Khachapuri in the oven

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope, that you are all doing just fine!

In this article I want to tell you about this day and how I prepared this Khachapuri in a kind of different way and it was like a Khachapuri , but not Khachapuri , either, however, it was still this Khachapuri, which we know and which we prepare usually, because it had the cheese and the dough was for Khachapuri and everything, you know.

Well, I’m pretty sure, that you have all heard about Khachapuri and it’s one of the most popular dishes in the world already and people who come to Georgia stay amazed by its taste and Georgians love eating Khachapuri very much, too, and you will see Khachapuri being sold everywhere in bakeries and supermarkets and places like that and it’s very well sold, I must say, and I’m really interested in how many  khachapuris are sold every day in the whole country. You know, this time, everyone buys things in the supermarkets and stuff like that and they don’t really prepare things at home and everywhere you go you will see people holding Khachapuri and eating it and enjoying it, you know.

There are many types of khachapuris and every corner has its own type of khachapuri and they are prepared differently, if you want to know the truth. However, there’s this imeretian khachapuri, which is very popular and mostly it’s the one, that people buy all around the country. however, there’s another one, which is prepared in the oven and I have learned to prepare it just recently.Well, my aunt used to prepare it and she prepares it whenever she wants to have some khachapuri and it’s very delicious and everyone loves it, so that I learned how to prepare it, too, because I wanted to know, how to prepare it and prepare it whenever I wanted to have some khachapuri. And, I must say, that it’s pretty easy to prepare, it’s just that I don’t like that dough rolling process, because the flour is pretty messy and then there’s this mess on the table and around after the preparation process and no matter how hard you try, there’s always a mess after that. Well, what can you do? You just can’t expect everything to be neat and tidy and if you want to , you can always buy some dough and use it and don’t get all messy and stuff with that flour, you know. 

Buying the dough

So, I will tell you about this thing, that they have in bakeries and you can go there and buy some dough there and just use it in whatever you want and not prepare it yourself. That way, you just save your time and effort and energy and you just don’t get all crazy and stuff about the flour and spreading it all over the place. It’s really something everyone hates, if you ask me, and there are people, who just prefer buying things and paying too much in those things, than to prepare them themselves and that’s the case about the dough, too.

Well, as you know, there are these places all over Georgia, where they bake bread and they have some dough prepared all day long, of course, so that they have it ready for baking. And if you want to have some dough bought, you can just go to them and ask them for the dough and most of those places sell that dough and it’s like one ball costs up to 1 lari and it’s pretty large one and people usually buy it and prepare some imeretian khachapuris with it, you know. And the amount of it is just depended on you, I mean, how large you want to have your khachapuri. Usually they make 4 or 5 khachapuris out of that dough, so that they are just normal in size and they are pretty comfortable to eat, and, if you ask me, it’s more than enough for one person to eat one portion of that khachapuri and usually they have them cut into 4 pieces or something like that and that’s how they eat them.

The other way to buy the dough is this frozen dough sold in supermarkets, however, you won’t really see that dough in every supermarket and if you want to buy them, you should go to Nikora supermarket and buy them there, because they always have that frozen dough there and it costs up to 5 laris a kilogramme, I guess. And this 1 kilogramme is pretty large, if you want to know the truth. And that dough is pretty good , if you ask me. It’s like this oily dough and you can use it in many things and though I haven’t used it in anything yet, I have tasted things prepared with that dough and it’s pretty delicious, if you want to know the truth, and, I guess, using it is just really comfortable. I’m going to use it in my cooking some time soon and, I guess, I will tell you about it. There’s smaller dough, too, in this Nikora supermarket and if you don’t want this 1 kilogramme dough, you can just buy the other one and it’s half a kilogramme, I guess, and it costs somewhere between 2 and 3 laris, so that it’s not that expensive and, besides, it’s really comfortable and efficient buying that dough and using it in your cooking.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 0.3 litres Matsoni (or Greek yogurt or kefir)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 100 grams unsalted butter or margarine
• 2 eggs
• 200 grammes cheese
• 100 grams cottage cheese
• Potatoes, 2 small
• Pinch of salt

Preparation process

Well, the preparation process started with me peeling the potatoes and cutting them into small pieces and then I put them into a small saucepan and just poured some water, so that they were covered with it and put it on a gas on a medium heat, so that it would get boiled and be cooked until softened. It didn’t need much time for the potatoes to get all softened and ready, but in the meantime I continued the preparation process and I just started preparing the dough.

First of all, when preparing the dough I needed to take some butter and I had this unsalted butter bought the other day and it was  pretty good one and it even had this scale, where it was marked, I mean, there were marks on every 100 grams of it and that is what I used to cut 100 grams of it and put it into a bowl for the dough. Then I had 2 cups of all purpose flour added to it and then I started mixing them together with my hand and they should have blended together well. After a couple of minutes, it was all ready and stuff and I could go on to the next step, you know, and this next step was to add some matsoni or kefir or whatever, something like that, and since I didn’t have matsoni, I didn’t use it, though I had some kefir and cottage cheese and sour cream and I had them mixed together, so that it all constituted 300 grams in all and then I had  1 teaspoon of baking soda taken and had some drops of vinegar dropped on it and then added it to the dairy mixture and stirred well, so that everything would get mixed well. Then I also had an egg addedto that mixture and mixed them well together and then I added this mixture to the flour and butter mixture and added a pinch of salt and mixed them all together, so that I would get a whole mass of a dough, though it needed some flour, too, and I had some flour poured on the table and took this dough out of the bowl and put it into that flour and had that flour mixed to the dough.

