faster and be tastier, the lamb must first be fried in fat tail or vegetable oil until golden brown. You don't have to add oil; the lamb will fry in its own fat.
Chop one clove of garlic, half an onion and a little hot pepper into the meat. Continue frying.
Chop the walnuts with a knife and add to the lamb.
Next, pour water into the frying pan, cover it with a lid and let the meat simmer for 20 minutes while the vegetables are cut.
For chanakhi, they take so many vegetables that they weigh approximately the same as meat.
First, cut the eggplants into cubes. Sprinkle the pieces with salt to remove the bitterness and leave for a while.
Potatoes are cut into large cubes. To prevent it from darkening, you need to fill it with cold water and set it aside.
Tomatoes are cut into pieces or cubes.
The onion is cut into half rings.
Finely chop the green cilantro.
The eggplants are thoroughly washed with water to remove any remaining bitterness and salt.
The ingredients are placed in the pot in the following sequence: onion, meat, eggplant, potatoes, cilantro, tomato.
The broth that remains after stewing the lamb is poured over everything on top. If the pot is not completely filled, add water and salt.
Chanakhi is placed in an oven preheated to 180-200 O C and cooked for 40 minutes. Before turning off the gas, crushed garlic is added to the canakhi.

Lamb Chanakhi with beans

Beans or other legumes are often added to canakhi. This makes the dish more satisfying and healthy. It must first be soaked in cold water overnight. Chanakhi with red beans looks festive and very appetizing. Beans go well with lamb, eggplant and tomatoes.

For the dish you need:

800 g lamb;
150 g dry red beans;
2 eggplants;
2 large red tomatoes;
2-3 onions;
salt;
garlic 2-3 cloves;
cilantro greens and green onions.

Preparation:

Before preparing chanakha, the soaked beans must be boiled until half cooked.
The lamb must be washed and cut into pieces.
You can pre-fry it, so the dish will be tastier.
Place pieces of lamb in a frying pan and fry them until golden brown. Add half of all the onions and fry them in the resulting fat. Then pour a little water and leave to simmer under the lid for 20-25 minutes.
Eggplants should be cut into cubes and soaked in salted water to remove bitterness. Then rinse off the salt.
Cut the tomatoes into cubes.
Onions need to be cut into half rings.
Finely chop the garlic.
Chop the cilantro and green onions.
Place all the products in the pot: first the meat, then onions, beans, herbs and garlic, eggplants, tomatoes. Pour water on top up to the shoulders and cover with a lid.
The roast is cooked in an oven preheated to 180°C for at least 40 minutes.

Beef Chanakhi with tomato paste

It is not possible to get young lamb meat everywhere. And not everyone likes it. That is why beef chanakhi is no less famous than the traditional preparation. It can be prepared either with a traditional set of vegetables or with the addition of others. For example, this one has bell peppers and carrots.

For the dish you need:

600 g beef;
3 large potatoes;
1-2 bell peppers;
1 large carrot;
2 tablespoons of tomato paste;
2 onions;
vegetable oil for frying;
salt;
garlic 2 cloves;
cilantro and parsley.

Preparation:

First, the beef needs to be thoroughly washed and cleaned. Cut the meat into small pieces (slightly larger than for basics), which will cook quickly.
Potatoes need to be peeled and cut into large cubes.
Peel the carrots and grate them using a Korean carrot grater. If it is not there, then use a regular coarse grater.
Finely chop the onion.
Finely chop the garlic.
Fry the onion in a frying pan until golden brown. Add carrots and fry. Then add tomato paste, garlic, stir and turn off the gas.
Peel and coarsely chop the pepper.
Chop the greens.
We put all the ingredients in a pot in layers: fried onions and carrots, herbs, bell peppers, potatoes, meat.
Everything is filled with water and placed in the oven for 40-50 minutes at a temperature of 180-200 O C.

