Khachapuri Imeruli

"For a population of less than 4 million, Georgia has more than 20 regional cheese breads" Alice Zaslavsky

I have suddenly realised that, in a way, I am repeating myself, in that yesterday's oddments post included a segment on matafan - a French cheese stuffed pancake in its simplest form. Also somewhere or other recently - maybe in another oddments post I mentioned another khachapuri, which I shall come to later.

And what have we got today? A cheese stuffed leavened dough as seen in this version from Saveur. Which just goes to show that, yet again, a simple concept - hot cheese stuffed between some kind of bread or pastry is a world-wide thing. I'm guessing that the most ancient of civilisations did it. It's comfort food at its most basic - witness the cheese toastie.

But never fear, today I am feeling marginally more inspired and have allowed myself to ramble from here to there, to elsewhere around the net, learning a few things on the way, and wondering about others.

So how did this all begin? Well actually, in a way, at the end of the story, with a column from Alice Zaslavsky in The Guardian based around this recipe for Spinach and cheese pan pies with hot honey drizzle. Alice is of Georgian origin, and so she recognises that her version is really not at all 'authentic' but is "a loose play on khachapuri imeruli"

But before I come back to the traditional dish, a couple of things arising from her column. A large chunk of her introduction was about how to deal with spinach - both fresh and frozen and, as always, she has some very helpful, and slightly unusual tips and tricks.

Then there's the hot honey. This was one of the things that attracted me to the recipe because I know or thought I did, that somebody - I think my son and almost daughter-in-law - gave me a small and probably expensive tube of hot honey, which I put away to wonder about, because my husband who loves honey but hates chilli was obviously not going to eat it. Today I could not find it and I know I have not used it. I did find a tube of Cambodian Amata honey, which has just now led me on a wild goose chase of its own - not to be found in Google. But so much more about honey in Cambodia, that I will leave it for another time.

The worst thing about all of that however, is why I think I have a tube of hot honey. Surely I would not have made that up? I distinctly remember thinking -'why hot - you know David doesn't like chilli?'. So am I really losing my mind? Do I fabricate memories all the time? Disturbing - so I shall leave it there, and hope that the tube of hot honey turns up and I shall discover I'm not descending into dementia after all.

But back to Georgia and the region of Imereti more or less in the centre of this small but obviously beautiful and special place in the Caucasian mountain region of central Asia. It's one of Georgia's wine-growing regions at a time when the country which was the first to begin making wine, is coming back as a player in the global wine trade.

Khachapuri imeruli is just one of the many such breads found in Georgia. The name sounded vaguely Indian to me, but I guess that's not really so surprising because I'm guessing there would have been trade with India from early times. The name comes from Khac'o meaning curd and p'uri meaning bread.

Poori are those wonderful little puffed breads from India - so you see why I wondered about a Georgia/India connection, although I don't think you could stuff poori with anything.

Khachapuri imeruli are considered to be the national dish of Georgia. So much so that there is a Khachapuri Index which measures the state of inflation in the country. A bit like the McDonald's Index that is used by some economists to measure inflation. The price of a Big Mac will tell you how bad things are. It's also an official piece of the Cultural Heritage of Georgia.

As Alice Zaslavski says there are many variations of these stuffed breads in Georgia. Next door to Imereti is Megruli where you get a double dose of cheese, because there is cheese on top as well - so grilled as well as fried - pictured on the left. In the centre are roadside offerings and on the right a Pkhlovanikhachapuri - which like Alice Zaslavsky includes spinach. And then of course there is the increasingly trendy Khachapuri Acharuli which are open, boat shaped and have an egg nestled on the cheese filling. I'm pretty sure I wrote about these recently. I certainly found the picture in my image files.

There are a couple more things to say in general before giving you a few recipes to try.

Generally speaking they are made with a leavened dough, and some of the recipes I saw seemed quite complicated in the rolling and proving process. Yoghurt was often an ingredient, or a mix of kefir and smetana (a sour cream). Mostly they used yeast but some used baking powder and/or bicarb or self-raising flour, which is sort of the same thing.

The cheese of course is almost inevitably not going to be the same as that used in Georgia - mostly sulguri cheese, which is a stretched curd kind of cheese, made with cow, buffalo or goat's milk, which you would think would affect it's flavour. Wikipedia says:

"It has a sour, moderately salty flavor, a dimpled texture, and an elastic consistency"

For the Imeruli khachapuri you use imeruli cheese which I suspect is a variation of sulgari but tastes a bit saltier. Even in the UK these cheeses are hard to find, and you'd never be allowed to bring them back into Australia after a holiday in Georgia, even if you had a holiday in Georgia. Coles and Woolworths have most likely never heard of them. So most cooks seem to go for a mixture of mozzarella - not the soft 'real' kind, but the yellower harder kind - and feta because:

"Most seem to agree it's worth using a mix of feta and mozzarella to get a mix of the stretchiness and saltiness" Caroline's Cooking

Some of them throw in a bit of ricotta too.

And when you've finished preparing your breads you cook them on a griddle or in a frying pan.

So a few versions for you to try: Imeruli Khachapuri - Caroline's Cooking; Khachapuri/Polina Chesnakova; Georgian cheesebread with spinach and walnut salad - Adam Liaw/SBS and Khachapuri - Marcel Theroux/The Guardian.

I suspect if you look you will find people like Jamie Oliver and Ottolenghi make something similar. Not to mention all the cheese stuffed bready things from everywhere else.

A KIND OF POSTSCRIPT

As a kind of afterthought, just as I was coming to the end of this ramble I thought to check out my now ancient Time/Life volumes on world cuisines - the one on Russia. For back then Georgia was part of the Soviet Union. And there it was in the chapter on the Caucasus but not the fairly plain versions you see above. My book had a 'simple' version and a larger more elaborate version. And they used Muenster cheese. Maybe feta and mozzarella were comparatively unknown back then. These were baked in the oven too. Apologies for the quality of the photographs - scanned and also now old and somehow very old-fashioned, and therefore a bit fascinating. But then again it makes me feel old too. Back then I thought this was all so ground-breaking.

YEARS GONE BY

April 25

2024 - Desi or dépaysé - inventing comfort food

2023 - Supermodel pasta

2022 - Grains in a salad - ancient or new?

2021 - Ladies doing lunch

2020 - Deleted

2019 - A first recipe and eating spaghetti

2018 - ANZAC biscuits - lest we forget

2017 - An ancient wine from the slopes of Vesuvius