Homemade Adjika: The Recipe For The Most Delicious Seasoning

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

For those who like it sharper: the most delicious homemade adjika

The name of the thick and spicy pasta served with a variety of dishes - adzhiki - is simply translated from Abkhazian: "salt". And nothing surprising. If you believe the legends, it all started with salt, when in ancient times shepherds, who spent long weeks in the mountains on meager and monotonous food, began to mix the boring seasoning first with pepper, then with herbs, and then with vegetables, step by step improving the recipe until the fragrant and spicy adjika was born, which is known today far beyond the borders of the Caucasus. Do you want to cook it yourself? It couldn't be easier.

Content

• 1 Homemade adjika: 6 best recipes

  • 1.1 Classic version
  • 1.2 Georgian style with walnuts
  • 1.3 Video: adjika with plums
  • 1.4 With apples and carrots
  • 1.5 Mushroom adjika
  • 1.6 Video: adjika with eggplant

Homemade adjika: 6 best recipes

Abkhazian shepherds and their household wives spent a lot of energy on the preparation of adjika, grinding the necessary ingredients between two heavy stones. Nowadays, this is easier - thanks to blenders, food combines and other useful kitchen equipment. However, the basic rules for preparing adjika remain unchanged:

• its components must be fresh and ripe - only those that have a truly rich taste and aroma;
• all of them should be dry, therefore, after washing vegetables or fruits, dry them well on a towel;
• Whatever recipe you choose (and there are dozens of them today), without the three mandatory ingredients, real adjika will not work. These are red hot peppers, garlic and salt.

Classic version

There is nothing in classical adjika other than the essentials, so it turns out to be extremely spicy and fragrant. Protect your stomachs!

You will need:

• 1 kg of hot pepper;
• 500 g of garlic;
• 100 g of a mixture of herbs - dill, basil, parsley and others of your choice;
• coriander;
• 150 g of salt.

Cooking.

1. Remove the stalks from the pepper, cut the pods along with a sharp knife and scrape out the seeds. Note that it is best to work with gloves, otherwise you risk skin irritation.

   

   The seeds can be left, but then the adjika will turn out to be even sharper

2. Divide the garlic into wedges and peel.

   

   There is no need to chop the garlic in advance

3. Chop greens coarsely.

   

   The main thing is to remove the tough tails, the blender will chop the greens for you.

4. Place all ingredients in a meat grinder or blender bowl and grind until smooth.

   

   The harvester may need to be run two or three times to achieve the desired uniform consistency.

5. If the seasoning seems to be very hot, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the blender, it will slightly soften the taste. And you can serve adjika on the table.

   

   Fire seasoning goes well with meat, poultry and vegetable dishes

According to a similar recipe, I cooked Adjika from green hot peppers, cilantro and parsley. The juicy emerald mass turned out to be attractive in appearance and, according to the assurances of other eaters, excellent in taste. But it seemed to me downright scalding hot, so next time I will certainly use the advice about olive oil.

Georgian style with walnuts

Georgia has long been competing with Abkhazia for the right to be called the homeland of "fire" seasoning. Adjika is loved here no less and they cook it in their own way: moderately spicy, spicy and with a truly Georgian flavor.

You will need:

• 1 kg of hot pepper;
• 10-12 cloves of garlic;
• 500 g of walnut kernels;
• 1 tsp. zira and hop-suneli;
• 1 tsp coriander;
• 1 tbsp. l. paprika;
• a bunch of parsley and cilantro;
• 1 tbsp. l. salt.

Cooking.

1. Pepper pods free from stalks and seeds.

   

   Remember it's safer to work with hot peppers with gloves.

2. Fry the nuts quickly in a dry frying pan or hold for 10 minutes in an oven preheated to 200 °.

   

   Roast the nuts for 5–6 minutes, stirring constantly

3. Also, without oil, fry the spices for 2-3 minutes - this will help their aroma to open up more.

   

   Do not overdo it, a couple of minutes on the fire will be enough

4. Chop the greens with a blender or knife.

   

   What is a Caucasian seasoning without herbs?