In addition to beef, chanakhi uses chicken, rabbit meat, any game or poultry, and pork. All products are stacked in layers. They try to follow the rules for preparing chanakha, in which only 4 types of vegetables are placed in the pot. You can diversify the dish by adding other vegetables and spices.

A popular dish in eastern Georgia, it is reminiscent of Russian roast or Armenian kchuch. Chanakhi is prepared in pots in the oven or in a cauldron.

Chanakhi are small pieces of lamb or beef stewed with seasonal vegetables. The authentic ingredient list includes potatoes, onions, tomatoes and eggplant. However, as often happens in cooking, the emergence of new products, expansion of possibilities, personal taste preferences of the cook, etc. has led to the fact that the dish has acquired many interpretations.

Bell peppers, green beans or red beans are often added to Georgian chanakhi. The traditional recipe does not involve pre-frying the ingredients, but those interested can try this option.

The process of preparing chanakha is not complicated. Meat and vegetables are placed in portioned pots in layers, and then simmered at low temperature for one to two hours. The result is a very juicy, aromatic and tasty dish.

Ingredients:

lamb or beef 400 g
medium size potatoes 4 pcs.
eggplants 2 pcs.
onion 1 head
tomatoes 2 pcs.
green beans 100 g
garlic 1-2 cloves
cilantro 1 bunch
salt, pepper to taste

Preparation

You need to start cooking with eggplant. Cut them, like all other ingredients, into large cubes. It is not necessary to remove the skin. During the simmering process it softens well. To remove bitterness from the pulp, salt the eggplants, stir and leave for 15–20 minutes. That is why preparing vegetables begins with them.
For chanakha, you need to choose meat from a young animal with a small amount of fat. If the pieces are lean, you can add a little fat tail fat or butter. It is best to choose pieces of meat with bones and pulp - the shoulder or hip portion. They should be cleared of films and tendons and cut into small portions weighing 30–40 g.
You need to make a cross-shaped cut on the skin of the tomatoes. Then they must be scalded with boiling water. After this, remove the skin and cut the tomatoes into semicircles.
Peel the potatoes and cut into large cubes.
Onions - in half rings.
After this, you can start placing meat and vegetables in portioned pots. You need to put lard or oil on the bottom, if necessary. Then - meat. Sprinkle onions on top.
The next layer is potatoes.
Rinse the eggplants with cold water and squeeze lightly. Place in pots.
If desired, add fresh or frozen green beans or bell peppers.
The last layer is tomatoes. Then add spices: salt, paprika, ground black pepper.
To make the canakhi juicy, add a little water, filling the pots ½ full. After this, close the containers tightly with lids and place in a cold oven. Then heat it to 180 degrees. Simmer Chanakhi in Georgian style for 1.5 hours. 5 minutes before the end of cooking, add finely chopped herbs and garlic.

Lamb chanahi in a saucepan according to a classic recipe - a rather strange application. Because chanakhi is normally prepared in pots and in the oven. But the circumstances are different - the pot may break (or maybe it never existed), the oven may break down. Or maybe the oven is busy preparing something else delicious. In general, I think all this is not a reason to refuse to cook chanakhi, the dish is delicious!

The potatoes are stewed in a saucepan a little differently than in the oven, but otherwise they turn out just as good. Apart from the container for cooking and the fact that the dish will not be stewed in the oven, but on the stove, this will be the most classic chanakha recipe. Well, except for the nuance that in Georgia, each locality can have its own recipe for chanakha, and, of course, there it will be considered a classic.

The composition of the ingredients that I use, laying in layers, lack of frying - a friend from Tbilisi taught me all this. In general, twist it as you wish, I just wanted to say here that the recipe is not Soviet, not invented or processed (except for the fact that the chanakhi is in the pan), but rather native Georgian.

We use lamb thigh. We cut it into large pieces, similar to shish kebab, and place it on the bottom of the pan.

