Katmis Satsivi?

I told my wife I was going to do a new Georgian recipe for dinner and she expected fried chicken and grits (apologies to people form Georgia for over simplifying). This is a recipe out of Saveur that caught my interest and it is from the 'other' older Georgia - the one in the Caucasus. That area happens to be the best wine producing region in the old USSR, usually using varietals that are unpronouncable and largely unknown in the West (other than cab sauv, the only one I'd heard of was Rkatsiteli).

The recipe was for a chicken dish, using boneless skinless thighs, much tastier than breasy meat, and a satsivi sauce - made from ground walnuts, garlic and some hot pepper. The chicken is cut up and cooked in the sauce with an array of spices - hot and sweet paprika, coriander, cinnamon and fenugreek (that was the only one I had to search out as I use it so seldom - last time was a fish curry, IIRC).

The result is more stew than soup as you thicken it at the end with egg yolk, and add a bit of vinegar for a touch of added brightness. It went exceptionally well paired with a 2008 Blue Mountain Pinot Noir (BC). I added a side plate of local Delicata squash mashed with butter, S&P, and nutmeg, and some asparagus, tossed in EVOO and sprinkled with pepper flakes and grilled on the BBQ.

If you are interested in an adventure on the wild side, see http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/K ... lnut-Sauce.

I thought I'd post it here because it is the sort of article (and recipe) that people tend to pass over because they don't see familiar names and ingredients. It was really worthwhile - consider trying it (there are bunch of other Georgian recipes in the article - post if you try one of them too).

I am very interested, thank you, Bill. Jim and I visited Russia two years ago and one of the ethnic dishes we really liked was chicken satsivi. I bought fenugreek and started reading recipes but never did it.

Neat that you have personal experience with that cuisine. Take a look at the recipes in that issue of Saveur and tell me if anything else jumps out at you!

The satsivi does not look right. The versions we had were not so dark and were definitely smooth. I suspect they added cream. When we had eaten all the chicken we kept the plate on the table so we could keep dipping bread in the sauce.

The pikhali recipe (spinach with pounded walnuts) looks right and is yummy. (Of course, the whole cuisine is yummy if you like walnuts and the smooth rich texture they give when ground.)

Kachapuri is great stuff (how can you go wrong with bread stuffed with gooey cheese and a fried egg on top?).

The Khinkali dumpling recipe looks like just a dumpling (e.g., Russian pelmeni) but when we were served it -- the server clearly said 'Khalinki' -- it was a big meat and soup-filled dumpling with a tall neck.

And, what you see everywhere is shashlik -- food roasted on skewers.