Chashushuli: Georgian Beef Stew with Tomatoes Recipe

Step-by-step recipe

1. For chashushuli, trim the beef or veal of any bone fragments, cartilage and large pieces of connective tissue. Get ripe tomatoes and, ideally, a little tomato paste: it makes the dish taste more of tomato. White or red onion, whichever you like. I recommend making the dish noticeably hot: add a fresh chili or coarsely ground dried chili pepper together with the seeds.
   
2. Prepare the tomatoes in advance: scald them with boiling water and peel off the skins. Cut the meat into fairly large chunks or as for goulash. Melt the butter in a skillet and fry the beef pieces until golden brown. At first the meat will release juice, which quickly evaporates, and then the meat starts to fry. Fry the meat, stirring often.
   
3. Dice the onion fairly large. Chili peppers, red and green ones both work: remove the seeds and chop with a knife. Add the onion and peppers to the beef. Fry the meat and vegetables over medium heat, stirring, until the onion softens. Do not overfry the onion and peppers, or the chashushuli will have a noticeable burnt taste. Pour a cup of water into the skillet and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over low heat until the meat is tender.
   
4. Add the tomato paste to the meat: it improves both the taste and the look of the dish. Stir well and fry for 3-4 mins so the tomato combines with the meat and vegetables. Peel the garlic, crush each clove with the flat of a knife and chop finely. Add the garlic to the meat. Don't salt the meat yet; just season it with black pepper and add 0.5 tsp of ready-made khmeli suneli spice mix. If you like, you can also add utskho suneli: blue fenugreek gives the dish a piquant and distinctive flavor.
   
5. Slice the peeled tomatoes together with the seeds, discarding only the white parts and the stem end. Add the tomatoes to the skillet and stir. You need to pour in a little liquid, usually water. Wine is often recommended. For stewed dishes I prefer homemade tomato juice: half a cup is enough. Let the sauce come to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to the lowest setting that keeps it simmering.
   
6. Stew the chashushuli with the tomatoes, covered, for 15 mins. The meat pieces should be tender and the tomato sauce should thicken. Finely chop the cilantro and add half of it to the sauce. Salt the dish to taste. If you want more heat, add a little chili pepper. After adding the herbs, stew the meat in the sauce for another 2-3 mins, then remove from the heat.
   
7. Serve the chashushuli on plates sprinkled with cilantro. Serve hot with fresh lavash, white wine, whole chili pods and chili ground with the seeds. By the way, you can cook this dish in a ketsi clay pan, and then serve it right in the pan. The dish is very aromatic and quite hot, so lovers of spicy food will appreciate it. Still, adjust the heat to your taste.
   
8. Adjika, a paste of chili peppers ground with salt, is often added to the dish. In that case, add fresh chili pods with caution. Sometimes the beef pieces are marinated beforehand in a mix of adjika and vinegar or lemon juice: this makes the meat tender, which matters when cooking tough beef. Sweet fleshy bell peppers are also a good addition to bulk up the vegetables.