How to cook real ajapsandal. Ajapsandali in Georgian - cooking according to a classic recipe, with meat, with potatoes or for the winter

Ajapsandali (or ajapsandal) in Georgian is an incredibly fragrant vegetable dish with spices and herbs. It can be eaten as a hot stew, or served as a spicy cold appetizer.

Ajapsandali Products

The basis of the dish is vegetables: eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and sweet peppers.

Vegetables should be ripe and juicy, as their condition directly affects the taste of the dish.

In addition to the vegetable component, greens are used - basil, parsley and cilantro.

Greens must certainly be fresh, dried will not give the desired aroma and taste

And of course, as in all Georgian dishes, spices play the first violin in the symphony of taste. Their set varies depending on the region of the country, but the classic recipe includes black pepper, saffron, coriander and ucho-suneli.

Saffron is the most expensive spice, it is also called “red gold”, but it is it that gives Georgian dishes a unique aroma and taste.

The result is bright and very tasty dish, which is served with fresh bread or pita bread.

Fresh bread is served with the dish in order to collect the most delicious sauce with its crumb

Classic recipe from Tinatin Mzhavanadze

A little tip: try to prepare everything in advance. Wash and cut vegetables, provide free space on the desktop. In this case, the preparation of a fragrant dish will take less time and effort.

Ingredients:

• 4 tomatoes;
• 3 onions;
• 4 sweet peppers;
• 3 carrots;
• 4 eggplants;
• 6 cloves of garlic;
• 50 g of basil, cilantro and parsley;
• 1 tsp sea ​​salt;
• 1/3 tsp black pepper;
• 1/3 tsp ucho-suneli;
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander;
• a pinch of saffron;
• 5 st. l. vegetable oil.

Step by step recipe:

1. Cut eggplant into slices.

   Cut the blue ones into circles 1–1.5 cm thick

2. Sprinkle them with a pinch of salt and leave them in a bowl for 30-40 minutes to remove the bitter taste.

   Salt will draw bitterness out of vegetables and make them tender.

3. Then fry the eggplant on both sides in a frying pan with hot oil.
   

   Eggplants need to be fried until golden brown

4. Peel the sweet pepper from seeds and cut into semicircles.
   

   Peppers choose juicy and fresh, the saturation of the sauce depends on it

5. Peel the onion and chop.

   Do not cut the onion too finely, it should be noticeable in the finished dish

6. Peel the carrots and cut into thin strips.
   

   A sharp knife is required for thinly slicing carrots.

7. Now you need to fry the carrots with onions until golden.
   

   Avoid burning vegetables, otherwise ajapsandali will have an unpleasant aftertaste.

8. Chop greens.

   Try not to chop the greens too finely

9. Make cross-shaped cuts on the tomatoes and scald them with boiling water.
   

   Sliced ​​tomatoes are easier to peel

10. Cool the scalded tomatoes slightly and remove the skin.
    

    Processing with boiling water does not harm the taste of tomatoes

11. Then chop the tomatoes and place them in a blender bowl. Grind to a puree.
    

    You can cut the tomatoes arbitrarily, remembering to remove the hard core

12. Put all the vegetables in a saucepan, pour tomato puree, add spices and herbs. Bring ajapsandali to a boil over low heat, stirring all the time.

    It is better to take fresh garlic, it will give the dish a sharp teasing aroma.

13. Garlic cloves must be ground in a mortar with a pinch of salt to a state of gruel. Then add to the pan with ajapsandali, cover with a lid, turn off the heat and let stand for 5-7 minutes.
    

    When laying out ajapsandali on plates, try to equally distribute the sauce and vegetables in each

Video: ajapsandal with potatoes

This year, a record number of sweet peppers and eggplants has grown in our country house. So I puzzled over what to make of them. Winter preservation, peppers stuffed in various ways, eggplant caviar - I tried all the recipes, and the vegetables sang and sang everything. Then I remembered about ajapsandali. A spicy, fragrant dish with a Georgian flavor was to everyone's taste. I served it with homemade bread and salad. fresh vegetables. The most amazing thing is that we ate this dish at least three times a week, but no one complained about the monotony. Indeed, by varying the amount and composition of spices, each time you can place new flavor accents.

Georgian vegetable dishes can surprise you with their rich taste. The thing is that spices give the usual products a bright aroma. It is also important that in summer and autumn ajapsandali is a very affordable dish, because it does not contain expensive ingredients.

- a divinely delicious vegetable dish from the cuisine of the Caucasus. Adzhapsandali is a very popular dish in the Caucasus, and, probably, just as every family prepares borscht or vinaigrette in its own way, ajapsandali is also prepared differently in different places and families.

