Georgia
Katmis Mtsvadi
Grilled chicken skewers marinated in tkemali, with onions and pomegranate
110 min·4 servings
Green tkemali plum sauce
A sour Georgian sauce of unripe green cherry plums cooked down with garlic and fresh herbs, sharply tart and savoury.
Tkemali is a Georgian sauce made from cherry plums; for the green version they are picked unripe in early summer, cooked soft, sieved and simmered down with garlic, dill, coriander, chilli and usually pennyroyal (ombalo). It is distinctly sour, hardly sweet, fresh and herbal with a little heat, and somewhere between a thin purée and ketchup in texture. That sourness is the point: it is served with grilled meat, fish, potatoes and beans, or stirred into stews as a souring agent in place of lemon or vinegar. Bottled tkemali is sold in Russian and Eastern European grocery shops, sometimes in Turkish or Caucasian supermarkets, and by mail order.
Substitute:
There is no ready-made substitute; sweet plum sauces or Chinese plum sauce are far too sweet and taste entirely different. The closest approach is to cook down unripe, sour plums or mirabelles yourself with garlic, dill, coriander and chilli, adding lemon juice if they lack acidity; without pennyroyal the characteristic minty, bitter note is missing, and a little dried mint only partly makes up for it.
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