წიწილა ტაბაკა, tsitsila tobacco, from the Arabic borrowed طبق, tabbaq "dish", "tray", "plate") - a dish of Georgian cuisine. It is a chicken cooked in a local variety of a frying pan with a lid "tapaka", which comes from the same Arabic word (Georgian ტაფა, tapha "frying pan"). When cooking in such a pan, the carcass was flattened before frying.

In Russia, this cooking method was called "Chicken tobacco"

Recipe

Necessary products

• chicken - 1 pc.
• sour cream - 1 tsp
• ghee - 20 g
• garlic - 1-2 cloves
• salt, spicy herbs

Cooking method

Rinse the carcass, cut the breast, unfold the chicken, while making a notch along the spine from the inside, beat it slightly, giving it a flat shape, rub with garlic, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Before frying, grease the inside with sour cream and put on a frying pan preheated with fat with the back facing up, put a press lid on top. When the inside of the chicken is well browned, brush the back with sour cream, turn it down, put the press on and fry until tender.

Put the finished chicken on a dish and decorate with herbs. Serve the pickles and spicy adjika separately.

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See what "Chicken Tabaka" is in other dictionaries:

Present, number of synonyms: 3 dish (133) chicken tapaka (2) chicken tobacco (1) ... Synonym dictionary

Tobacco chicken, tobacco chicken ... Spelling dictionary-reference

Noun., Number of synonyms: 2 chicken tabaka (3) chicken tapaka (1) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary

Frenzy. (... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Chicken tapaka Chicken tapaka (Georgian წიწილა ტაბაკა, tsitsila tobacco, from Arabic borrowed طبق, tabbaq dish, tray, plate) is a dish of Georgian cuisine. It is a chicken cooked in a local variety of a frying pan with ... ... Wikipedia

CHICKEN nka; pl. lyata, lyat; m. 1. Chick of a hen or other bird of the order of chickens. Small, yellow c. Chicken with chickens. C. pheasant. Breeding chickens. * Chickens are counted in autumn (last). 2. A dish made from chicken chicks. Fried Chicken ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (chicken tapaka, cargo. წიწილა ტაბაკა "tsitsila tobacco" from the name of the Georgian frying pan in which it is cooked) is a popular dish of the Transcaucasian cuisine in Russia. Represents c ... Wikipedia

Books

• BreadSalt, No. 10, December 2014,. In December, we are preparing for the New Year! The New Year's table is not complete without a bird, so we have collected 10 impeccable chicken recipes for your holidays. Chicken tobacco, English pie, roll ...
• Culinary encyclopedia. Volume 40. C - Z (Chicken - Barley), Absent. In volume 40: - everything about tea, chocolate and eggs; - the history of the invention of chips; - recipes for strudel and eclairs; - how to cook tobacco chicken; - what is quaternary salt and chimichurri; - what dish ...

The question is really interesting. Indeed, in this very appetizing dish of Georgian cuisine, tobacco is not provided for by any of the most daring experiments of the most desperate chefs. Unless a drunken eater mistakenly shook off his cigar ashes. So why is a tobacco chicken so called?

Why is tobacco chicken

The explanation is actually very simple. It's all about the illiteracy or laziness of Russian chefs who have adopted traditions. The original name was perceived by ear, and the Georgian language is distinguished by some throatiness. So the purely Georgian word "tapaka" was heard with the letter "b" in the middle. Tapa is a heavy stone frying pan. Naturally, with a thick bottom. And a heavy press lid.

Traditionally, in the old days, dishes were often called by the name of the dishes in which they were cooked. So the chicken fried in tapa became known as tapaka.

How to cook chicken tobacco at home

In the absence of a stone tapaka, a good cast iron skillet with a matching lid will do.

Ingredients

• chicken weighing up to 700 g;
• a tablespoon of Abkhaz adjika, thick, like a paste;
• 5 large cloves of garlic;
• a tablespoon of olive oil for frying;
• half a glass of warm boiled water;
• a bunch of fresh cilantro;
• you can pomegranate seeds for decoration.

How to cook - step by step recipe

Rinse the carcass, cut off the wings and tail. Cut from the side of the breast with a sharp knife. Gently rub adjika into the chicken on all sides. Salting is not necessary - everything you need is already in adjika.

Preheat a skillet with butter, place the chicken upside down and cover. When a brown, crispy crust appears, the carcass must be turned upside down and covered again.

Peel the garlic, crush and chop finely enough. Pour the garlic with warm boiled water and let it brew for 10 minutes. When the chicken is browned, brush on all sides with warm garlic water.

