Shkmeruli Recipe
შქმერული
This shkmeruli recipe fries a flattened chicken until the skin is crisp, then bakes the pieces in a garlic and milk sauce, the way it is made in Racha. About an hour from start to table.
Recipe by the Maspindzeli team in Tbilisi · Updated 18 Oct 2026 · From Shkmeri village near Oni, Upper Racha
Full recipe with the timeline, timers and US measures: maspindzeli.ge/recipes/shkmeruli/
Shkmeruli is chicken fried until golden and crisp, cut into pieces and covered with a sauce of crushed garlic and hot milk. It usually comes to the table still bubbling in a ketsi, a shallow clay dish. This shkmeruli recipe follows the home method from Racha: a small chicken flattened and fried under a weight, then finished briefly in the oven. On menus you will also see it spelled chkmeruli.
The name comes from Shkmeri, a tiny village at about 1,700 m in Upper Racha, some 20 km from Oni. Georgians credit its people with pairing fried chicken with garlic and milk, although chicken cooked with garlic is made all over the country and the stories about who invented the dish are only stories. In some Racha villages cooks still use water instead of milk.
At a supra, shkmeruli arrives hot once the meal is under way and goes in the middle of the table. Tbilisi restaurants often make it with cream, so it is richer than the village version. At home it takes about an hour, so it works for a weeknight dinner as well as for guests.
Timeline: what to do, and when
1 h 2 min from start to table · 30 min hands-on
Each bar is one step. Hands-on Waiting, while the oven, the pot or the dough does the work. Steps that sit inside a wait are done in parallel.
Recipe
Shkmeruli
Ingredients
Chicken
Garlic and milk sauce
Amounts are scaled. Times stay about the same, but a bigger pot takes a little longer to come to the boil.
Contains: milk.
You will need
- Kitchen scissors or a heavy knife
- Heavy frying pan, about 28 cm, ideally cast iron
- A weight: a smaller heavy pan, or a plate topped with a pot of water
- Clay ketsi, about 24 to 26 cm, or the cast-iron pan
- Pestle and mortar or a garlic press
- Oven (220 °C / 430 °F)
Method
- Heat the oven and flatten the chicken10 min hands-on· start here
Heat the oven to 220 °C / 430 °F; if you are using a clay ketsi, put it in the cold oven now so it warms up slowly. Cut out the backbone with kitchen scissors, open the chicken out skin side up and press hard on the breastbone to flatten it. Pat it very dry with kitchen paper and rub both sides with the salt and pepper.
- Fry the skin side under a weight15 min waiting· starts at +10 min
Heat the oil in the frying pan over a medium-high heat and lay the chicken in skin side down. Cover it with a sheet of baking paper, press it down with your weight and turn the heat to medium. Leave it alone for about 15 minutes, until the skin is deep golden and crisp.
- Crush the garlic8 min hands-on· starts at +12 min, during step 2
While the chicken fries, peel the garlic and pound it to a smooth paste with the salt in a mortar, or push it through a garlic press. Georgian cooks insist on crushed garlic, not chopped, because it melts into the milk.
- Fry the other side15 min waiting· starts at +25 min
Turn the chicken over, put the weight back and cook over a medium-low heat for 12 to 15 minutes more. It is done when the juices run clear from the thickest part of the thigh, or a thermometer there reads 75 °C / 165 °F.
- Cut and arrange5 min hands-on· starts at +40 min
Lift the chicken onto a board and cut it into about 10 pieces: drumsticks, thighs, wings and the breast in four. Take the hot ketsi out of the oven, stand it on a dry wooden board and arrange the pieces in it skin side up. If you are using the frying pan instead, keep the pieces on a plate for now.
- Make the garlic and milk sauce5 min hands-on· starts at +45 min
Pour off all but about 2 tbsp of fat from the pan and set it over a low heat. Add the butter and the garlic paste and stir for about a minute, until it smells sweet but has not coloured. Pour in the milk, scraping up the brown bits, bring it to a gentle simmer for 2 minutes and taste for salt.
- Bake until bubbling10 min waiting· starts at +50 min
Pour the sauce over and around the chicken in the ketsi, or return the pieces to the frying pan skin side up. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the sauce bubbles at the edges and has thickened slightly.
- Serve2 min hands-on· starts at +1 h
Scatter over the herbs, if using, and carry the dish to the table on a wooden board. Warn everyone that the ketsi stays very hot for a long time.
About 590 kcal per serving (a quarter of the chicken with sauce, without bread). This is an estimate from standard values for the ingredients, not a lab figure.
Take a piece or two at a time with plenty of sauce spooned over, and keep bread on the table to wipe the dish clean at the end. Hands are fine for drumsticks and wings.
Tips, swaps and variations
Tips from your host
- Dry skin is crisp skin. Pat the chicken dry, and if you have time, salt it and leave it uncovered in the fridge for an hour, or overnight, before frying.
- Use a proper weight. In Racha a clean stone does the job; at home a smaller heavy pan with a few tins inside works well. Even pressure gives even colour and an evenly cooked bird.
- Keep the garlic pale. Browned garlic turns bitter and spoils the sauce, so cook it over a low heat and add the milk as soon as it smells sweet.
- Treat a clay ketsi gently: warm it slowly in the oven, never put it cold onto a high flame, and never stand it hot on a cold or wet surface.
- The sauce is meant to be thin, more like a garlicky broth than a gravy, and bread does the mopping up. If you want it thicker, use the cream version rather than adding flour.
- Once the milk is in, keep the sauce at a gentle simmer. A hard boil can make it catch on the bottom of the pan or split.
Variations and swaps
- Richer Tbilisi style: use 150 ml milk and 150 ml double cream, or all single cream. The sauce comes out thicker and silkier, the way most restaurants serve it.
- Chicken pieces instead of a whole bird: brown 1.2 kg bone-in, skin-on thighs and drumsticks skin side down for 8 to 10 minutes and on the other side for 5, roast at 200 °C / 390 °F for 20 to 25 minutes, then add the sauce and bake for 10 minutes more.
- Poussins: Georgian cooks use small young chickens, so two poussins of 500 to 600 g are the closest match outside Georgia. Flatten them the same way and fry for 10 to 12 minutes on each side.
- Village garlic and water version: some cooks in Racha leave out the milk and loosen the garlic with about 150 ml of water instead. Skip the butter as well, and the dish is dairy-free.
- With sour cream: replace the milk with 80 g sour cream whisked into 100 ml water.
- Spices: some cooks add a pinch of ground coriander, utskho suneli (blue fenugreek, or regular ground fenugreek outside Georgia) or Svan salt to the sauce, or a little ajika for heat.
Serve it with
- Shoti or tonis puri, Georgian white bread, to mop up the sauce
- Mchadi, the flat cornbread of western Georgia
- Lobiani, the bean bread Racha is known for
- A plate of fresh herbs and a tomato and cucumber salad
- A dry white wine such as Tsolikouri or Rkatsiteli
Make ahead and storage
Shkmeruli is best eaten straight away, while the skin still has some crunch. Leftovers keep in the fridge for up to 2 days. Reheat them covered in a 180 °C / 355 °F oven for about 15 minutes, or gently in a pan, adding a splash of milk if the sauce has thickened. The sauce does not freeze well.
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