Georgian chicken satsivi and its step-by-step recipe are very popular not only in Georgia, but also abroad. But before moving directly to the recipe, I would like to say a few words about the dish itself. Satsivi is the national dish of Georgia and its pride, however, there is no single correct recipe for preparing this dish; there are many, many recipes for satsivi. Not only do different regions of Georgia prepare satsivi in their own way, but every Georgian housewife has her own proven satsivi recipe, often passed down from generation to generation.
Satsivi is a thick nut sauce to which poultry is added. Previously, satsivi meant a spicy sauce that was prepared for meat. Later, pieces of meat began to be added directly to the cold sauce, so satsivi turned from a sauce into a cold main course. But there is another version of the origin of the dish, according to which the word “satsivi” was used to describe meat (fish) drenched in a thick nut sauce in broth. The broth that went into the sauce froze in the cold, and the result was a dish similar to aspic.
The meat most often used to prepare satsivi is chicken or young turkey. There are recipes for satsivi made from fish, eggplant, and beef. In total, today more than several dozen different recipes for satsivi are known. The most popular is the Georgian chicken satsivi recipe .
The principle of preparing the dish for all recipes is approximately the same - boiled chicken is added to nut sauce and cooked in it for some more time. The sauce itself is prepared on the basis of walnuts, herbs, spices, and broth. Overcooked flour or egg yolks are added as a thickener.
Probably the most interesting thing is that chicken satsivi is served as not a hot, but a cold dish, only after several hours of preparation. If you have tried to cook satsivi at home, then you probably know that the dish is also very tasty when served hot.
Georgian chicken satsivi, a step-by-step recipe for which I want to offer you, reflects the classic recipe for this dish as accurately as possible. After reading a large number of recipes for this dish, I decided to prepare it, taking into account all the subtleties and tricks. Georgian chicken satsivi turned out very tasty, so I am happy to share with you the recipe for its preparation.
In a word, at least once in your life you should cook this Georgian holiday dish, which is hard not to fall in love with.
Ingredients:
- Chicken - 500-800 gr.,
- Walnuts - 300 gr.,
- Spices: dill seeds, suneli hops, paprika, chicken spices, coriander,
- Wheat flour - 3 tbsp. spoons,
- Salt - to taste
- Lemon juice - 50 ml.,
- Onions - 2 pcs.,
- Garlic - 2-3 cloves,
- Butter
What do we need for satsivi
- chicken (thighs) – 800 g;
- walnuts (shelled) – 300 g;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- garlic – 2-3 cloves;
- cilantro (ground coriander) – 1/2 tsp;
- hops-suneli – 1/2 tsp;
- cinnamon (ground) – 1/2 tsp;
- ground red pepper – 1/4 tsp;
- saffron - a pinch (optional);
- olive oil – 2-3 tbsp. l.;
- flour – 1 tbsp. l.;
- wine vinegar (or balsamic) - 1 tbsp. l.;
- sweet peas – 2-3 pcs.;
- clove bud – 2-3 pcs.;
- salt – 1 tsp.
A simple recipe for classic satsivi at home
At home for an evening dinner, you can make satsivi using a simplified recipe: it is easy and simple to prepare, and a properly prepared dish will amaze everyone in the household with its taste. You need to start preparing it in advance, because... The dish is eaten cold.
Nutritional value: 298 Kcal/1248 KJ.
- Chicken - 1 carcass weighing 1.5-2 kg.
- Garlic - 4 cloves.
- Walnuts - 2 tbsp.
- Lemon juice – 1 tbsp.
- Salt – 1 tsp.
- Seasonings:
- Oregano – 1 tsp.
- Utskho-suneli – 1 tsp.
- Sweet paprika – 1 tsp.
- Fenugreek – 0.5 tsp.
- Coriander – 1 tsp.
Cooking method
Boil the chicken, remove the bones and finely chop the resulting fillet. Peeled walnuts must be fried in a frying pan over very low heat, without adding oil, then grind them to flour. With garlic, you should perform similar steps step by step, and then mix with nuts and spices. The cooled broth remaining from the cooked chicken is slowly poured into the resulting mass, stirring constantly. The gravy is diluted to the consistency of sour cream, after which it is brought to a boil over low heat and the chicken is poured. The dish needs to be simmered on the fire for some time, about 20 minutes.
The finished satsivi is placed in a cold place, and after cooling it can be served.
How to cook Georgian chicken satsivi
- We wash the chicken thighs and then cut each into 3-4 pieces.
- Place the chicken in the pan and let it cook for an hour. During cooking, it is necessary to constantly remove the foam to obtain a clear and clean broth. Don't forget to add a little salt and bay leaf to it.
- Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion into cubes. Peel a few cloves of garlic.
- In a frying pan with added oil, sauté the chopped onion. The main thing is not to fry it too much; for satsivi it should become soft and slightly golden in color.
- We sort through the walnuts to remove any possible pieces of shell and partitions.
- Grind the nuts and garlic through a meat grinder. It’s better to do this 2-3 times so that we get a soft and homogeneous mass for satsivi. Add stewed onions to the prepared nut-garlic cake. Mix.
- Let's prepare the required amount of spices. In Satsivi there is no way without them.
- Remove the finished boiled chicken from the broth and cool.
- Now gradually add a small amount of broth into the nut mass. You need to enter it in parts. If we pour everything at once, we won’t get a homogeneous sauce. Add all the spices and wine vinegar, while constantly stirring and grinding the mass until a homogeneous consistency is obtained (it should look like a thick porridge).
