Adjika

What it is¶

Adjika (also ajika) is a thick, intensely hot and salty paste of chillies ground with garlic, salt and a blend of herbs and spices typically including coriander seed and leaf, blue fenugreek (utskho suneli), savory, dill and sometimes marjoram or walnuts. It exists as red adjika, made from dried or ripe red chillies, and green adjika, from fresh green chillies and herbs. The word is usually explained as the Abkhaz for salt — fittingly, as traditional adjika is heavily salted and was originally a way of preserving the chilli harvest.

Across the former Soviet Union "adjika" also names a quite different product: a milder, saucy, often cooked relish of tomatoes, sweet peppers, garlic and sometimes horseradish, eaten like ketchup.

Origins¶

Chillies reached the Caucasus after the sixteenth century, and in the humid, subtropical west of Georgia and in Abkhazia they became a local obsession. Megrelian cooking in Samegrelo is noted for being the hottest in Georgia, and adjika is its signature condiment. Stories that shepherds salted their flocks with chilli-laced salt to keep them from eating grass, and so invented adjika, are colourful but unverified.

Adjika spread across the Soviet Union in the twentieth century, largely in the milder tomato form, and is still made in large batches at harvest time in Georgian and Russian households.

What goes in it¶

Flavour¶

Red adjika is blisteringly hot and salty, with a warm, herbal, faintly nutty spice background; it is used by the half-teaspoon. Green adjika is fresher and grassy, with coriander and garlic up front. The tomato-based Russian style is sweet, sour and much milder.

How to use it¶

• Rubs: mixed with oil and rubbed on pork or lamb before grilling as mtsvadi, or on chicken before roasting.
• Stews and beans: a spoonful in kharcho (beef and walnut soup) or lobio (beans).
• With cheese and cornmeal: a dab alongside ghomi (Megrelian cornmeal) and sulguni cheese.
• Seasoning: stirred into sour cream or yoghurt as a dip, or into butter for grilled corn or potatoes.
• Tomato adjika: as a table sauce with meat, dumplings and bread.

Making it at home¶

About 250 g red adjika · 30 minutes, plus soaking

You need

• 250 g fresh hot red chillies, stems removed (or 60 g dried hot red chillies, soaked 30 minutes and drained)
• 1 head garlic (about 10–12 cloves), peeled
• 2 tbsp coriander seeds, toasted
• 1 tbsp blue fenugreek (utskho suneli), or 1 tsp ordinary fenugreek seed, toasted
• 1 tbsp dried savory
• 1 tsp dill seed
• A small bunch coriander leaves (about 20 g), optional
• 30 g walnuts (optional)
• 1–2 tbsp coarse salt

Method

1. Wearing gloves, roughly chop the chillies; deseed some if you want slightly less heat.
2. Grind the coriander seed, fenugreek, savory and dill seed to a powder.
3. Put the chillies, garlic, walnuts and coriander leaves through a meat grinder twice, or pound or blend to a coarse, thick paste.
4. Mix in the spices and salt. Start with 1 tbsp and add more for a longer-keeping, more traditional paste.
5. Pack into a clean jar, press down and refrigerate. Leave a day before using for the flavours to settle.

Variations¶

• Green adjika: fresh green chillies with plenty of coriander, dill, mint and garlic; used fresh.
• Dry adjika: the paste spread thin and dried, then crumbled as a seasoning salt; close to Svanetian salt (svanuri marili).
• Tomato adjika: ripe tomatoes, red peppers, garlic, chilli and sometimes horseradish or apple, cooked down and bottled; mild.
• Relatives: North African harissa and Indonesian sambal fill a similar role.

Buying and storing¶

Traditional red adjika, with plenty of salt and little moisture, keeps for months in a tightly closed jar in the fridge. Less salty homemade adjika, green adjika and any version loosened with oil should be refrigerated and used within about 2 weeks, or frozen. Bottled tomato adjika must be processed like other preserves and refrigerated once opened.

See also¶

• chilli pepper
• fenugreek
• savory
• harissa
• coriander seed
• sambal