Back to all recipes

Chakapuli

ჩაქაფული, Kakheti

🇬🇪 Georgia Mains easy 20 min prep · 1 hr 30 min cook serves 4 2 hr start to table ~620 kcal per serving surprise

A lamb stew with no browning, no stock, and no thickener: just meat, half a bottle of white wine, a pile of unripe plums, and more tarragon than you have ever bought at once.

Tarragon's anise edge fades and rounds out in the braise, leaving a grassy sweetness that flatters lamb fat. The hard green plums melt into the liquid and do the sharpening job vinegar does in other stews, while the wine and meat juices become the broth itself. It tastes far more composed than the method suggests.

🐑🌿
The story

Chakapuli belongs to spring in Kakheti, Georgia's eastern wine country. It appears when two things hit the market at once: the year's first tarragon and hard green tkemali plums picked long before they ripen. Meat, herbs, and plums are layered raw in a pot with white wine and left to bubble, closer to poaching in herbs than to stewing.

It is the standard dish of Georgian Easter and of spring supra feasts, ladled into bowls with bread and, naturally, more wine. Lamb is traditional and veal common, and out of season cooks reach for preserved green plums or jarred green tkemali sauce so the pot can happen year-round.

Fair warning: This is a very large amount of tarragon, so if anise flavors like licorice or fennel put you off, chakapuli will too.
The recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 kg (about 2 lb) lamb shoulder or neck, cut in bite-size piecesbone-in pieces add body; veal is the usual alternative
  • 100 g (2 large bunches) fresh tarragontender stems included; this is not a garnish quantity
  • 1 bunch spring onions, roughly chopped
  • 1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
  • 1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, dill, or mintoptional, cook's choice
  • 6 to 8 garlic cloves, slicedgreen garlic in spring if you can find it
  • 200 g (about 7 oz) unripe green plums (tkemali)or 4 to 5 tbsp jarred green tkemali sauce
  • 300 ml (1 1/4 cups) dry white wineGeorgian Rkatsiteli if available; any dry white works
  • 1 to 2 tsp saltadded late
  • about 250 ml (1 cup) waterenough so the meat is barely covered

Method

  1. Roughly chop all the herbs, tender stems and all, and mix them together.
  2. Layer the pot: half the lamb, then half the herbs, garlic, and plums, then repeat, with no browning and no seasoning yet.
  3. Pour in the wine and enough water to barely cover everything.
  4. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and skim any foam that rises.
  5. Cover, drop the heat as low as it goes, and cook gently 1 to 1.5 hours until the lamb is tender, without stirring hard; the loose layers are fine.
  6. Add the salt in the last 20 minutes, once the liquid has concentrated.
  7. Taste for sourness: crush a few plums against the side to sharpen it, or fish some out if it is already tart enough.
  8. Rest 10 minutes off the heat, covered.
  9. Ladle into deep bowls, meat, herbs, and broth together, with bread and a cold glass of the same wine.
Shopping notes
Unripe green plums show up each spring at Turkish, Persian, and Middle Eastern shops, sold as erik or gojeh sabz, and Eastern European groceries carry jarred green tkemali sauce year-round. If neither exists near you, tart green gooseberries or firm plums plus a squeeze of lemon get you close, though it is an approximation.
Cross-checked against: culinarybackstreets.com · nofrillskitchen.com
Kitchen notes

Cooked it? Say how it went. Tweaks, substitutions, honest verdicts, all welcome.

Loading notes...