The classic Georgian tkemali sauce is quite sour. If you do not live in southern latitudes, then the sauce, prepared from unripe cherry plum, will be, to put it mildly, inedible. I had a sad experience in cooking tkemali from cherry plum collected near Minsk in the rainy summer. The taste of the sauce at the same time reminded of lemon, vinegar and citric acid combined. Attempts to regulate the acid with sugar gradually brought it to the state of jam, but this did not save. I had to look for alternatives, as the store ketchup was not quoted in the family.
In this tkemali sauce recipe, I adapted the ingredients for the middle and server latitudes and I got a thick base in which you can add various seasonings to your taste. Meat is suitable for sauce with small pieces of garlic, pepper and shallot, and herbs (mint, cilantro, etc.), put spices to your taste.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Quantity: 500 g
Ingredients for tkemali sauce with slices of vegetables:
- 400 g blue plums;
- 300 g tomato;
- 120 g shallots;
- 4 cloves of garlic;
- 2 red chili peppers;
- 1 hot green pepper;
- 15 g ground paprika;
- 25 grams of corn starch;
- salt, olive oil, sugar;
A method of preparing the tkemali sauce with slices of vegetables.
Ingredients for tkemali sauce with slices of vegetables. Plums, I take ripe and sweet, with them the sauce turns out tastier. The sauce from unripe plums, in my opinion, is very sour and watery, or the resulting mashed potatoes should be boiled down to a thickness for a long time.
You do not need to get the stones from the plums, but cut the tomatoes into quarters. Put the plums and tomatoes in a deep pan, tightly close the lid. Cooking at a slow boil for 30 minutes (at the very beginning you can add a little water).
While the tomatoes and plums are languishing, we chop as much as possible all the vegetable additives to the sauce: garlic, shallots, red and green chili peppers. Fry small pieces of vegetables in olive oil, do not cook for long, just enough to sprinkle them in the oil.
When the plums and tomatoes are well-boiled, we put them back on a sieve or colander, wipe the mass with a tablespoon. Mashed potatoes will be thick, and the bones and skin will remain in a colander.
Combine roasted vegetables and plum puree, the finished mass will look like thick jelly.
Corn starch (can be replaced with potato starch) is diluted in cold water and in a thin stream we pour into a bowl with hot plum puree, add sugar, salt and all ground hot paprika. Stir and bring to a boil over low heat. After the starch thickens the sauce, you can remove the pan from the heat.
We shift the tkemali sauce to clean jars. From the ingredients in this recipe, I got about 500 grams of the finished product.
Sterilize the jar for about 20 minutes if this blank needs to be stored for the winter. Pour a tablespoon of vegetable oil over the sauce to protect it from spoiling. And if the sauce is needed for dinner, it can be stored in the refrigerator for about 10 days.
Now I advise you to fry a good steak and pour it with thick homemade tkemali sauce with slices of vegetables, or serve it to delicious homemade sausages. Enjoy your meal!
