Chanakhi with Lamb and Greens

⏳ Time

30 minutes

🥕 Ingredients

🍽️ Servings

Description

Fat-tailed sheep have a peculiar feature — a fatty deposit called a 'kurdyuk' hanging from their backsides. In some sheep, the volume of the kurdyuk is almost equal to the total volume of the meat. These sheep are widely found in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In Russia, it used to be very difficult to find kurdyuk fat, but now it is readily available at markets. Chanakhi is a hearty winter dish. In the summer, we often make chanakhi without meat, adding pieces of spicy green or red pepper to the eggplants and tomatoes along with fat and garlic. It turns out very invigorating.

Ingredients

Lamb - 17.6 oz
Salad Potatoes - 2 lbs
Eggplants - 13 lbs
Kurdyuk Fat - 2.1 oz
Tomatoes - 2 lbs
Dry White Wine - 4 fl oz
Garlic - 2 heads
Parsley - to taste
Cilantro - to taste
Tarragon - to taste
Ocean salt - to taste
Ground Black Pepper - to taste

Step by Step guide

Step 1

Take half a kilogram of tomatoes, make a small cut on top, and place a piece of kurdyuk fat and a clove of garlic inside each. Then take the eggplants, cut off the stem, make several longitudinal cuts, and stuff them with kurdyuk fat and garlic as well. Add salt to taste to both the tomatoes and eggplants.

Step 2

Peel the potatoes and cut them in half. In a large cast-iron pot or saucepan, layer the tomatoes, then the eggplants, then again the tomatoes, and again the eggplants. Place some potato pieces here and there, and on top, add one large piece of lamb with the bone.

Step 3

Pour in a little wine to prevent the dish from burning. You can also add tomato puree — for this, pour boiling water over the remaining tomatoes, peel them, and mash them into a puree. Season with salt, cover with a lid, and simmer for 2 hours on low heat. Do not stir, otherwise, the tomatoes will break down, and the eggplants will turn into mush — and all the beauty will be lost.

Step 4

You can chop some greens to add, or you can skip it. In any case, it turns out to be a very aromatic and colorful dish: red tomatoes, blue-black eggplants, brown meat, and yellow potatoes.

Step 5

When the chanakhi is ready, remove the meat, take it off the bones, and place it on a serving dish. Arrange the tomatoes and eggplants around it, and sprinkle with greens on top.