My site already has a very delicious recipe, but it is completely different, more like vegetable stew, which in no way detracts from its taste and characteristics - there is almost no oil in it and vegetables are stewed in their own juice.

In ajapsandali in Georgian, all vegetables are first fried separately until soft, and then stewed all together, soaking in each other's juices and dressing.

I will say right away that I was a little worried that the dish would turn out to be fatty, but I decided not to deviate from the recipe and the result exceeded my expectations! Ajapsandali turned out to be very tasty and fragrant, it does not feel oil at all, both hot and cold, the vegetables retained their appearance and did not spread in mashed potatoes.

Perhaps the only nuance that I will change in the next cooking is to add a little more spicy spices, herbs and garlic, slightly reduce the amount of carrots and take a little more tomato. I will write my proportions in brackets so as not to spoil the original recipe.

• eggplant - about 1 kg
• tomatoes - 700 grams (1 kg)
• Bulgarian pepper - 500 grams
• onion - 500 grams
• carrots - 500 grams (300 grams)
• garlic - 5 cloves (7-8)
• purple basil, parsley and cilantro - 50 grams each (I love greens and next time I will take 1.5 or 2 times more)
• ground coriander - 0.5 tsp (2/3 tsp)
• salt and freshly ground pepper - to taste
• ucho - suneli - 0.5 tsp (1 tsp)
• vegetable oil for frying

I’ll immediately write one important nuance - all vegetables must first be fried until tender and be soft. The order of frying vegetables and laying them in a pan can be any, since then we will mix them.

It is better to use 2 pans at once. First, fry the eggplant on 2, and then on one pepper, and on the other onion with carrots. Pepper, from experience, will cook faster, and in this pan we will let the greens.

1. Let's do the eggplant first. They need to be washed, cut off the stalk and cut into circles 5-7 millimeters thick. I like a little bitterness in eggplants, but if it bothers you, you can put the eggplants in a bowl, or even better in a colander, salt well, mix so that the salt is evenly distributed and leave for 30-40 minutes. Drain the released juice and rinse the eggplants from salt.
2. We heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, eggplants love oil very much, so do not spare it, and we will remove the excess oil later. So, fry the eggplants until cooked, transfer them to a paper towel folded in 2-3 layers, cover with a towel on top and press down with your hands so that the excess oil is absorbed into the paper towel. We put the eggplants in a saucepan in which we will cook ajapsandali.
3. Pepper is next in line. We process it as usual - wash it, remove the seeds and cut into strips about 1 centimeter thick. Fry until soft and transfer to a saucepan with eggplant.
4. Next - onions and carrots - wash and clean. We cut the onion into half rings, and cut the carrot into circles or thin slices. We shift the vegetables to a separate pan and simmer, just simmer, and do not fry in a sufficiently large amount of oil. It is important that both onions and carrots are soft. We shift them into a saucepan, and then the excess oil can be drained.
5. Rinse parsley and basil under running water and finely chop. We pass the greens in a pan for about 5 minutes and transfer to a saucepan.
6. All vegetables are ready, it remains to make dressing. We cut the washed tomatoes into several parts and transfer them to a blender, add chopped cilantro, chopped garlic, spices (utskho-suneli, ground pepper and coriander) and salt. The dressing should turn out to be quite spicy and salty, because we did not salt the rest of the vegetables and all the spiciness and salt will be distributed.
7. Whip the dressing with a blender until puree and pour it into the pan.
8. Mix everything gently, put the pan on a fire a little more than medium and simmer for about 10-15 minutes under the lid. This will be enough time for the vegetables to soak in each other's dressing and juices and retain their shape without turning into a puree.

Georgian ready. It is better to let the dish brew a little more and taste the divine taste of vegetables when ajapsandali cools to room temperature.

Ajapsandali belongs to cold appetizers. The dish resembles the eggplant sauté we are used to, but has a specific taste due to the addition of a large amount of greens, especially cilantro and basil - if ajapsandali is cooked in Georgian, such a set of greens indicates a classic approach. For cooking, take young blue ones, sweet peppers and onions. Each product is fried separately, then everything is combined in a cauldron or saucepan, poured with tomato sauce and stewed with spices until tender.

