Kharcho

Roll up, roll up for my second favourite Georgian dish. It's an amazing and filling meaty soup. There is a chill in the air, the internet is full of pumpkin spice lovers and people who make fun of them, so I think we can say it’s coming into autumn. And this soup is a perfect autumnal soup.

I have mentioned my love of Georgian food earlier, and this is another gem from the Georgian cookbooks. It’s a strong, herby, beefy soup with rice. Mine turned out a little bit more like a stew than a soup but it’s still delicious. Could be fixed with less rice or more water, but I liked it just the way it was.

Georgian Walnut Chicken

Okay, strap yourself in for some former Soviet delicacies! I am just back from a holiday in Russia and I ate A LOT. And discovered Georgian food. And I’m in love. Russian food was lovely, but Georgian food was a complete surprise. It totally wasn't on my radar as a top cuisine, but I enjoyed everything I ate in the many Georgian restaurants we frequented. They have this beefy tomato rice soup called kharcho which is incredible (and coming up on the blog!), and these amazing dumplings called khinkali! Which I might not make because they looked like they would be difficult to put together.

But my favourite thing was this walnut chicken stew dish which is flavourful, warming, delicately spiced and super-duper delicious. So, as I always do, I got home and immediately googled some recipes and got the basics down. And I added a few spiced additions just to get it close to the one I had in St Petersburg.

This is super easy to make, with an incredible creamy sauce (always my favourite part of any meal). You can easily double the paste ingredients to allow you to make this again quickly. Because you will want to. Because it’s delicious.