The cuisines of the peoples of the Caucasus are replete with rich and incredibly tasty dishes. When you watch how Caucasian housewives cook these delicacies, it seems that their preparation is easier and you can’t imagine, but no, in any Caucasian dish there is always a “zest”, thanks to which the taste of the dish is so incredible. Khashlama, a dish, disputes about the origin of which do not subside. According to some chefs, beef khashlama is a classic of Armenian cuisine. Others claim that khashlama comes from Georgia. It is almost impossible to resolve the dispute, the cultures of all the Caucasian peoples are too tightly intertwined.
And is it worth arguing, most importantly, a delicious and lovingly prepared dish. The uniqueness of khashlama lies in the fact that this dish cannot be attributed to the first or second course, it all depends on the recipe. And there are a huge number of khashlama recipes - from lamb, veal, beef, poultry, as for the rest of the ingredients of the dish, the main principle here is more vegetables and herbs. Everything is also ambiguous by the method of preparing khashlama - some cooks cook it with the addition of broth, others, on the contrary, stew vegetables and meat in their own juice, some add beer to the dish, others add white table wine.
Whatever recipe you choose, you will get a great fragrant dish, it is only important to lay the meat and vegetables in layers in a certain sequence and not mix them during cooking. We offer to cook the classics of the genre - beef khashlama, and our photos with step-by-step cooking of the dish will help you cope with the recipe, feed your family deliciously and satisfyingly.
No matter how experts argue, but the word Khashlama comes from the Armenian word "khashel" - meat that is boiled in a piece. Armenian cuisine is considered the oldest cuisine in the world, it is almost two thousand years old, but even after many years, Armenian cuisine dishes are prepared using the technologies of their ancestors. Once upon a time, khashlama was considered the food of those living high in the mountains. The highlanders did not have special conditions and opportunities for cooking frills, but there was always a lot of meat, because the Armenians have always been excellent cattle breeders.
Armenians have always cooked food on fire, in tonirs, clay ovens, from which the food received a special taste and aroma. There is only one controversial point about the presence of potatoes in the dish, but from ancient cookbooks it became clear that in those distant times the place of potatoes in the dish was occupied by chestnuts. Nowadays, in living conditions in the city, it is not always possible to cook excellent khashlama in tonir, city dwellers cook the dish on the stove, in thick-walled dishes or in a cast-iron cauldron, but the Armenians have preserved the culture of cutting and laying ingredients to this day.
We will prepare Khashlama from such products.
Wash the beef and cut into large pieces.
Put the meat in a bowl and season with spices, salt, mix thoroughly.
Add wine for marinade to meat.
Cover the pickled meat with a lid and leave for 10-20 minutes.
Rinse the carrots under running water, peel the skin.
Peel the skin off the potatoes.
We do the same with peppers.
The meat is lightly fried over high heat, then left in the cauldron to simmer a little.
Cut the tomatoes into rings.
Vegetables cut into large pieces.
Cut the onion into half rings.
During this time, the meat was simmered.
Let's start forming the dish - lay the onions on the meat in layers, then the carrots.
Then a layer of tomatoes and again onions.
Next, lay out the eggplant circles.
After eggplant comes a layer of bell peppers and potatoes on top.
Rinse dill greens thoroughly and dry on a napkin.
We put whole sprigs of dill greens on the laid vegetables in a cauldron, cover the cauldron with a lid and put on fire for 40 minutes.
When the dish is ready, put the khashlama in large clay bowls and serve. Bon appetit!.
Khashlama in Armenian is a hearty and high-calorie dish, something in between the first and second courses, served on the table as an independent dish, without side dishes. Khashlama is prepared practically without oil and fat, but only by languishing. And since there is no fat and frying, it turns out that there is no harm from eating the dish, but only good!
The high content of vegetables in the dish also makes it very useful, because bell peppers, carrots, tomatoes are a storehouse of useful micro and macro elements, vitamins of groups A, C, D, E, K, PP. In addition, there are a lot of carrots in khashlama, and it saturates the dish with carotene. Also, carrots have a large amount of amino acids, they are much more in it than in other vegetables. By the way, nutritionists say that boiled carrots have three times the amount of antioxidants compared to fresh ones.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the benefits of meat, because there is more meat in khashlama than vegetables. Animal fats contained in meat, for example, have choleretic properties, and vitamins of groups A, B, C, E, PP and minerals, which are so rich in meat, participate in the blood formation of the human body, increase hemoglobin. Of course, the way the meat is cooked is also important. Strongly fried or smoked meat is considered harmful, and steamed, stewed meat is beneficial. In this regard, khashlama is a very, very healthy dish, carrying, thanks to the method of preparation, both the benefits of meat and the benefits of vegetables.