Total cooking time: 60 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

• eggplant - 1 kg
• bell pepper red and yellow - 500 g
• onion - 300 g
• hot pepper - 1/2 pc.
• fresh tomatoes - 500 g
• garlic - 3-6 teeth.
• vegetable oil - for frying
• salt and black ground pepper - to taste
• suneli hops - 0.5 tsp
• ucho-suneli - 0.5 tsp.
• basil, cilantro and parsley - half a bunch each

Cooking

We wash the blue ones and cut off the ends. Cut into circles or halves of rings - medium thickness, but not more than 1 cm. Put in a bowl, sprinkle with coarse salt, and leave for half an hour to leave the bitterness. Even if you use a variety of eggplants that are not bitter, it is still worth salting them, as they will absorb less fat during frying. Then we rinse the eggplants under a stream of clean water and lightly squeeze out the brownish juice with our hands.

In a large frying pan, heat a couple of tablespoons of refined sunflower oil and fry in parts. We lay out the rings so that they cover the bottom of the pan in one layer, then they will cook more evenly. Fry over medium heat on both sides, until golden brown and almost cooked. When browned, blot the eggplants with napkins and transfer to a cauldron or to a thick-walled pan.



We clean the bell pepper from the seed boxes and chop into strips of about 1 cm. Fry the pepper in the same pan, pouring in a little oil. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the peppers are browned and soft, then pour into the pan with the eggplants. In general, one works for ajapsandali general principle: all vegetables must be brought to softness and the same degree of roasting, then the dish will turn out to be of a delicate texture, it will not be that the blue ones have lost their shape and boiled, and the pepper is still crunchy.



We clean 2-3 onion heads, chop not too thin half rings. Fry until soft in a minimum amount of oil. Onions should not be fried or burnt. Therefore, fry it over moderate heat, until a light caramel color, softness and acquisition of a sweetish taste. Pour the onion into the pan with other vegetables.



We wash the tomatoes and chop them on a coarse grater - this way the tomato pulp and juice will be in a bowl, and the skin in the hand (discard the skin). Then pour the tomato mass into the pan, without vegetable oil. Add salt and ground pepper, hops-suneli and ucho-suneli to taste. Simmer for 5-6 minutes under the lid so that the juice does not evaporate.

Pour the tomato sauce into the saucepan. If you like it spicy, you can add chili sliced ​​\u200b\u200bin rings.



Sprinkle chopped garlic and herbs on top. The use of basil in the dish is mandatory, if there is no fresh, then add at least dried.



Stir gently, cover tightly with a lid and simmer over low heat for about 10-15 minutes. Vegetables should warm up, “make friends” with each other, soak in the aroma of tomato sauce, garlic, spices and herbs. If overcooked, they will lose their shape, and as a result, they will also be tasty, but it will turn out not to be ajapsandali, but another dish with a different texture.

As soon as it is ready, remove the pan from the stove and let it brew under the lid for about 15 minutes.

Serve ajapsandali in Georgian cold. However, it can also be served hot, supplemented with pita bread and chopped herbs. Bon appetit everyone!

Prepare ingredients for Ajapsandali (აჯაფსანდალი).

Wash the eggplant, cut off the ends and cut into circles or semicircles, no more than 1 cm thick.
Put the eggplant in a large bowl or sieve, sprinkling each layer with salt, and leave for 30-40 minutes to release the juice.
Then rinse the eggplants under running water and squeeze out moisture.
Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan, put the eggplants so that they cover the bottom of the pan in one layer.
Fry eggplant on both sides until golden brown and fully cooked, over moderate heat.
Lay the cooked eggplant slices on paper towels or drain in a colander to remove excess oil.
Transfer the eggplants to a thick-bottomed saucepan or saucepan.

Wash the bell pepper, remove the core with seeds and cut into strips.
Fry the peppers in a small amount of vegetable oil over moderate heat, about 7-10 minutes. The pepper should be soft.
Transfer the peppers to the bowl with the eggplants.

Advice. There is an important nuance in ajapsandali that you definitely need to pay attention to. All vegetables must be brought to full readiness, even during pre-roasting. And the degree of roasting of all vegetables should be the same. Be sure to fry the pepper until soft, because. if it remains crispy and elastic, it will not fit into the overall soft and tender texture of the dish. This also applies to eggplant - they must be completely fried.

Peel the onion and cut into rings or half rings.
Wash the carrots, peel and cut into strips or semicircles.
Pour vegetable oil quite generously into the pan, put onions, carrots, lightly salt and mix.
Simmer vegetables for about 20-30 minutes over low heat, until soft.

Advice. It is desirable to fry onions with carrots in a large amount of vegetable oil. In the process of such frying, vegetables are not fried, but languish in oil and their own juice, and they turn out to be very soft and tasty. Excess oil can be drained after frying vegetables.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to reduce the amount of oil when frying and get the same effect. In a small amount of oil (also over high heat), the onion is fried, burnt, changes color and changes the taste of the entire cooked dish.

