Georgians LOVE their Khachapuri! You find it in fancy restaurants, fast food places or holes-in-the-wall. It is served in large cities and in the smallest hamlets across the country. People eat it at almost every meal – as a starter, a main course, even as a dessert with sweet sauce. In short, it is the National Food of Georgia. Khachapuri is so important in Georgian culture that its price is used as a benchmark to measure the rate of inflation in the country (known as the Khachapuri Index).

What is Khachapuri? In Georgian, the word is a blend of the words for “curds” and “Bread.” In its simplest form, it is a cheese-filled yeast bread, similar to a pizza. However, each region of the country has its own traditions and ways of making Khachapuri.

The most common type comes from Imereti, a region in the center of the country. It is a circular pie with a cheese filling between two circles of dough. Ossetian Khachapuri combines cheese with mashed potatoes between two layers of dough. Chakhragina Khachapuri adds leaves from the beet plant (or sometimes spinach) to the mixture.

Abkhazian Khachapuri, called Achma, has multiple layers and looks like a sauce-less lasagna.

But perhaps the most flamboyant of the Khachapuri is Adjarian, from the Black Sea area. We watch one of our hosts prepare some for our lunch. Her dough, which includes milk and olive oil amongst its ingredients, has already risen and sits on the side of the table next to a bowl of sulguni cheese curds mixed with eggs and milk to make a thick filling. (Sulguni cheese comes from the Shmegrelo region of Georgia. It can be made from cow, goat or buffalo milk and has a slightly sour, salty flavor).

Our host breaks off a piece of the dough and, using a glass bottle, rolls it out into an oval; she spreads the cheese mixture over the top to within an inch of the sides. Then, deftly grasping the dough, she folds the long sides, turning the edges to contain the filling. Taking the ends of the folded dough, she twists them together to form the ends of the boat.

Sitting in the corner of the wooden lean-to that serves as a kitchen, is a black wood-fired stove. Our host puts the khachapuri into the oven and bakes it until the cheese has melted and the bottom of the crust is charred and smoky. Then, quickly removing it, she breaks a raw egg yolk into the cheese, together with a dollop of butter, and places it back in the oven for a few minutes.

Proudly placing it on the table in front of us, she explains how to eat it. “Pull off a piece of the bread,” she says “and dip it into the cheese and egg.” And we do! On a cold, rainy afternoon in the Caucasus Mountains, it is a perfect way to warm up.

When I ask our host for her recipe, she tells me, through our guide, that she mixes a handful of this and a pinch of that together and bakes it. Somehow, I think something was lost in translation!

Certainly, in the New York City area, you can find Khachapuri at many of the restaurants in Brighton Beach. If you are interested in making it at home, the New York Times Cooking Section includes an easy recipe for Adjarian Khachapuri by Marian Burros.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Diana Russler