- After we make a thick nut sauce, we begin to gradually dilute it with broth, but not for everyone. We may need the rest of the broth later. Add 1 tablespoon of flour. We put it on the stove. Wait for it to boil, reduce the heat and cook for 5 minutes after boiling.
- Place pieces of chicken in a deep frying pan or cauldron. Pour the prepared nut sauce on top of the chicken and continue to simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.
- After this time, you need to add several buds of cloves and allspice to the satsivi for flavor. Stir and cook for another 5-7 minutes.
- If the satsivi turns out to be very thick, then add a little more broth. Sprinkle the finished dish with pomegranate seeds and let the dish brew for a while.
The result was an incredibly juicy, moderately spicy and incredibly tasty Georgian treat - chicken satsivi.
Author: Marina
Satsivi with Georgian chicken
Festive, popular Georgian dish SATSIVI
If you use a chicken weighing 1.2 kg for cooking, you need 400 g of nuts
Boil the chicken
Boil the chicken in the broth in advance so that it has time to cool
You can boil it in the usual way - put the chicken in boiling water, add an onion, bay leaf, peppercorns, salt and at the end add parsley and dill roots
It turns out a beautiful broth and delicious chicken, which we will then take out and take into pieces
Preparing the broth
The first thing we need to do now is prepare the sauce
Grind through a meat grinder several sprigs of cilantro and 5 - 6 cloves of garlic
Scroll through the chopped nuts again. For one chicken weighing 1.2 - 1.5 kg we use 400 - 600 g of nuts
After re-chopping the nuts, a nut oil appears
Place the nut mixture in a saucepan
The onion is not chopped, but grated, for this amount of nuts, you need 3 - 4 onions, but you should know when to stop, extra onions can cause bitterness
Heat a frying pan, pour in vegetable oil and put the grated onion in it, saute it over low heat
You don’t need to fry the onions, but rather sauté them, so you can add vegetable oil or our chicken broth
Satsivi is a cold dish made from poultry, most often chicken, and in rare cases even from meat, but the real festive Christmas Georgian satsivi is made only from turkey. An essential part of satsivi, along with poultry meat, is satsivi sauce, which gives the name to the whole dish. The most difficult and responsible thing is preparing the sauce, which has more than one and a half dozen varieties. However, the basic scheme for preparing the sauce and the set of products for it are more or less constant. The sauce is prepared using broth in which poultry or meat was cooked.
Ingredients for chicken satsivi:
- 1 medium sized chicken
- 1.5 liters of water,
- 2 onions,
- 3 bay leaves,
- 0.5 tbsp. spoons of tarragon,
- 0.5 tbsp. spoons of savory,
- 3 cups satsivi sauce.
For satsivi sauce: 8 onions, 3-4 cups peeled walnuts, 1-2 tbsp. spoons of corn flour or 1.5-2 tbsp. tablespoons of wheat (if fewer nuts are taken, the proportion of flour increases), 2-3 teaspoons of finely chopped garlic, 1 teaspoon of coriander, 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper, 0.5 teaspoon of cinnamon, 5 buds of cloves, 0.5 tsp suneli, 1 tsp wine vinegar or 1 tbsp. spoon of pomegranate juice, 0.25 teaspoon of ground red pepper, 0.5 teaspoon of cardobenedict (Imereti saffron), 0.5 cups of chicken fat, melted or skimmed from the broth, 2-2.5 cups of chicken broth.
Satsivi recipe
- Cooking poultry. Boil the whole chicken carcass (or any other poultry) for half an hour after boiling in the specified amount of water over moderate heat, without boiling too much.
- Then remove, add salt, place on a baking sheet breast side down and fry in the oven along with a small amount of broth (1-2 tbsp. spoons) until cooked, and from time to time pour over the dripping juice and turn over so that it is equally browned on all sides, but not very much.
- Making satsivi sauce. Fry finely chopped onion in half a portion of chicken fat. Using the remaining fat, sauté the flour until pale yellow, dilute it in the chilled broth, and boil.
- Crush walnuts with garlic, pepper, coriander and salt (to taste), dilute in broth, pour into prepared onions and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
- Add cinnamon, cloves, suneli, vinegar (or pomegranate juice) and heat over low heat for another 5-8 minutes.
- In some regions of Georgia, the sauce is seasoned with 2-3 more beaten egg yolks. But they do this only if there is a lack of nuts and the consistency of the sauce is too thin.
- Pouring poultry with satsivi sauce. Cut the chicken into small pieces along with the bones, pour over the hot sauce, and be sure to cool. Garnish with pomegranate seeds and fresh herbs.
Serve satsivi only cold 
Chef's secrets: how to cook satsivi
The secret of creating the right satsivi lies in the details:
- Only fresh cilantro is used to prepare this traditional dish. Dried or frozen, it gives a calmer flavor. The chicken with nut sauce will be fully enhanced by fresh cilantro.
- Walnuts add uniqueness to the treat; they are called an integral part of the gravy.
- To add more spiciness, adjika is added to the sauce.
- The chicken or turkey used for cooking does not have to be boiled - many people fry it with spices, and the broth is prepared from a cube.
- As a side dish for satsivi, gomi (corn porridge similar to hominy), mchadi (corn flour flatbread) or lavash are served.
- Pomegranate seeds can be used as a flavor addition and decoration - they add unusual notes to the dish.
Satsivi is considered not only a traditional treat, but also one of the symbols of Caucasian hospitality. Photos and videos of the preparation of this dish can be found in almost any review of Georgian cuisine and travel around Georgia, which is bright and memorable with its unique flavor.