Transfer the onions and carrots to the pot with the vegetables.

Wash parsley and basil, pat dry and finely chop.
Fry the greens in a preheated pan in a small amount of oil, about 3-5 minutes.
Put lightly sautéed greens in a pan with vegetables.

Wash and grate the tomatoes on a coarse grater - the tomato mass will remain in the bowl, and the skin in the hand (discard the skin).
Pour the tomato paste into the pot with the vegetables.
Add spices to ajapsandali: coriander, ucho-suneli and Imeretian saffron.

If you like spicy, you can add hot peppers cut into thin rings (without seeds).

Advice. Hot peppers must be handled with rubber gloves so as not to accidentally get severe irritation of the mucous membranes.
The pungency of pepper is concentrated in the seeds - they are most often removed (remove the seeds or not - at your discretion).

cook cilantro and garlic dressing .
Wash the cilantro, pat dry with paper towels and finely chop.
Peel the garlic and cut the cloves into 3-5 pieces.
Put garlic in a mortar, add a large pinch of coarse salt - mash the garlic with salt with a pestle, then grind it to make a garlic gruel.
Gradually add cilantro and crush together with garlic, achieving a homogeneous mass.

Tip 1. Garlic is rubbed together with salt so that it does not darken, and also coarse salt crystals facilitate the grinding process.
Do not put too much salt, so as not to oversalt the dish. It is better to add at the end of cooking, to taste.

Tip 2. If you don't have a mortar, you can try running cilantro with garlic through a meat grinder.

Pour dressing over vegetables and mix gently.

Adzhapsandali (adzhapsandal, adzhapsanda) is a Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani dish of vegetables, which resembles the eggplant sauté we are used to. We will tell you how to cook ajapsandali in several ways and the recipe for preserving it in this material, and so that you can do everything without much difficulty, we offer detailed descriptions of the cooking process with beautiful photos.

Ajapsandali in Georgian

The classic recipe is the basis, which can always be supplemented at your discretion. The main rule that must be observed when making ajapsandali in Georgian is not to turn vegetables into porridge, as then it will be a completely different dish.

Scroll necessary products based on 1 kilogram of eggplant:

• ripe juicy tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
• onion - 350 g;
• sweet pepper - 0.5 kg;
• chili - 1 pod;
• fresh basil, cilantro, parsley - a handful;
• garlic - 1 head;
• Oleina odorless for frying - 300 ml;
• salt, freshly ground black pepper.

Step by step cooking instructions:

1. Wash medium-sized eggplants, dry and cut into halves of rings. We put it in a bowl, add salt, mix and leave for a while so that the glass is bitter.
2. We remove the pods of bell pepper from the stalk and seeds, wash and cut into centimeter-wide strips.
3. We cut the tomatoes into cubes, and the onion into half rings, but not very wide. Chop the garlic and chili into thin slices.
4. Pour oil into a thick frying pan and heat well. Squeeze the little blue ones from the released juice and fry in parts. They need to be disturbed as little as possible. It is best to put enough of them so that they completely cover the bottom. After frying them well on both sides, we take them out on a plate.
5. In the same pan, adding fat, fry the pepper, and then the onion.
6. At the same time, sauté the tomatoes in another pan. Everything must be done under the lid so that the juice does not evaporate. At the end of cooking, add garlic and chili slices, add salt and pepper, sprinkle with finely chopped fresh herbs.
7. Pour a little oil into the frying pan and pour the fried vegetables. Gently mix them, pour the tomato mixture and let it boil slightly for no more than 10 minutes. A delicious and healthy Georgian dish is ready.

Classical Armenian ajapsandal

The Armenian recipe differs slightly in its composition. It is also thinner and more like a soup than a stew. We suggest you make ajapsandal from Stalik Khankishiyev.

List of required ingredients:

• 1 kg of pork;
• 700 g of blue and bell peppers;
• a pod of hot pepper;
• 500 g tomato;
• peeled potatoes - 700 g;
• carrot - 300 g;
• onion - 300 g;
• garlic - half a head;
• dried herbs: basil, rosemary;
• lavrushka - 3 pcs.;
• melted butter - 200 g;
• salt, pepper, water.