After some time I cut the dough into two parts and I had them put into the flour separately. After that, I had this one rolled out on the table, so that it would be the size of that pan, which I was going to use to prepare the khachapuri. I took that pan and greased it with that butter and spread that butter all over the pan and it was ready to have the dough rolled on it. I took the rolled dough and put it on the pan and fixed the edges and everything and then it was time to roll the other dough out, so that I would have it ready. After rolling the other dough, too, I just had to prepare the filling and that would be it.

Preparing the filling is not that difficult, either, it just needs to have some cheese and that’s it, however, this time, I didn’t just use cheese, but I mixed some other things with it, too, and that’s why I told you , that it was not exactly this khachapuri, as we know it.

Well, I had some unsalted cheese and they call it cheese for khachapuri, if you want to know the truth. And I had some cottage cheese, too, and I just mixed them together, because I don’t really love, when khachapuri is salty and cheese is always salty, no matter what, so that’s why I added some cottage cheese and I also added those cooked potatoes, which I squashed a little and I also added one egg to the mixture and mixed them well. You know, those potatoes not only make the saltiness of the cheese go away, but it also makes the filling be soft and light and that’s why I like adding it to the cheese filling. Well, when I tasted the filling, it tasted pretty good and I just had to spread it on the dough and that would be just enough for the dough, you know, and it was pretty surprising, because I didn’t really consider it for that pan and I thought, that the filling woudlnt’ be enough for that pan, if you want to know the truth. Well, the filling was spread all over the dough and I took another dough and put it on top of it and it was just perfect. Of course, there were some pieces, which were outside the pan and I just had them cut and took them away.

Now, the only thing left was this topping, I mean, my aunt used to have some coffee powder dissolved in some matsoni and spread it on the top of the dough and then the khachapuri had this golden colour on top of it, so that I did that, too, however, I had that coffee powder dissolved in some kefir and spread it on the dough. And that was it, now I had to put it into the oven and wait for it to get cooked.

I had already turned the oven and preheated it on the 180 degrees Celsius and I just put the pan into it and had it for 40 minutes. And I also checked once to see if the top was alright or if it was going to get burned or something like that, but everything was just great and I could wait for the timer to stop and tell me that the dish was ready, you know.

Well, after that forty minutes or so, it was pretty much obvious, that khachapuri was ready and I could let it be in the oven and get cooled down, however, I really wanted to taste it and see, how it was, I mean, I had this feeling, that the taste of it would be something strange , because I had added that cottage cheese and everything, you know, however, I would not get it until I had a taste of it, so that it was really necessary to taste it until I decided that it was all great and delicious and stuff like that, you know. So that after a couple of minutes of waiting, I decided to have it cut and taste it and it was pretty good, I can say, I mean, it was soft, however, it was not that fluffy, I mean, my aunt bakes a great khachapuri and her khachapuri is thicker and softer and this one was not. Her dough is something soft and thick, if you want to know the truth and mine is not and it never is and I don’t really know why, however, it’s all about the filling still, and the filling was pretty delicious and it was really good and moist and stuff like that and I could be kind of proud of that, because preparing the filling just in the right way is a very good job , if you ask me, because it gives the dish its main taste, you know. So, the filling tasted pretty good and the dough didn’t taste bad, either, I mean, you can’t really know how the dough tastes, if you ask me, unless it has sugar and it’s sweet, or it has much salt and it’s salty, you know. So that, everything tasted great and I was pretty happy about that and I could now suggest it to others and let them taste my khachapuri, too, of course. Though everything is just individual and one may not like what I like and for them it may be something awful, you know, for example, there’s this thing, that some people really like their khachapuri to be salty and to have just this cheese filling and , well, you know, cheese is always salty and if you just have the cheese in your filling, nothing will neutralize its saltiness and it will just be salty when eaten and many people love that, I guess, because they buy that less salty cheese and shred it and have it as a filling in their khachapuri and, to be honest, that’s not the one for me, because I don’t really love salty khachapuri and I don’t usually have just cheese in my khchapuri filling, as you might have already guessed. Rather, I prefer having some cheese and potatoes mixed together and have it that way in my khachapuri filling, or even some cottage cheese with them, you know. It’s not that I don’t like cheesy khachapuri or that I don’t respect it, but I like having less salty filling in it. There are these unsalted types of cheese, too, and I usually buy them for khachapuri, however, they are kind of just like the other ones, too, so that I still add some potatoes to their fillings, too. And, besides, as I have already mentioned above, potatoes make the filling be softer and lighter and fluffier and things like that and it’s very good to use them in such fillings. And they even use potatoes in the beef and poultry cutlets to make them fluffy and soft and I have just heard that recently and I’m going to test that theory and prepare some cutlets with potatoes and meat, you know.

Anyways, this was the recipe for my kind of Khachapuri and I hope, that you will find it pretty useful and if you don’t have just cheese and you don’t want it to be the usual one, you can just use this recipe and prepare some different type of khachapuri, though the taste will still be great and you may even like this taste more than the usual khachapuri one, you know, so that you can try and prepare this one and see if you like it or not. And I must tell you, that it’s not always possible to follow the exact recipe and if you want, you can just combine some other things or skip some things and it will still be alright, however, it still depends on which things you are skipping or combining, of course, and if you skip flour, then it won’t be anything, of course and it’s not possible to skip it, however, you can skip the cottage cheese or the egg and stuff like that, without them the recipe will still be good, if you want to know the truth.

So, enjoy your cooking and until the next time!

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