Hot and tasty flat cakes are a great hearty addition to any first dish. They are also good for snacking, tea drinking. And if it is a tortilla with filling, then it will completely replace a full meal. The peoples of the North Caucasus call this dish hychina. These are thin cakes with various fillings. Chicken and potatoes are especially popular. Not a single feast among Karachais or Balkars is complete without such a treat.
In the Caucasus
Probably every tourist, returning from a ski resort, enthusiastically tells how, after a long ski trip, he drank tea with a delicious cake. Fragrant, tasty, with a viscous filling, at such moments it seems the best in the world. Khichin with cheese and potatoes is really a very interesting, national dish, which can be prepared at home.
By the way, each mistress makes them their own way. Some roll out the dough very thinly and fry products in a dry pan, greasing with a small amount of melted butter. Others, on the other hand, make hichin with cheese and potatoes much thicker and fry in hot oil. The filling can also be varied: meat, cottage cheese, cheese and vegetables.
Some subtleties
For our housewives, baking in a dry pan sometimes causes bewilderment. But remember how you bake pancakes. And after all nothing, everything turns out perfectly. So the hitch with cheese and potatoes will be perfectly baked and will not burn. You just need to adapt a little. There are a few secrets here.
- You will need to make the right dough. It should be soft and supple, but not sticky or fluid.
- Choose the best pan. The best is cast iron, with a thick bottom, which warms up well. You can adapt to a pan with non-stick coating.
- After baking, the cakes should be generously greased with oil using a special brush. They are stacked on top of each other and closed with a lid. After a while, they will depart and become fantastically soft and tasty.
Do not be afraid that after removing from the pan, the cake seems too dry. And even more so, you do not need to try to enjoy it right away, without leaving the pan. Wait a bit for the huts to become truly amazing.
Classic step by step recipe
Khychina with cheese and potatoes is not difficult to prepare. The dough is made without yeast. This makes it easily digestible. Most often, original recipes use yogurt. But we can’t find it, so we’ll get by with ordinary kefir. To prepare the dough, you need half a liter of low-fat kefir. If you want to use homemade yogurt, you will need to dilute it half with water. In addition, you will need 4 glasses of water and a teaspoon of salt.
Experienced housewives say that this dough allows you to dispose of any sour milk that is in your refrigerator. Instead of kefir, you can put diluted sour cream in the dough.
Cooking dough
If you are baking to “you,” then everything will change very soon. From the first time, you can easily learn how to cook hichina with cheese and potatoes. A step-by-step recipe is affordable and understandable. No dough and other difficulties. And the dough requires a minimum of time.
Pre-warm the kefir so that it is at room temperature.
Mix it with flour and salt. The consistency should resemble dumplings dough.
Cover with foil and leave to lie down for at least 30 minutes, after which you need to intensively knock again.
Filling
If there is cottage cheese, cheese or greens in the refrigerator and their shelf life is coming to an end, then this is another reason to prepare these wonderful cakes. They are obtained inexpensive and very nutritious, due to the fact that the composition includes potatoes. The filling is moderately cheese and creamy, but at the same time budget. So, you need a kilogram of homemade cheese and potatoes.
Put the vegetables in a pan and boil until cooked. Drain and knead well with a crush.
Grate cheese and mix with potatoes.
If the filling is too fresh, then add salt.
Product Forming
From the obtained amount of dough you will get 10 - 12 cakes. If they are thick, then the amount can be reduced by half. Roll the dough into balls. Similarly, you need to do with the filling, divide it into portioned balls. Cover the dough with a film and a towel so that it does not dry out.
The size can be determined individually for yourself, or focus on the photo. The hichin with cheese and potatoes in the original is prepared with a diameter of about a dinner plate. Roll out a rolling pin to Tesla to a state of thin cakes. If the rolling pin is not at hand, then you can simply stretch it by hand. On each circle, lay a part of the filling, close the edges and close up, then gently roll the cake again. This must be done carefully so that the filling does not tear the dough and does not come out.
Bakery products
On the fire you need to put a heavy, cast-iron skillet. You can choose a modern, non-stick coating. While it is warming up, in a separate bowl, you need to dissolve the butter.
Put the hitch in the pan. Sometimes housewives grease the pan with oil. This is not necessary because the cakes do not stick. You only need to make sure that the cake is roasted evenly. To do this, it must be turned over. Experienced housewives recommend covering the pan with a lid to increase the heating temperature.
Remove the prepared cake from the pan and grease generously with oil.
Put the next tortilla.
A pile of hitchin can be cut into pieces like a cake. But the easiest way is to take one at a time. Believe me, you definitely won’t stop at one thing.
Yeast dumplings
Let's look at another step-by-step recipe. Chicken and potatoes can be baked in the pan or in the oven. Yeast dough is more loyal, it will be tender and tasty. Preparation of the test is as follows:
- Pour a glass of milk and water into a cup.
- Dissolve 8 g of yeast and add a tablespoon of sugar.
- After 10 minutes, add 4 tablespoons of oil and 700 g of wheat flour.
Knead the soft dough and leave for an hour to rise. And during this time we will prepare the filling. To do this, boil 500 g of potatoes and mash it in mashed potatoes. Add 500 g of any soft cheese, salt and pepper, 100 g of greens. The dough needs to be divided into 10 parts. Do the same with the filling. Now it remains to put a filling ball on each cake and pinch. Preparing hitch with potatoes and cheese in a pan. You can bake it also in the oven or in a tandoor oven.
Some nuances
Yeast dough tends to rise and increase strongly in volume. Therefore, it is important to roll the cake very thinly, not more than 2 mm. The filling is laid out on it, after which it is covered with a second same layer. The edges are pinched, and a small incision is made in the middle.
If you decide to bake hitchin in the oven, then the technology changes a little. Preheat the oven and prepare the cakes at the same time. If this presents a certain difficulty, then you can make a regular cheesecake. For this, the upper layer is not required, and the lower one is much thicker. To make the dish beautiful, it is smeared with an egg before baking. It remains to place the product in the oven and bake at a temperature of 210 degrees. Once the top is rosy and beautiful, you can take it out. Taste in this case changes dramatically. It is rather a cheesecake than a hitchin. But try different options.
Instead of a conclusion
Cooking hitchines is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. A hearty, tasty snack will help diversify your table and delight your family. Especially good are kefir yogurt with cheese and potatoes, cooked in a pan and generously greased with butter. Adding greens to the filling, you will get a new, bright taste that conveys the national flavor of this dish especially well. Experiment with toppings to find the ones that your family will like. Khichiny is very similar to Russian pancakes. Therefore, you can make them sweet and salty, hearty and dietary. But best of all, they go out with cheese, potatoes and herbs.