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Kuritsa Po-Cherkesski
Circassian Chicken
Kuritsa Po-Cherkesski
The Circassian people, renowned for their beauty and bravery, inhabit the mountainous regions of the Caucasus. Legend has it that this chicken was named after a beautiful Circassian peasant girl, said to have ground the nuts by hand in preparing this dish for her lover, a prince of some kind who would come to her at midnight. Unfortunately, the legend ends there. We'll never know whether the girl's devoted cookery made a princess out of her, but Circassian Chicken is certainly an excellent dish.
Ingredients
2 whole chicken breasts (2½ lb/1.1 kg)
1½ pints (900 ml) cold water 1 bay leaf
1 onion, quartered
1 carrot, scraped and cut in half
½ teaspoon tarragon
6 black peppercorns
1¼ teaspoons salt
2 sprigs parsley
4 oz (120 g) walnut halves
4 oz (120 g) hazel-nuts
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 slices white bread, crusts removed
4 tablespoons double cream
¼ teaspoon paprika
Freshly ground white pepper to taste
Dash of cayenne
8 fluid oz (225 ml) of the chicken stock
Soft-leaved lettuce, parsley, walnut halves
Details
Serves: 6
Method
Put the chicken breasts in a stockpot, pour the cold water over them, and add the bay leaf, onion, carrot, tarragon, peppercorns, 1 teaspoon salt and parsley. Simmer for 45 minutes, or until the chicken is tender. Remove the chicken and strain the broth. Return the broth to the pot and cook it over high heat until it is reduced by half. Remove the skin from the chicken breasts, bone them, and cut the flesh into strips.
Pour boiling water over the walnut halves and slip off the thin skins. (This is a tedious process, but a necessary one, because the skins will make the sauce taste bitter. The hazel-nuts do not need to be peeled.) Then place the walnuts on a baking tray in a low oven to dry out. When the walnuts have dried out grind them together with the hazel-nuts in a food processor or nut grinder.
In a large frying pan sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil until golden. Soak the bread in the double cream, then add it to the sautéed onions without squeezing the liquid from it. Stir in the ground nuts, paprika, ¼ teaspoon salt, pepper, cayenne and 8 fluid oz (225 ml) of the reserved chicken stock. Mix well. Cool to room temperature.
Spread a serving platter with leaves of lettuce. Place a layer of the chicken strips in the centre of the platter, the strips radiating out like the spokes of a wheel. Cover the chicken with a layer of the nut sauce, then top with another layer of chicken, this one also radiating out from the centre and overlapping the bottom layer.
Top the chicken with more nut sauce and continue in this manner until all of the meat has been used, reserving enough sauce to decorate the top of the mound. Spread the remaining sauce over the top, piling it somewhat higher in the middle, and garnish with chopped parsley and walnut halves.
Serve at room temperature or very slightly chilled. The chicken may be prepared a day ahead of time and chilled, covered, in the refrigerator overnight, but it must be brought almost to room temperature before serving, otherwise its flavour will not come through.
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