Churchkhela from Kavkazskaya plennitsa restaurant (Caucasian-style kidnapping)

Olga Gulieva, Chef of Kavkazskaya plennitsa restaurant, shows how to cook traditional Georgian dish made of buts and grape juice.

Cooking time —
Complication —

In recipe book

Main ingridient: nuts
Category: desserts

Ingredients (for 8 portions):

Natural grape juice (preferable dark sort of grape) – 1 litre,
Corn flour – 200 g (1.5 glass),
Wheat flour – 150 g,
Potato starch – 50 g,
Sugar – 80 g or to your taste (it depends on how sweet is the grape juice),
Walnuts (peeled and halved) – 500 g,
Hazelnuts – 500 g,
Mint – small bunch for dressing.

Step 1

Prepare all necessary: hazelnuts, walnuts, fresh grape juice, sugar, flour, starch. We also need a thick needle and strong threat.

Step 2

Take a needle and pierce each half of walnuts in the middle and string on thread one by one. It’s important to remember that much depends on walnuts quality, so we choose the tastiest and very fresh nuts.

Step 3

This is how the thread looks like when it’s ready. Fix the edges and leave 10-15 cm of thread free in the middle to hang churchkhela to get dry afterwards.

Step 4

Now string hazelnuts on the thread.

Step 5

Since it’s one of the hardest nuts, it’s better to rest upon something solid when piercing, for instance a board.

Step 6

So, we have the second thread – something looking like beads.

Step 7

Now let’s prepare the cover for churchkhela which is called pilamushi. Add sugar, starch, sieved flour in boiling grape juice and cook until sour cream consistence.