Adjika is a condiment from the western part of the country of Georgia. It is a thick, hot red paste used in cooking. It’s added to soups, borschts and sauces, stirred into cooked beans, and used as a barbeque sauce on meats.
It’s made from tomatoes, hot red peppers, salt, oil and garlic. Flavouring includes coriander, dill and blue fenugreek.
The ingredients are minced, stewed for several hours, adjusted for taste, and then canned or jarred.
Unripened peppers can be used for a green version.
Some variant recipes in the West add apples, sugar and even a carrot, though purists scoff at this. [1]
Though it’s often described as “hot”, because of the peppers, that would be “hot” as in by European tastes, but still nothing that would make a Mexican blanch. And even though some hyperbole has it to be an ancient recipe, it doesn’t take a whole lot of reflection to see that with New World foods such as tomatoes and peppers in it, Adjika as it is made now is anything but ancient. Some sources point out that tomatoes aren’t traditional in the recipe, but then peppers, also being a new world food, wouldn’t be either.
Often sold labelled as “Russian” or “Bulgarian”, though the concept is actually Georgian.
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[1] Use of apples, sugar and carrots:
“ADJIKA ‘Gorgija'”Baked peeled peppers, onion, marinated paste, carrots, salt, hot peppers, vegetable oil, sugar.” Slunchev Plod Foods. Retrieved August 2008 from http://www.slplod.com/sterilised_fruits_vegetables.htm
“Adjika (a roasted carrots, tomatoes, peppers spread….)” DeLaurenti Foods Newsletter. Seattle, Washington. 22 July 2004. Retrieved August 2008 from http://www.delaurenti.com/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=News&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=0055
“Grind tomatoes, carrot, sweet peppers, apples, cayenne in a mincer and stew, stirring constantly for 2,5 hours. ” Adjika recipe. Retrieved August 2008 from http://www.worldrecipehouse.com/russian_recipe/adjika.html
Sources
Chatwin, Mary Ellen. Socio-cultural Transformation and Foodways in the Republic of Georgia. University of Michigan. Nova Science Publishers, 1997.
Mullet, Adam. A place to flea to. Riga, Latvia: The Baltic Times. 9 July 2008.