Tkemali
Tkemali is made from wild sour plums, and acidity is the point: the sauce should be sharp, not sweet. The second essential is ombalo, pennyroyal, which is hard to find outside Georgia. Ordinary mint gives a quite different, sweeter note; savory or thyme stands much closer.
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 40 min
- Total
- 1 h
- Servings
- 12
- Level
- Easy
- Per serving
- 60 kcal
Ingredients
Makes: about 1 l, 12 portions
Shopping list
The ingredients for the servings you chose — copy them or send them to a messenger. Tick what you already have at home: only the rest goes on the list.
Method
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Step 1: Simmer the plums
Put them in a pot with the water and cook covered for 20 minutes, until the skins split and the flesh leaves the stones.
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Step 2: Pass through a sieve
Push the pulp through a sieve, leaving stones and skins behind. A blender chops the skins in and makes the sauce dark and astringent.
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Step 3: Reduce the purée
Return it to the heat and cook 15 minutes, stirring, until it thickens to the consistency of heavy cream.
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Step 4: Add herbs and garlic
Blitz the coriander, dill, garlic and hot pepper to a paste and stir it into the purée with the savory and ground coriander.
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Step 5: Cook 5 minutes more
Five minutes is enough for the flavours to marry while the herbs still smell of themselves.
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Step 6: Season
Salt it, and if the plums are very sour add a spoon of sugar. Tkemali stays sour — the sugar only takes the edge off, it does not sweeten.
Tips & variations
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Tip
The best tkemali comes from underripe plums: maximum acidity and pectin, so the sauce thickens on its own rather than needing endless reduction.
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Tip
Green tkemali (from unripe plums) is served with chicken and fish, red (from ripe ones) with meat. Not a rule, but a habit that works.
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Variation
Sloes give a dark, astringent sauce; ripe cherry plums a milder one. In autumn tkemali is also made from cornelian cherries — rare and very good.
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Storage
Two weeks in the fridge. To keep it longer, pour it hot into sterilised jars, float a spoon of oil on top and seal — it keeps a year.
Nutrition
| 1 serving | Whole dish 12 servings | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 60 kcal | 720 kcal |
| Protein | 1 g | 12 g |
| Fat | 0 g | 0 g |
| Carbohydrates | 14 g | 168 g |
Approximate values calculated from standard ingredient data.
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