Stirring Trouble Presents The Recipe For Another Of Joseph Stalin’s Favourite Dishes: The Famous Georgian Satsivi

Ivan Petrov writes from Moscow: Today, folks, we present the recipe for the famous Georgian dish, satsivi, one of Joseph Stalin’s personal favourites. The bloodthirsty dictator, who incidentally was of Georgian nationality although his mother was on record as saying that she conceive her son with the devil himself, loved satsivi, both hot and cold, and once even staged a competition between several chefs to see who was better at preparing it. History did not record what happened to the losers.

Satsivi is a dish that needs a bit of an effort to get that combination of ingredients just right. You will get the hang of it, eventually, and once you master it, you will cook it again and again. A great starter that should be served cold or just slightly warm.

Ingredients (for two people): chicken 400 grams, half a cup of walnuts, 2-3 medium sized onions, butter (for frying), 1 teaspoon of flour, half a cup of chicken stock, garlic, two cloves, two table spoons of white wine vinegar, ground black pepper, salt. (For those of you who want total authenticity we suggest that you find a Russian shop and ask them for a powdered herb called knelli-sunelli.)

Cook the chicken, remove the bones, cut into pieces and place them in the glass bowl. Keep that chicken stock at hand.

Now for the sauce. Chop the onions finely and fry them on low heat until they are soft. Do not brown them. Add flower to the onions. Stir for a minute and add the stock. Stir again. Place the walnuts, garlic, salt and pepper to taste and the fried onions in the food processor and make a smooth sauce. Put it back into the frying pan, add cloves and vinegar (and two pinches of knelli-sunelli powder if you managed to find that Russian shop) and simmer for a couple of minutes. Before switching it off add a bunch of finely chopped fresh coriander and mix. If the sauce is too thick then add some more stock to make it creamier.

Pour the hot sauce over the chicken in the bowl. Let it cool.

Dress up in military fatigues (joking) and enjoy satsivi with white French bread, preheated in the oven, and a glass of red wine.

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