Hold on fire a little more without a lid.

Place the chicken on a warm plate, sprinkle with cilantro and pomegranate seeds.

Chicken tobacco

Before offering you a recipe for making tobacco chicken, I would like to tell you what a real tobacco chicken is.

There are a lot of recipes with this name on the Internet now. These recipes alone have nothing to do with tobacco chicken. There is chicken, but the recipe is terribly far from the original.

To begin with, all the recipes for cooking chicken in a sleeve, in a baking dish, on a jar, etc. they have nothing to do with tobacco.

Let's try to get back to basics.

History of the Chicken Tabaka dish

Chicken tabaka is a dish of Georgian cuisine, which during the Soviet era became not just international, but all-Union.

In general terms, it can be described as follows: chicken, seasoned with garlic and spices, and fried in a special way.

The name speaks about a special way - tobacco chicken. It is clear that there is no tobacco in the recipe. But there is tapa.

Tapa is such a heavy cast iron pan with a ribbed bottom. This frying pan comes with a heavy cast iron lid or screw press that presses the lid against the base of the frying pan.

Already in Soviet times, such dishes were very rare. But, the Soviet people were the most resourceful people on earth. The general scarcity gave rise to a lot of ideas. In the USSR, tapa was collected from improvised means - a cast-iron iron was placed on a metal lid (it could be replaced with a frying pan of a smaller diameter) (in the 60-70s there were still such ones) or a dumbbell, or a pot of water. It turned out to be a gorgeous tapa.

In the Russian language, the words tapa and tapak did not take root, and turned into a familiar tobacco. And this discrepancy did not confuse anyone - the finished chicken was generously sprinkled with pepper and spices, which after frying became like grains of tobacco.

So the Georgian tapaka chicken turned into the Soviet tobacco chicken.

In addition to a special frying pan, the procedure for marinating meat is mandatory. It is marinating that allows you to get juicy and aromatic meat under a crispy crust. If the chicken is not marinated, then the chicken will be fried, not the tobacco chicken.

And now the recipe.

Chicken tobacco recipe

To prepare chicken tobacco you will need:

• Chicken itself weighing about 1 kg
• Garlic - 5 cloves
• Vegetable oil
• Spices, herbs, salt and black pepper to taste

Cooking chicken tobacco:

1. Cut the chicken lengthwise along the sternum. Spread out on a cutting board. Remove veins, blood clots, films. Dry with a paper towel.
2. Place the chicken in a plastic bag and beat gently with a hammer. In some recipes, I suggest simply kneading the carcass with your hands. This is not enough. You just need to fight back.
3. Mix spices, salt and garlic pressed through a press. Brush the inside and outside of the chicken with this mixture.
4. Place the chicken in a lidded bowl and marinate. Some recipes suggest marinating for 2 hours. This will be enough, but ... If you leave the chicken for 2-3 hours at room temperature and then refrigerate it overnight, you will end up with a completely different chicken. And you will not regret marinating the meat for so long.
5. Pour vegetable oil into the pan. Heat up.
6. Place the chicken skin side up in the skillet. Press down on the bird with a load. Fry over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Then turn over and fry for another 15-20 minutes.

Chicken tabaka is served with fresh vegetables and, of course, with sauce. The sauce is at your discretion.

Chicken tabaka is a well-known dish for a long time. But many still do not know how to cook it, or maybe they just forgot. A proven recipe for you. But first, a little history.

The Story of One Dish: Chicken Tabaka

Chicken tobacco (correct: tapaka) is a popular dish in Georgian cuisine. Its name comes from the name of the Georgian frying pan in which the chicken is cooked. What is this dish? Chicken fried until crispy with garlic and spices. It is cooked in a special frying pan with a tapaka lid.

The Story of One Dish: Chicken Tabaka

According to some sources, this dish has Armenian roots. Because tobacco or tapak means “flat, pressed, flattened”, and tapacats translates as “fried”, and in the second meaning it is also “flattened”. And they cook in Armenia such a dish called tapakats hav - in translation "fried chicken" or "flattened chicken".

All of these words, of course, lead to the Arabic ‘tabbaq’, which means ‘flat’. It is known that when tobacco chicken is cooked, its carcass is unfolded and flattened before being placed in a frying pan. And they do it for a reason, but under a heavy lid or a special press.

