While still relying on the French “au pif” sensibility, we decided to measure some of the ingredients we used to be able to adjust tastes if necessary for the next batch. Stores selling Georgian produce stock preserved sour green plums that are often used to make the first Easter Chakapuli in case it falls too early for the first harvest of the green cherry plum (prunus cerasifera). If you can’t hold of it, 2-3 teaspoons of green tkhemali or tkemali sauce, a popular Georgian condiment made from the plums, can replace the sour plums. An alternative is to use your local variety of young sour green plums before they ripen.

400 grams of boneless lamb (or veal)

150 ml Rkatstiteli amber wine (any tannin-heavy white wine should do)

A head of young garlic – about 8 cloves

2 bunches of tarragon

1 generous bunch of spring onions

1 generous bunch of coriander 6 raw green tkemalis that measured about 100 grams (if sauce tastes too tart, you can remove some during cooking)

Salt

Water

Step One
Remove tarragon leaves from the hard stalk and roughly chop. Roughly chop fresh coriander and green onions. Roughly crush garlic cloves.

Step Two
Chop meat into bite sized chunks. While some prefer to brown the lamb (or veal) in oil and garlic to temper the meat, we went with the traditional method: start by layering the meat in a heavy bottomed steel saucepan and adding the chopped greens on top.

Step Three

Next, carefully measure two glasses (150ml of wine) and add to the pot with a cup of water and start the fire on low heat. Add salt to taste once it starts bubbling. As the stew slowly simmers and the liquid reduces, add a bit more water as needed (taking Andro’s advice, tip in a bit more wine as well).

Let the chakapuli cook for about 30 minutes until the lamb has reached a perfect, soft consistency. Note: After about 15 minutes, we decided to fish out two of the tkemali plums as the stew was starting to be a bit too tart for our taste. It was a good decision – the chakapuli had that right tinge of tang without being face-crunchingly sour.

Step Four

Pouring ourselves a glass of the leftover wine, we sat down to a well-deserved lunch of a generous bowl of chakapuli. It was the first time that we had the stew as a stand-alone dish without other items to distract, and the concentrated attention allowed us to enjoy even more the refreshing bowl of herby, zesty goodness with delicious, melt-in-your-mouth chunks of lamb. It’s a dish that undoubtedly deserves its title as the pearl of Kakhetian dishes.