Chicken Chakhokhbili

A Georgian cuisine recipe that excludes the use of vegetable oil but requires a lot of spices, herbs, and tomatoes. A hundred years ago, this dish was exclusively made from pheasant, "khokhobi" in Georgian means pheasant. Nowadays, it's nearly impossible to get pheasant, so Chakhokhbili is prepared from readily available chicken. This fragrant and zesty dish is cooked quite quickly. Chakhokhbili can be made from a whole chicken, cut into portioned pieces, or you can use just chicken breast or chicken stew.

Chicken Meat

4 cups

Onion

3-4 pieces

Sweet Pepper

1-2 pieces

Hot Pepper

1/2 piece

Black Pepper

1/2 tsp (freshly ground)

Garlic

3-4 cloves

Khmeli-Suneli

1 tsp

Tomatoes

2 cups

Sugar

1 tsp

Salt

to taste

Cilantro

1 large bunch

Basil

1/2 bunch

Butter

3.5 tbsp

To prepare Chicken Chakhokhbili, first, preheat a cast-iron skillet without vegetable oil. Place pieces of chicken and fry them until golden brown.

Then add finely chopped onion and fry it together with the meat until it becomes translucent and soft. Add sweet pepper cut into chunks, finely chopped hot pepper, black ground pepper, khmeli-suneli, and fry everything together for another 2-3 minutes.