Tinatin Mzhavanadze is one of the famous culinary bloggers of Georgia. She wrote more than one culinary bestseller, as she herself calls her works. Lives and works in Tbilisi.
In his books he talks not only about national cuisine, but also about Georgia, about people who live in the country, about traditions.
One of the most famous books of Tinatin Mzhavanadze is Georgia with Taste. In it, she describes how to cook lobio, satsivi, khachapuri and other national dishes, gives advice on how to eat them correctly, and reveals the secrets of cooking each of them.
Tasty Georgia
With his recipes Tinatin Mzhavanadze vividly, with her inherent racyness, tries to convey the taste of national dishes.
As they say in Georgia, fresh bread, wine and fresh greens are an occasion for acquaintances and friends to gather, but in practice, of course, the table should break from the abundance of national dishes. Moreover, Georgian cuisine is one of the most famous and rich in the world. At least once, but everyone should try it.
If you want to learn how to cook real Georgian dishes, check out the recipes from Tinatin Mzhavandze and try to reproduce the culinary masterpieces according to her advice, strictly following the instructions.
Georgian cuisine by Tinatin Mzhavanadze
Each region of Georgia has its own original khachapuri recipe. Adzharians were no exception and invented their two.
The dish prepared according to the first one resembles cheese lasagna - achma.
The second dish is prepared in the form of an open boat with an egg.
To get real Adjarian khachapuri from Tinatin Mzhavanadze, take yeast dough and fresh salted cheese.
In our country, it is customary to call khachapuri any flat cake from unleavened dough with meat or any other filling. But this is fundamentally wrong, since the real Georgian khachapuri, as Tinatin Mzhavanadze claims, is a tortilla with cheese filling, as the essence lies in the name itself. Khachapuri in the translation "cottage cheese and bread." Conventional pies based on unleavened dough are called hitchin. The sizes of real khachapuri can be completely different, there are differences in shape. Again, it all depends on which region it is baked in.
Today we will talk about Adjarian khachapuri from Tinatin Mzhavanadze. They are formed in the form of a boat.
The main criteria that distinguish real Adjarian khachapuri from all others
- The dough should be thin and elastic.
- The inside of the dough should be soft, and the sides and ears should be slightly crispy and crispy.
- The middle should be thin, but not torn.
- Dough and cheese - 1: 1.
- The filling should be very much so that it saturates the dough, which should stretch well when bitten.
- When baking, the egg yolk should remain liquid.
- After one boat you eat, you should want to eat another one - only in this case the cook will be pleased with himself.
How to eat khachapuri
In no case should you eat khachapuri with a fork and a knife. Only by hands! Otherwise, earn the disrespect and contemptuous views of the Georgians.
The first thing to do is tear off the crisp and mix it with cheese and egg filling. At the end there should be a bottom, which is rolled up and eaten up, like an ordinary pancake.
The centuries-old tradition of making dough
Few people know, but the dough for the first khachapuri was prepared only from water and flour. Even salt was not added.
Today there are many options. Mistresses of Georgia cook yeast, fresh or even puff.
But dough made on yogurt is considered traditional - it is a traditional Georgian dairy product that replaces yeast in the dough.
True, in Russia it is not so easy to find it, so you can use kefir, yogurt or other available sour-milk products. Such khachapuri are delicious only in hot form. Cooked with yeast, you can eat the next day, both preheated and cold.
In a regular dough, add yogurt, egg, flour, soda, granulated sugar, fine salt and sunflower oil. A lot of flour is not added to the dough, it should turn out sticky. After kneading, leave "rest" under the towel for 15 minutes, and only then form their boats.
Yeast dough is prepared with dry yeast and warm milk, it should stand at least 1 hour.
Khachapuri Stuffing
In the Caucasus, khachapuri is prepared only with a filling of young varieties of cheese: feta, mozzarella, Adyghe cheese, feta cheese, suluguni. You can use two types at once. If the cheese is very salty, it is soaked in water for 2-6 hours. Old cheeses stretch hot, while cooling, harden.
If you have only old cheese on hand and you are already set up to cook khachapuri, mix it with cottage cheese.
The greens and garlic in the filling are a modern interpretation, but quite acceptable.
You can add a raw egg.
How to properly form khachapuri
After the dough has infused, knead it and divide it into fist-sized balls.
Each ball needs to be rolled out so that its thickness is no more than 30 cm. It is better to flatten by hands. The middle should be thinner than the edges.
Turn from the edges as if wrapping a scarf, form a boat with your palms, let it lie down a bit. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.
Open the middle, put the filling there and send for 25 minutes to bake. Brush the edges with an egg. Bake for about 10 minutes, the time depends on the characteristics of the oven. The main thing is that the dough is slightly fried. Take out, in the middle, beat the egg so that the yolk remains intact.
When it is covered with a film, khachapuri can be taken out. By the way, they can not only be baked, but also fried in a pan.
Khachapuri Yeast
Ingredients per 10 servings:
- Dough:
- 1 kg of wheat flour.
- A tablespoon of dry yeast.
- Half a cup of warm milk.
- 4 cups of warm water.
- A teaspoon of sugar.
- Vegetable oil.
- Half a teaspoon of fine salt.
- 20 grams of butter.
- One chicken egg.
- Filling:
- 1 kg of suluguni cheese.
- 200 g of butter.
- 10 pieces of chicken eggs.
Cooking process:
1. Pour dry yeast, half sugar and half flour into the already warmed milk. Mix everything a little and set aside in a warm place for about 15 minutes.
2. Add the remaining flour, beat the egg and salt. Knead well and set aside to rise. Pour in vegetable oil. The dough should grow three times.
3. Filling - grated cheese, diluted with water to a state of gruel.
4. Form the boats and fill them with the filling.
5. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees and send the boats to bake for 10 minutes.
6. At the end of time, get them out, drive an egg into the middle of each khachapuri.
7. Bake until the egg is tightened with a thin film. Take out the khachapuri field and place a piece of butter in the middle of each.
Yogurt Khachapuri - Georgian Home Cuisine Recipe by Tinatin Mzhavanadze
It is better, of course, to take yogurt.
Ingredients for the dough:
- 200 g of butter.
- A glass of yogurt or any yogurt.
- A pinch of salt.
- Half a teaspoon of salt.
- 300 g of flour.
- Egg.
Ingredients for the filling:
- Egg.
- 250 g of Adyghe cheese.
Cooking process:
- Melt the butter in a water bath.
- Mix with yogurt. To salt. Mix everything with a mixer or whisk
- In a separate container, mix flour and soda.
- To mix two tests gradually, without ceasing to beat.
- It should be elastic dough.
- Divide it into 4 parts and form boats.
- Bake in the oven, preheated to 200 degrees, pre-greasing the sides of the egg.
- Fill the middle with broken cheese.
- Bake for 15 minutes. Do not forget to beat an egg a few minutes before turning it off.
- Put a piece of butter in the finished boats.
Secrets of making Khachapuri
If you decide to cook traditional Georgian khachapuri, make yogurt at home.
To do this, mix one and a half liters of milk with a glass of kefir and wrap it well. Put for 6 hours in a warm place, and then send the mass to the refrigerator. It should thicken.
After kneading, let the dough “rest”: it will become more elastic, make it easy to form boats, and khachapuri will turn out soft and melting in your mouth.
If you put salty cheese in the filling, cut it into small pieces before soaking. So he’d better get wet. A large piece in the middle can remain salty and ruin the taste of the dish.
It is better not to grate the cheese into the filling, but crush it by hand.