It is a fact that Georgian cuisine consists mostly of meat dishes, and words, that refere to them, such as shashlyk, satsivi, chakhokhbili, and kharcho — are among the well known in many languages.
The key feature of Georgian cuisine is spices profusion, so that almost all kinds of courses are nessesary treated with spices. Usual herbs are coriander, tarkhun (tarragon), parsley, dill, mint, basil, thyme, dry herbs are often used. National spices are cinnamon, Imeretian saffron, cloves, coriander seeds. Very often they use khmeli-suneli — a special spicy mixture. In Georgian cuisine, all these spices do not directly work as hottness components, but rather affect flavor of dishes giving a smoky-sweet odour.
Some of the most popular meats are beef, lamb, and poultry — chicken and turkey, while fish is a rare dish.
Georgian cuisine goes in for vegetable dishes as well, and those may be served with meat dishes, or as a separate course. Among favorite vegetables there are beans, eggplants, and tomatoes. Not only cultivated vegetables, but also wild herbs like meadow peavine, nettle, and mallow are traditionally used for cooking.
A wide range of vegetable dishes emerges from a combination of some vegetable with variety of dressings.
Cheese is often a foreground for first and main courses, breads and confections.
It is hard to introduce Georgian cuisine without mentioning nuts that appear practically in all kinds of dishes: in soups, salads, main courses, and sweets. Many nut dressings and sauces go with vegetables, fish, and poultry.
Sauses take an exclusive part in Georgian cuisine. It is because of their variety, that Georgian cuisine gets a great deal of main courses, that have beans, eggplants, poultry and other foodstuff as a ground.
Roasting is the favorite way of cooking food. Moreover they use open fire not only for cooking meat, but also for fish, vegetable and even cheese dishes.
Confectionaries and sweets are not as numerous and original as meat and vegetable dishes.
For starter, they usually cook varied vegetable salads, eggplant paste, cold meat and fish dishes, and cheese. And whenever they cook, they garnish dishes for lunch or dinner with fresh greens — parsley, dill, tarragon, basil, spring onion, thyme, cress, mint — all year round!
FIRST COURSES
Of all Georgian main courses, soups are generally recognized as a key dish. That may be a meat, milk, or a vegetarian soup, it could lack body but its consistency is much more thick because of egg yolks or whole eggs, which are usually added while cooking.
Special flavor of Georgian soups results from using many sour agents — fruit juices, matsoni (sour milk), vinegar, and tkapi. The sour medium is a constant component, even with no eggs at all, just with fats or meats.
MAIN COURSES
Meats are key food of Georgian cuisine; basic meat is beef, lamb, pork, and poltry. The most popular dishes are shashlyk (kebab), chanakhi, chakhokhbili, satsivi, kupati (homemade sausage), and tholma. Greens, herbs and dry spices can dress meat in variety, so that many different dishes form the treasury of Georgian cuisine.
