INGREDIENTS

• 1 gutted fatty chicken or turkey weighing up to 2 kg.;
• 500-800 g. of peeled walnuts;
• 1 kg. onion;
• 4-8 cloves of garlic;
• a large bunch of cilantro;
• 1 tbsp. white wine vinegar;
• 1 tbsp. ground Imeretian saffron;
• 1 tbsp. ground coriander;
• 1 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper;
• ground cinnamon on the tip of a knife;
• 2-6 cloves;
• salt;
• butter for lubrication.

METHOD

1. Put the bird in a large saucepan, cover with cold water so that the bird is covered by 3-4 cm. Bring to a boil over high heat, remove the foam, reduce the heat to low and cook for 1.5 hours. Try not to overcook: the bird should not fall apart. Remove the finished bird from the broth and leave to cool. Cool the broth too and refrigerate until a crust of fat forms on the surface.
2. Lubricate the cooled bird with butter and place in an oven preheated to 190 degrees to brown for 30 minutes. and do not forget to put a bowl of water in the same place so that the meat remains juicy. Remove the finished bird from the oven, cool and cut into neat identical pieces.
3. Cut the onion into cubes - as finely as possible. Collect the fat from the broth, put it in a pan and fry the onion in it over low heat until translucent, 10 minutes.
4. Crush the cilantro in a mortar and squeeze the juice through cheesecloth (or scroll in a blender until a homogeneous liquid slurry is obtained, and put this slurry into cheesecloth folded in several layers and squeeze out the juice).
5. Grind walnuts into flour, mix thoroughly with pepper, coriander, Imeretian saffron and cilantro juice. Pound cloves (to taste) with salt in a mortar, add cinnamon and mix with nuts.
6. Dilute the nuts with a ladle of cooled broth into a gruel. Pound the garlic with salt in a mortar until absolutely homogeneous, add to the nuts and mix.
7. Place a saucepan with 6-8 cups of strained broth over medium heat (you won't need the remaining broth). When the broth boils, reduce the heat and put the nut mass in portions, stirring constantly so that the nuts do not stick together. When all the nuts are added, bring the mass to a boil and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add onion and bring to a boil again. Then put the chopped bird, bring to a boil, pour in the vinegar and put the bay leaf.
8. Check satsivi for salt and spiciness, cook over low heat for 5 minutes, turn off, and let stand covered for at least 10 minutes. The dish can be served hot or cold with hominy, as it is with it that the whole charm of the taste of satsivi is revealed.

For lazy gourmets who have no time to mess with the bones, there is another option: after cooking and cooling, the poultry meat must be separated from the bones and neat pieces of meat should be placed in boiling satsivi. True, in this case, the dish is eaten twice as fast! Onions can be put during cooking along with the bird, and then boiled, rub it through a sieve - then satsivi will be guaranteed to be completely “smooth”.