5. Chop the nuts.

   

   Make sure that there are no pieces of shells and bulkheads among the nuts

6. Grate the garlic or pass through a press.

   

   Instead of a grater, you can take a regular garlic press

7. Put the peppers and spices in a blender bowl, add salt, sugar and grind everything as finely as possible.

   

   The excess juice can be drained so that the adjika does not turn out too liquid, or you can leave it

8. Combine ground peppers, herbs, nuts, garlic and mix everything thoroughly.

   

   Let the adjika brew for 2-3 days, it will taste better

Video: adjika with plums

With apples and carrots

Plums are often found in sauces of Caucasian cuisine - remember the famous tkemali. And what will happen if you soften the pungency of adjika with the soft sourness of apples and the subtle sweetness of carrots?

You will need:

• 1 kg of tomatoes;
• 500 g bell pepper;
• 250 g sour apples;
• 250 g carrots;
• 50 g hot pepper;
• 100 g of garlic;
• 50 ml of vegetable oil;
• ground black pepper - to taste;
• 1 tsp salt.

Cooking.

1. Cut out the stalks of the tomatoes, and cut the fruits into large pieces. You can pre-pour boiling water over them and remove the skin, but this is not necessary.

   

   Tomatoes often go to adjika with the peel

2. Cut the apples into quarters, removing the seeds and cores.

   

   Leave the rind but remove the seeds

3. Free the one and the other type of pepper from the stalks and seeds.

   

   This time you will need both sweet and hot peppers.

4. Peel the carrots and chop coarsely.

   

   Carrots will soften the taste of adjika and add variegation to the color

5. Peel the garlic cloves.

   

   Adding a little extra pungency and flavor won't hurt

6. Pass all vegetables through a meat grinder or blender for a thick, smooth gruel.

   

   Adjika tomatoes will be more liquid

7. Place the vegetable crumbs in a saucepan or saucepan, add oil, salt, sugar and pepper and put everything on medium heat. Bring to a boil, reduce the flame to low and simmer the adjika on the stove for about 1 hour more. Stir the mixture so that it does not burn.

   

   Typical cooking time for a seasoning is 40 minutes to 1.5 hours

8. Spread the adjika on pre-sterilized jars, screw the lids on and cool, turning the bottoms upside down.

   

   Correctly cooked adjika will stand up to next fall without any problems

Mushroom adjika

True adherents of Caucasian cuisine do not recognize such adjika, but why not experiment by making a hot sauce not from tomatoes and bell peppers, but from mushrooms?

You will need:

• 400 g of champignons;
• 2 kg of sweet pepper;
• 2-3 hot pepper pods;
• 4–5 onions;
• 2-3 heads of garlic;
• 100 ml vinegar;
• favorite greens to taste;
• vegetable oil for frying;
• sugar;
• salt.

Cooking.

1. Peel the onions, chop into small cubes and fry in vegetable oil.

   

   Do not fry the onions too much, 4-5 minutes is enough

2. Cut the champignons into medium-sized pieces. As soon as the onion starts to brown, add the mushrooms to it.

   

   Even if this is not a classic adjika, it is still delicious

3. After 15–20 minutes, remove the pan from the heat, cool the mushrooms and onions slightly and chop with a blender.

   

   Turn mushrooms and onions into a smooth paste

4. Peel both types of pepper from seeds, cut off the stalks, and pass the pulp through a blender or meat grinder.

   

   If you like hot seasonings, increase the amount of hot pepper or do not remove the seeds

5. Peel and chop the garlic in any convenient way, finely chop the greens.

   

   When choosing herbs and the number of spicy additives, focus on your taste

6. Combine peppers with mushrooms and onions in a frying pan, sprinkle with herbs, add garlic and simmer the vegetable mass, stirring occasionally, for 30-35 minutes.

   

   In a frying pan, the mushroom mass will become quite thick, despite the abundance of sweet pepper pulp in it.

7. At the end, add salt, sugar, vinegar to the adjika, wait another 5–10 minutes and you can roll the mushroom seasoning over sterilized jars.

   

   In fact, mushroom adjika is a very spicy, fragrant mushroom caviar

Video: adjika with eggplant

Traditional adjika contains neither tomatoes, nor apples, nor mushrooms. However, the recipe for a popular snack has so widely spread around the world and it has been reproduced so often, adding sometimes the most unexpected products to the list of ingredients, that today there is no such hot sauce option that would not have the right to exist. Choose any, perhaps it will become your favorite recipe.