So the recipe:

You will need:
chicken - 1 pc.
sour cream - 1 tsp
ghee or butter - 20 g
garlic - 1-2 cloves
tomato sauce (adjika, chili) - 50 g
salt, spicy herbs, black pepper.

Wash, cut and unfold the carcass. Do not forget to make a notch along the spine from the inside. The carcass must be beaten off, squeezed out the garlic and grated on the meat, seasoned with salt and pepper (black pepper is poured without stint).

Directly, before frying from the inside, you need to spread the meat with sour cream, then immediately put it on a hot frying pan with the inside side down, press down on top with a press. Fry until golden brown, then spread sour cream on the back, turn the chicken over and press again. Now fry until tender.

Place the finished tobacco chicken on a plate and garnish with herbs. Serve a hot sauce, such as adjika, separately.

More interesting poultry recipes

According to some sources, for the first time, a chicken fried to a crisp was served in Georgia. Other experts say that Armenia is the homeland of this dish. Undoubtedly, the cuisines of these countries are famous for the abundance of various spices and seasonings. Here you can find allspice, aromatic cilantro, piquant garlic, “cheerful” saffron, and many other herbs and seeds that can add spice to the dish.

The history of the origin of the name

There are several versions of the history of the origin of the name of the mentioned dish. According to one of them, the combination of the words "chicken tabaka" came from the peculiarities of the preparation of poultry. The fact is that before frying it was sprinkled with black pepper, which has some resemblance to tobacco.

According to another version, the chicken cooked in this way has nothing to do with the herb of the same name. The name itself in the original sounds like "tsitsilla Tapaka" - from the Georgian word "tapha" (tapa). This is the name of the special frying pan in which it is customary to cook this dish. Thus, the name of the dish is translated as “chicken in a pan”. Tapa must be made of cast iron or stone so that it can withstand high temperatures.

In the Armenian translation, “tapak” means “press”, that is, “flat, flattened”. The second meaning of this word is "fried". In Armenia, this dish was called "Tapakats Khav". Thus, the name can be translated as “pressed fried chicken”. In the Russian-language version, the name began to sound exactly in the form in which we know it now.

Cooking nuances

There are many versions of how to properly cook tobacco chicken. It all depends on the area where it is prepared, as well as on what spices are used there. It is believed that in the original version, only salt, pepper and chopped garlic were present in the recipe. When creating a modern version of tobacco chicken cooking, each chef prefers to add spices as they see fit. Someone prefers to marinate meat in lemon juice mixed with spices. Some people like to use sour cream. In this case, the meat is particularly tender.

Those who like it hot marinate the meat in wine or tomato sauce. There are a huge number of marinade recipes. However, in almost all variations on the theme of chicken tobacco, cilantro, basil and a large amount of pepper are always present. Almost no Caucasian dish is complete without them.

A versatile chicken marinade recipe can be made by mixing the juice of one lemon with salt and pepper.

Recipe

To prepare chicken tobacco, the bird is pre-gutted, cut along the breast, unrolled, beaten and rubbed with a marinade with spices. In order for the seasonings to be absorbed, it is better to keep the meat in the marinade for two hours at room temperature, and then place it in the refrigerator overnight.

It is better to fry meat in a preheated and oiled frying pan. The insides that remain are placed on top. In order for the meat to cook well, cover it with a lid. It will act as a press. If you make the dish according to all the rules, then the chicken needs to be cooked over an open fire. It is better if it is not a stove, but a fire. Then the chicken will turn out with a crispy golden brown crust. To give stability to the dishes in which the meat is cooked, it is necessary to install a grate or metal sheet over the fire, where the frying pan is placed.

As for the pan itself, it can be either round or square. The main thing is that it has a thick ribbed bottom and a heavy lid that could crush the meat during the cooking process. In order for the carcass to completely fit in the dishes, the width or diameter of the bottom should be at least 25-20 cm. Some craftsmen, in the absence of an original tapa frying pan, cook tobacco chicken in ordinary dishes, and use sports dumbbells as oppression. If grandmother has an old cast iron iron in the attic, it can also be used as a weighting agent.

Cooking time depends on the size of the bird. Usually the roasting process takes an hour and a half. In this case, the carcass should be periodically turned over so that it is evenly fried on each side. The finished bird is generously sprinkled with finely chopped herbs. Fried meat goes well with fresh vegetables, and it can also be served as a separate dish. As a seasoning, you can use a spicy tomato sauce such as adjika.

Dry red wine, as well as freshly squeezed grape or pomegranate juice, are perfect for it.

For information on how to cook tobacco chicken, see the video below.