Description of the cooking process:

1. Washed and dried blue ones are cut into pieces, 3 centimeters wide. Mix with salt and leave for half an hour to glass bitterness.
2. We cut the peeled potatoes in the same cubes as the eggplants. We cut the onion and pepper into not very thin half-rings, carrots into cubes. Garlic and chili mode in small pieces.
3. We cut the meat into pieces 2 centimeters wide.
4. We heat some of the oil in a brazier or cauldron. Bring onions and carrots to golden color. Add pork and fry until golden brown. Now add enough liquid to completely submerge the meat. We are waiting for everything to boil, then add spices, add salt and let it boil for a short time.
5. Now every five minutes we lay blue ones, potatoes, peppers in turn.
6. Crush with garlic and hot pepper. We remove the peel from the tomatoes, cut them into rings and lay them on top of our dish.
7. Reduce the temperature to a minimum, close the lid and simmer for a little less than an hour. Pour the prepared ajapsandali with meat into plates and sprinkle with fresh chopped herbs.

Ajapsandali in the oven

In a modern kitchen to prepare such a delicious and healthy dish household appliances can be used. So ajapsandal in the oven turns out with a richer taste of vegetables.

To make ajapsandal this way you will need:

• 4 eggplants;
• 4 tomatoes;
• 2 pods of sweet pepper;
• 2 onions;
• 1 kg of potatoes;
• ½ head of garlic;
• 100 g of spread;
• some water;
• salt pepper.

Instructions for cooking:

1. Blue ones, as usual, need to be rid of bitterness. Therefore, the mode is in pieces of the same size, add salt and leave for half an hour. Drain the resulting dark liquid.
2. Potato tubers are sliced, pepper - in thin strips, onions - in half rings.
3. We divide the tomatoes into slices, after washing and drying them.
4. Melt the spread in a deep heat-resistant form. Fry the onion until transparent, add the potatoes and fry for about 5 minutes. Pour in the little blue ones, gently mix the pepper, add, pepper and fry the same amount.
5. Squeeze the garlic, put the tomato slices and pour in some water. Close the lid and set to stew for half an hour in the oven at 180 degrees.
6. When the vegetables are ready, you can pour fresh herbs into the brazier, cover with a lid for quite a bit. Then ajapsanda will have a pleasant spring aroma.

Ajapsandal on the fire on the grill

Vegetables made in this way are perfect for barbecue. And its usefulness is undeniable, since it is prepared without a single drop of fat. And so that everything turns out exactly as it should, we offer you step by step recipe ajapsandala made on the grill.

List of required products:

• little blue ones - 3 pcs.;
• tomatoes - 4 pcs.;
• onion - 3 pcs.;
• sweet pepper - 3 pods;
• garlic - a few cloves;
• greens - to taste;
• vinegar, vegetable oil - a little.

Cooking description:

1. Ajapsandal on the grill is quite simple to prepare. We wash all the vegetables, get rid of the husks, stalks and seeds. We string them on skewers (except for garlic), which we lay out on a grill grid. We bake them until ready.
2. Hot tomatoes and eggplants should be dipped in cold water for a few minutes, peeled and cut into large pieces. There we crumble the rest of the products. Season with a few drops of oil and vinegar. We crush with finely chopped garlic and herbs. If desired, you can add salt and crush with ground black pepper.

Ajapsandali for the winter

Such yummy can be easily prepared for the winter. It turns out very tasty, slightly spicy.

To prepare it based on 2 half-liter jars, take:

• blue ones - 500 g;
• onion - 200 g;
• mild pepper - 300 g;
• tomatoes - 200 g;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• tomato paste - 2 tons of spoons;
• Olena - 100 ml;
• vinegar - 50 ml;
• water - 50 ml;
• salt - 1 teaspoon;
• sugar - 1.5 tbsp. spoons;
• freshly ground pepper - 0.5 tsp;
• hops-suneli - 3 pinches.

Detailed description:

1. Since we will cook for storage in jars for the winter, the dishes must be carefully washed and sterilized.
2. Washed eggplant cut into halves of rings. We add salt and leave for half an hour, letting the bitterness drain. Then fry them in a pan in a small amount of oil until half cooked (about 10 minutes). Put into a saucepan.
3. Fry the chopped onion until golden, add chopped tomatoes and a little water. Simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes. Put into a saucepan.
4. Pepper mode in cubes, fry in a frying pan covered with a lid for about 10 minutes. Pour it into the rest of the products, add salt, add spices, finely chopped garlic.
5. Mix well and set to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the ingredients do not burn. We add vinegar, wait quite a bit and remove the fire.
6. The twist is laid out in jars very hot. We wrap it up for the night, and then store it as usual.

If you decide to cook an unusual vegetable dish, then the recipes for delicious ajapsandali offered by us will come in handy. Thanks to them, your loved ones will be able to plunge into the atmosphere of real Caucasian cuisine and get a huge supply of vitamins.

Video: Vegetable ajapsandali