Ajika is a mouthwatering type of meze that can be consumed every meal of the day. You may be thinking about what ajika means due to its strange name if you haven't heard it before. Let's put it this way: Ajika means flavor, traveling to brand-new lands with fragrant tomatoes and peppers! Originally from the Caucasus, this meze is a mixture that can be easily prepared with ingredients that can be found at home and excite the palates.
Ajika, which flavors snacks in the afternoon as well as cheering up breakfast, is a dip that attracts attention with its benefits. Ajika, which carries the healing of a thousand kinds of spices to meals, is good for anemia and accelerates blood circulation. Ajika also provides the nutritious oils it contains and the components the body needs.
You can combine flavor and health with recipes that can be enriched with different ingredients; you can color meals with this satisfying dip. You can dip your bread into ajika at breakfast, use it as a seasoning in meals, serve it as a sauce accompanying meat and fish. If you can't get enough of ajika, try it as a pasta sauce or chip dip.
What are Ingredients and Ajika Spices?
The main ingredient of Ajika is tomato paste. If you want your ajika's consistency to be perfect, if you want someone to beg for it, if you want tasters to line up to get recipes, you need a natural and delicious tomato paste. You can comfortably use Jr. SousChef's natural tomato paste, which is produced from delicious Mediterranean tomatoes; you can be sure that it will add flavor to your ajika.
The ajika ingredients you need to make a delicious dip at home:
- 6 tbsp. Jr. SousChef’s natural tomato paste
- 3 tbsp. red pepper paste
- 4 cloves of garlic
- Half a glass of finely ground bread or bread crumbs
- Half a glass of ground walnuts
- 4-5 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. sesame
- Black pepper
- Cumin
- Thyme
- Chili flakes or paprika
- Dried basil
- Allspice
How to Make Ajika?
You can add any spice to the ingredients. It's up to you to diversify the recipe to your taste. You can add a pinch of salt to the recipe if the salt content of the tomato paste you use is low. Steps to follow for Ajika recipe:
- Put the olive oil in a pan. Add tomato and pepper pastes, and lower the heat after the oil is heated.
- Roast the sauces until fragrant. Prevent paste from burning and sticking to the pan by stirring frequently.
- Then add the finely ground walnut to the sauces. Stir and roast until the walnut oil gets into the paste thoroughly.
- Meanwhile, peel and grate the garlic. You can also use the garlic crusher if you like.
- Take a pinch of the spices and add to the mixture after the walnut completely gets into the sauce.
- Add the garlic and leave the mixture to cool after adding the desired spices.
- Gradually add bread crumbs to the ajika, which has cooled down, and adjust its consistency as you wish.
- You can serve the ajika by resting it in the refrigerator for a while and pouring olive oil on it.
You can also add different flavors to the ajika. You can prepare eggplant ajika by adding 2-3 tablespoons of eggplant paste while roasting the tomato and pepper pastes. You can roast 5-6 peppers and 2 red peppers if you want to taste more pepper. You can add a completely different dimension to the sauce by adding the peppers that you peel and finely chop into the ajika sauce you prepare.
How to Store Ajika?
You can't just make such a delicious dip and consume it for one day. But it's not every day you make ajika. Then it's best to make ajika at once and store it! Thus, you can always keep the addictive ajika at your disposal after eating once.
Ajika is easy to store. All you need is a jar with a lid properly put on and some olive oil. Prepare the ajika dip and put it in jars just like when making tomato paste. Then pour some olive oil on it and close the jar tightly. You can consume the dip you keep in a cool and dry place at any time. Bon appétit!
