Adjarian Yakhni in Walnut Sauce

Meat and broth

1. Boil the meat. Cut the beef into small serving pieces; if you use ribs, cut between the bones. Wash the meat and remove bone splinters and membranes. Put it in a pot, cover with 2 l of cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Be sure to skim off the foam. Add a few black peppercorns and a pinch of salt. If you want a more aromatic dish, add a bay leaf, celery root, parsley root and carrot. It is not essential, but you can. By the way, the roots can be dried.

   

   Simmer the meat for 1.5–2 hours over low heat until tender. The broth should turn out rich.

   

Walnut dressing

1. Prepare the Imeretian saffron. Imeretian saffron is marigold, often sold as real saffron, which in fact costs crazy money. Toast 1 tsp of Imeretian saffron for 1.5–2 mins in a dry, hot frying pan. Grind it in a mortar with a pinch of salt and 0.5 tsp of coriander.

   

2. Make the walnut paste. Shell the walnuts and pick them over so no shell or membranes end up in the dish. Toast the kernels in a dry frying pan until they smell pleasant. Combine the walnuts, the salt with saffron and spices, and peeled garlic (as much as you like), and grind everything any way you find convenient: in a mortar, a meat grinder or a blender. To help the mixture grind better, you can add 2–3 tbsp of broth. You should get a paste. Add ground hot pepper to taste, preferably coarsely ground. You can adjust the heat with more garlic and hot pepper.

   

Stewing

1. Fry the meat. When the meat is cooked, take it out of the broth.

   

   Melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the meat in it until lightly browned.

   

3. Stew the meat with onion. Peel the onion and cut it into thick strips or cubes. Add it to the meat and stew under a lid with no added liquid over low heat until the onion is soft, about 10 mins.

   

4. Stew the meat in the walnut sauce. Thin the walnut paste with garlic and spices with the hot broth you set aside, to the consistency of thin sour cream. The amount of walnut dressing should be about the same as the volume of meat with onion.

   

   Add the walnut dressing to the fried meat, stir and stew under a lid for another 10 mins. The meat should simmer gently in the dressing.

   

Serving

1. Serve the yakhni. Unlike satsivi, which is good cold, yakhne is eaten hot and right away. Do not sprinkle it with herbs, as is often advised. It needs no side dish; the dish is perfectly self-sufficient.

   

   As an exception, I recommend putting a little fresh herbs on the edge of the plate, or even in a separate dish. And also lavash or traditional cheese khachapuri.