Chirbuli is the Adjaran egg dish, the region's butter-heavy answer to shakshuka. Eggs are cooked gently in erbo (clarified butter) with tomato, garlic, walnuts and a splash of sour plum juice rather than in oil. The Kobuleti-style chirbuli, from the Kobuleti coast of Adjara, is the named local variant. The dish belongs to the Muslim Adjaran kitchen, where butter rather than oil is the cooking fat.
Soft-set eggs in a rich, glossy, walnut-thickened tomato sauce, the clarified butter pooling around them, a tart edge from the sour plum cutting the fat. Eaten straight from the pan with bread, it is luxurious and savoury.
The clarified butter is the cooking medium, not oil. Onions, garlic and tomato are softened in the butter first, then ground walnuts are stirred in to thicken the sauce, and the sour plum juice balances the richness. Eggs are cracked directly into wells in the sauce and cooked covered, gently, so the whites set while the yolks stay runny. The butter keeps the eggs silky rather than tough.
Variations
A Kobuleti variant adds fresh herbs at the end. Some cooks stir in a spoonful of matsoni.
On the Palate
Where Chirbuli sits in the Georgian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
6 steps · 15 min
- 15 min
In a pan, melt 80g clarified butter; sauté 1 chopped onion and 3 cloves sliced garlic for 4 minutes.
- 27 min
Add 3 grated tomatoes, 100g ground walnuts and 1 tbsp sour plum juice (tkemali); simmer 6 minutes into a thick sauce.
Watch outStir the ground walnuts in until the sauce thickens to a spoon-coating body — the walnuts are the thickener here, not flour; too thin and the eggs won't sit in it.
- 33 min
Season with salt, pepper and 1 tsp dried coriander; taste for tartness.
- 47 min
Make 4 wells in the sauce and crack an egg into each; cover and cook over low heat 5-7 minutes until whites set but yolks stay soft.
Watch outCover and cook gently, pulling it the moment the whites set but the yolks still wobble — the buttery sauce keeps them silky if you don't overshoot.
- 52 min
Scatter chopped coriander and dill over the top.
- 62 min
Serve straight from the pan with crusty bread.