Peel the potatoes, cut them into large pieces, and place them on top of the lamb.

We clean the eggplants, cut them, no matter what pieces - they will still be stewed. Place on top of the potatoes.

Cut the onion into thin rings and place on top of the eggplants.

Starting from the onion layer, the order of the layers no longer matters, do as you wish. At this stage, I pour out the tomato juice (more precisely, a kind of liquid tomato paste, it is thicker than juice), salt and pepper.

Well, the final layer in my case is tomatoes cut into pucks.

We deal with all this goodness simply. Place on the stove over fairly high heat (ceramic electric stove - mode 7) for one hour. The lid should be closed, but not tightly. After the first hour you can usually see that most of the liquid has evaporated. For the second hour we simmer the canakhi with the now normally closed lid on low heat (ceramic electric stove - mode 3). This photo shows very clearly how much the dish is stewed during the cooking process.

Well, this is what we got. As you can see, classic lamb chanahi in a pan comes out no worse than in a pot.

As they say, “let’s drink to the fact that our desire to eat canakhi always coincides with the opportunity to do it!”

TM "Rud"

The main components of chanakha are meat and vegetables, which you can choose according to your own taste and desire.

How to cook Chanakhi: popular recipes and cooking methods Second courses

120 minute Hard Lunch

Ingredients

Preparation

It is necessary to start preparing chanakha by preparing the eggplants, which will relieve them of slight bitterness. To do this, cut them into cubes, add plenty of salt and let stand for 30 minutes, then rinse and squeeze well. Place the crushed products in clay pots in layers in the following sequence: meat, potatoes, eggplants, onions, carrots, some tomatoes, not forgetting to add salt and season with spices.

To make the dish more juicy and liquid, add a little broth or water. Cook the canakhi in the oven at 180 degrees for about 2 hours, adding the remaining tomatoes, garlic and herbs 15 minutes before the end.

60 minutes Easy Lunch

Ingredients

Preparation

To prepare chanakha with mushrooms, you will need medium-sized clay pots. Cut the meat into large pieces, add salt and pepper and lightly fry in hot vegetable oil. Place on the bottom of the pots. Cut the onion into half rings and place in a second layer, and cover with slices of mushrooms on top.

Peeled and chopped potatoes into large cubes, salt and season with spices, place in pots. Grated carrots complete the arrangement, after which the dish must be filled with a sufficient amount of meat broth and placed in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for about an hour and a half. Add chopped garlic and herbs to the finished canakhi, let it brew a little before serving.

60 minutes Easy Lunch

Preparation

Place the meat cut into pieces and beans soaked overnight in a cast iron cauldron, fill with water and put on fire. Cook for 40-45 minutes. During cooking, remove the foam, add salt and chopped mushrooms. Then add half the chopped carrots and potatoes to the semi-finished meat broth and continue to simmer.

While simmering the chanakha, prepare a “fry” from the remaining carrots, onions and tomato paste. When the potatoes have softened enough, place the “frying” in a cauldron, squeeze the garlic into it and add 0.5 tbsp. brine tomatoes to give the dish a piquant spicy taste. Another 5-10 minutes. and you can treat your family to a delicious dinner.

There are other recipes for chanakha with beans, which differ in the method of preparation. In Ukrainian cuisine, Lvov-style chanakhi, which uses beans instead of eggplant, is more popular.

To prepare this dish, take equal proportions of pork and potatoes (~700 g), onions and carrots (200 g each), tomatoes (400 g) and boiled red beans (1 tbsp). Cut the potatoes and meat into large cubes and fry in separate pans until half cooked.

Place the potatoes at the bottom of the pots and cover with beans. While frying the meat, add a couple of tbsp. l flour, chopped onions and carrots, as well as tomatoes. Pour the resulting mixture with broth or water and boil for 15 minutes, then pour it into pots. Finishing touch – 15 min. simmer in a preheated oven and can be served.