Although the Avar Khinkal is in tune with the Georgian dish Khinkali in name, the product is prepared and looks different. Khinkal in Avar style is a combined dish consisting of boiled meat, boiled lush cakes, strong rich broth and sauce.
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Avar Khinkal: how to cook
The classic Avar khinkal is prepared very simply, though it takes a lot of time to cook it. The fact is that the preparation of the dish itself consists of several processes, namely:
- boiling meat (lamb, beef);
- kneading dough, forming flat cakes and boiling them in the broth;
- making the sauce (the sauce can be any as desired, depending on the taste preferences of the eaters, but the most suitable are tomato, cream and cheese types).
If you follow all the cooking processes of this dish, then in the end you get a fully formed dish of four components - meat, tortillas, broth and sauce.
The dish is served hot immediately after cooking, with the meat and tortillas laid out on one large flat dish, the broth and sauce in separate cups according to the number of eaters.
How to make dough for Avar khinkal
Kneading dough for khinkal is an important process in cooking, and here you must strictly follow the recipe for cooking the product. The fact is, if you add more eggs to the dough or forget to put in it, for example, soda, then the cakes will turn out "plasticine", and not lush and airy.
To avoid this turn of events, the dough should be made on the basis of flour, soda, eggs, salt and yogurt. In the absence of the latter product, it can be replaced with another sour-milk drink, for example, kefir, fermented baked milk or sour cream of low fat content.
How to cook Avar khinkal on kefir
Avar khinkal on kefir is an easy to prepare dish. In cooking meat there is nothing complicated - put the product in cold water, added salt and spices and cook yourself a dish for the specified time. Only with the test some difficulties may arise, and even then only with the housewives who absolutely do not know how to work with this product. It is important to remember that the tortillas turn out to be magnificent, the dough should be soft, and not “jammed”. Below is an Avar recipe, the amount of ingredients is calculated in four servings.
Ingredients:
- 500 grams of flour;
- ½ teaspoon of salt (for dough);
- salt for cooking meat to taste;
- a teaspoon of soda;
- 700-800 grams of beef or lamb;
- a glass of kefir;
- 75 grams of butter;
- five cloves of garlic;
- three large tomatoes;
- one onion head;
- one egg;
- a bunch of cilantro.
Step by step recipe:
Rinse the meat in cold water. Cut it into pieces three by three centimeters in size, put in a saucepan, pour cold water and put on high heat. Add one onion to the meat, after peeling it, and cilantro (adding this ingredient significantly affects the taste of the broth). As soon as the water in the pan boils, reduce the heat and continue to simmer the product for 40-50 minutes. Put the prepared meat in a dish and cover with a lid so that the food does not cool.
Pour the flour onto the work surface with a slide, make a hole in the center, pour kefir there (you should not pour in more than the indicated, strictly observe the proportions), add salt, egg and soda. Knead the dough (it should not stick to your hands), then leave it for 15 minutes, covering the product with a film. After the specified time, roll out the dough into a cake a little less than one centimeter thick and cut it with a sharp knife into squares or rhombuses of 2-3 centimeters.
Place the cakes in a boiling broth one at a time. Boil them after boiling the contents of the pan again for about five minutes. Remove the finished product from the broth and pierce each cake with a wooden skewer (if this is not done, the dough will settle).
Tomatoes pour over boiling water or hold for ten seconds in water 80-90 degrees, remove the skin from them, chop the vegetables finely. Peel and chop the garlic. Put these ingredients in a thick-bottomed pan and put on fire. After two to three minutes, add butter and salt to the products, simmer for 15 minutes under a closed lid. Add sugar to the sauce if desired.
Serve hot on the table immediately after cooking. Place the cakes and meat in a wide dish. Pour the broth into cups in portions.
How to Cook Avar Khinkal Yeast
If kefir, yoghurt, or fermented baked milk are not available, then you can prepare khinkal based on milk, but using yeast. The recipe is not traditional for Caucasian cuisine, but it is very much in demand by the hostesses because of the ease of preparation. The dish turns out tasty and aromatic, and its calorie content does not exceed 200 kcal per 100 grams of product.
Ingredients:
- one kilogram of beef;
- one kilogram of flour;
- ½ tablespoon dry yeast;
- two tablespoons of vegetable oil;
- two glasses of milk;
- half a kilogram of potatoes;
- five cloves of garlic;
- ½ cup sour cream;
- two tablespoons of mayonnaise;
- salt and pepper to taste.
Step by step recipe:
Boil the meat in salted water until cooked (cooking time - two hours). 30-40 minutes before the end of cooking, put potatoes in the broth (naturally peeled).
Sift flour into the bowl, add yeast and salt to it, mix, then pour warm milk and butter into the mass. Knead a homogeneous dough, cover it and leave it warm for an hour.
While the dough rises, prepare the sauce. Beat sour cream, mix it with mayonnaise (you can use "light", the fat content of which does not exceed 30%) and grated garlic, salt the mass. A more interesting taste of the sauce can be obtained by adding your favorite aromatic herbs.
Sprinkle the working surface with flour, put the dough on it and roll it into a layer 3-5 mm thick. Cut the workpiece into squares or rhombuses of 3-4 cm.
Strain the broth, in which meat and potatoes were cooked, through the cheesecloth, then put it on the fire and bring to a boil. Boil dough pieces in it (cooking time - 5-6 minutes). Remove the magnificent cakes from the broth, pierce each with a fork or wooden skewer so that the food does not settle.
Put potatoes, meat (after cutting it into pieces) and tortillas on a large flat dish. Serve khinkal hot with sour cream and garlic sauce.
Trick: you can cook khinkal according to this recipe in a slow cooker, while cooking potatoes and meat, as well as the cakes themselves (steamed). As you might guess, the use of this kitchen appliance saves time in the preparation of this particular dish.
All you need is to knead the yeast dough, make small cakes from the product, and in the process of cooking meat and potatoes in a multicooker bowl place a container with cakes on top and boil them for a couple of no more than five minutes. The minus of the recipe is that tortillas need to be prepared in several approaches, because all the workpieces cannot be placed in a steam container.
