Chicken Chakhokhbili

A young girl’s future was once determined by her skill in preparing chicken by this old Georgian method. When she came of marriageable age, each Georgian girl was given a whole chicken and told to prepare chakhokhbili from it. Only if she could cut the chicken up into seventeen precise pieces was she considered ready for matrimony.

Fortunately, times have changed. Here, for modern ease of preparation, the chicken is divided into only eight pieces, but the beauty and taste of the dis