Oven chicken

Chicken-based recipes today form the basis of hot dishes for the everyday and festive table. This meat is fairly light, but very nutritious, bearing the benefit even of a child’s body. In the kitchen of the peoples of the Caucasus has its own special dish based on it - of course, we are talking about "tobacco chicken", spicy, incredibly aromatic, with a crispy crust.

If you do not take into account the duration of the marinating of poultry, it is prepared very quickly, and due to its unpretentiousness in relation to the side dish fits any table. How to cook chicken tobacco in the oven and in the pan correctly?

Where did the name of the dish come from?

In fact, the reason why chicken tobacco is called so is still argued. If we talk about the Georgian spelling, it is rather a "chicken tapak", since the frying pan in which it is cooked is called "tapha", and the voiced consonant has already appeared from the Arabic word "tabbaq", which stands for dish or tray.

The peculiarity of the frying pan used for cooking the bird is not only its depth and material, but also the cast-iron lid, which acts as a load: thus the carcass is flattened. Outside the Caucasus (and the recipe was sold around the world rather quickly) in the absence of the original “tapa”, the hostess mostly laid a heavy load on the lid of a smaller diameter in order to achieve the closest effect possible.

It is noteworthy that in the historic homeland chicken tobacco is not an independent full-fledged dish, but only a kind of preparation, which can later be used in almost any recipe for lunch or dinner. But in this case, no condiments other than black ground pepper and bird rubbing salt are taken.

An alternative version of the origin of the name, and in its most common form, is based on the appearance of the finished dish: richly flavored with herbs, the chicken seems to be really powdered with small dried tobacco. Perhaps for the option that is prepared as an independent hot on the holiday table, this is the most reliable explanation.

Georgian tobacco recipe with professional recommendations

As previously mentioned, this dish is cooked in a pan, and for a person who does not know the subtle differences between national cuisines, the algorithm and the final result are absolutely identical to those obtained by simply frying the chicken without a side dish.

Nevertheless, there are a number of features that allow us to confidently distinguish between really similar, but far from identical dishes. And first of all it concerns the pan. It must be stone or cast iron, with thick walls and bottom, have a diameter of at least 25 cm, otherwise the bird will not lie correctly. Experts call the optimal figure 35 cm. To date, such dishes can be found even among the proposals of domestic manufacturers, the cost varies between 1000-3500 rubles.

Composition:

• Young chicken carcass - 800 g
• Ground black pepper - 1 tsp.
• Salt large - 1 tsp.
• Butter - 30 g
• Lemon - 1 pc.
• Garlic cloves - 3 pcs.

Cooking:

1. Choose a not too large bird, focusing on the size of your pan: ideally, no pieces should be cut off from the chicken. Rinse it, make a central incision along the abdominal cavity, beat off with a wooden mallet on all sides, so that the bones begin to break.
2. Squeeze lemon juice into a small bowl: professionals advise dividing it along a longitudinal line — surprisingly, but that leaves much more fluid. Throw in the same bowl salt and black pepper, as well as peeled, chopped and passed through a press garlic.
   
3. Rub the bird with the resulting marinade outside, leave in the fridge for 1.5-2 hours. Ideally, pickle the chicken for 10-12 hours, i.e. remove it in the cold at night, after wrapping it in cling film. Such a long process causes the subsequent aroma and tenderness of meat.
4. Heat the pan, put the butter in it, wait until it melts. Then lower the bird in the pan cut up, lower the lid on it. If you do not have a special pan, take a lid of a smaller diameter (literally 2-3 mm), place the load in the form of a stone or a large container with water on top. It is important that the cover at the same time did not allow the air and heat to come out, so it should almost completely correspond to the size of the pan.
5. Cook chicken in the back for 15 minutes. over medium heat, then turn it over on the belly, set the load again and fry for another 20 minutes. After that, turn it over again, remove the load, but leave the lid, and then the bird for 15-20 minutes.

Readiness is easy to check with a sharp stick, which needs to pierce a chicken at an arbitrary point: a light, translucent juice suggests that the pan can be removed from the fire.

Spicy tobacco chicken in the oven without side dish

According to the classical algorithm, the dish turns out to be quite fat, especially if we take into account that the bird is skin-preserved and is subjected to thermal exposure using butter, i.e. extra fat. This makes the final product difficult to digest, especially if it is subsequently served with a very satisfying side dish: potatoes, cereals, etc. Therefore, often the hostess try to ease the dish a bit, replacing frying by baking. But how to bake chicken tobacco in the oven to preserve the classic taste and appearance?

Composition:

• Chicken carcass - 0.8-1 kg
• Adjika - 1 tbsp.
• Hmeli-suneli - 1 tsp
• Onion - 1 pc.
• Carrots - 1 pc.
• Celery root - 1 pc.
• Garlic cloves - 2 pcs.
• Salt - to taste

Cooking:

1. In a large saucepan, boil water (2 liters), throw the onion in a husk, celery root and carrots cut in half. Be sure to wash the vegetables before that. Due to the fact that they are not crushed, the broth will be transparent, but fragrant. Salt and cook it under the lid for 25-30 minutes.
2. Wash the bird, cut along the belly along, press down from the back so that it is well flattened. Walk on top of the gavel or wooden rolling pin, but do not let a complete fracture of the bones.
3. Mix in the bowl adjika (it should not be tomatoes), hops-suneli, chopped cloves of garlic, rub the chicken with this mixture and leave it for 3-4 hours. , dried coriander and fresh parsley. Portion of each ingredient vary according to your taste, grind them with a pestle and let it brew for 6-8 hours.
4. If you are worried about the softness of the meat, bake the chicken tobacco in the oven in the sleeve for 30 minutes, then transfer to a baking sheet and allow to redden. The baking temperature in this case will be 180 degrees and will be unchanged. Then the broth, which was prepared at the very beginning, is not needed.
5. An alternative and more frequent method is roasting on a grid, which is placed on the lower level of the oven. Under the grate have a baking tray, where they pour the broth. Every 20-25 minutes chicken is poured over broth. The total baking time is 45-50 minutes. at a temperature of 170 degrees.

If you need golden brown skin, set the "grill" mode for the last 5-10 minutes, and move the grate to the uppermost level of the oven.

You can cook tobacco chicken and in the slow cooker, where you need to choose the "frying" mode, but then buy a small bird, otherwise it will not fit in the bowl. Classical serving is carried out with fresh herbs and vegetables, as well as accompanied by sauce in a separate bowl.