Day Two: Georgian Khachapuri

The best meal I ever ate was at a Georgian restaurant in St. Petersburg called Tbiliso. Before then, I did not even know what Georgian food was. After eating the meal, I was sorry I did not know what it was. The spices in the food reminded me of the Persian food my grandfather would make for me and my family enjoyed together. I plan to make two Georgian recipes during this week, the first being Georgian cheese bread (or khachapuri).

The cheese bread is in the back, behind the traditional beef soup.

At Tbiliso, our slice of cheesy goodness was made in house and topped with deliciously tangy homemade cheese. I doubted the recipe I had would come close to that (from what I saw on Google Image Search, khachapuri is an incredibly varied food item), but the concept of cheese bread is so good that I figured I'd enjoy it no matter the form it was in.

I got this recipe for Emeruli Khachapuri from The Classic Cuisine of Soviet Georgia. I couldn't find the English Lancashire the recipe called for, so I substituted with the suggested medium sharp white cheddar and Monterey jack.

Click the link below to get to the cooking!
I started by preparing all of the ingredients I needed for the first part of the recipe (as a good cook should!):

This dough was pretty simple: yogurt, oil (the recipe called for sunflower oil, but I used vegetable oil instead), salt, baking soda, and flour.

I mixed all of the ingredients except for the flour together. Using yogurt in the dough was an interesting addition that, according to the recipe, made the dough more homemade.

Adding the flour and mixing it up a bit made the dough clump up, so it was time to knead!

Compared to the pelmeni dough which stuck to my fingers and clung to dear life when I tried to remove it, this dough was a joy to work with. Good thing, too, because I had to knead it for six minutes.

As the dough rested, I prepared to make the cheese mixture. Only two ingredients here: cheese (medium sharp cheddar and Monterey jack) and egg. The preparation sort of reminds me of the cheese filling in lasagna.

Two blocks of cheese and one cruddy little cheese grater? Let's do this.

The recipe called for a pound of cheese. I should have used less, as you will soon see.

Time to form the dough! Again, I don't have a rolling pin. Luckily, I have a pizza pan that's about the same size as I need to stretch out the dough. (See that brown crusty tint? That's age. Delicious, delicious age.)

I floured the pan and stretched the dough out by hand. This picture clearly shows where I stretched out the dough too thin. This will affect me later.

I put the massive mound of cheese mixture on the dough...

...and brought the dough together over the cheese. I tore the dough as I did and sloppily tried to patch it up. Oh boy.

I flipped over the dough, coated it with egg I reserved from the cheese mixture egg, and cut a small hole into the top of the bread.

I put it into the oven and let the magic happen. The magic didn't go as well as planned. Too much cheese combined with dough that's too thin led to cheese bleeding all over the pan I cooked it in.

The crust was golden and pretty, but in a perfect world there wouldn't be cheese everywhere. I distributed small slices of it to Amber, my father, and myself because I figured that would be enough. Oh, was it delicious! It was nothing like what I had in Russia, but I would definitely make it again.

Next time, I plan to use less cheese and be a little more careful when stretching the dough.