Nadughi

Introduction

Hello everyone, I hope that you are doing just fine! Well, this is another one of my articles about some recipes that are still going on and on.

So, have you heard about Nadughi? I think that you have not. Well, to be honest, I didn’t really know many things about it some years ago. However, when I discovered how good it was, I started liking it, I guess. Though there were some times that I didn’t like it; when everyone was keen on this 'Nadughi', it didn’t really matter to me whether we had it at home, in festive occasions or not.

About Nadughi

Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know whether they prepare something like Nadughi in other countries or not, and I don’t know what it’s called in other languages. However, I know that it’s been prepared in Georgia and they have been preparing Nadughi since ancient times.

Nadughi is a dairy product, which kind of resembles the cottage cheese. However, its consistency is a little bit different and softer, it has a characteristic taste, which is mainly a protein taste. And it’s white-coloured, like milk, or like cream colour or something like that.

Nadughi has been mostly prepared in the western parts of Georgia along with other dairy products. It’s composed mostly of the albumin proteins and it’s a pretty much dietetic product. However, you shouldn’t take it too much, rather, you should consume it carefully, because it’s not that good to do it in large portions.

They prepare the serum from the milk and they normalize it according to the fat. Then they warm it up, make it sour, boil it and do some other things, and as a result, they get this Nadughi, that they consume cold.

The most popular Nadughi recipe in Georgia is Nadughi with peppermint, which people really adore, I guess.

Nadughi is sold in bazaars and supermarkets

Well, Nadughi is not sold in many places; you should know where to find it because it’s not like bread or something like that for it to be sold anywhere. But you can find it in some places in the city.

First of all, you should know that, even being so popular, it’s not sold everywhere. The very first place where I saw that they sold Nadughi was this 'Goodwill supermarket', which is a great supermarket and in which they have some delicious products. They also have this 'prepared dishes' section, where I first saw Nadughi. Therefore, they had three types of Nadughi, I mean, they had Nadughi with peppermint, just Nadughi seasoned with salt and the third one was this Nadughi in Sulguni cheese slices, which is a great decoration on the tables while it’s a pretty delicious thing.

So, if you buy this Nadughi with peppermint, you will have to pay about 10 Laris for a kilogram. It’s prepared with Nadughi, some cream and salt and fresh chopped peppermint. It’s just 72 calories per 100 grams and it contains mostly proteins.

Then there’s this Nadughi in Sulguni cheese slices, which costs about 5 Laris and it has the same ingredients, except that there’s these Sulguni cheese slices added to the Nadughi with peppermint. However, this one has more calories, since it contains cheese. And it’s like 253 calories per 100 grams with mostly fats in it.

The Goodwill supermarkets are not many and there are only few of them in the city. One of them is on Saburtalo, it’s somewhere between the Vazha-pshavela and Delisi metro station on Kavtaradze street and it’s in the City Mall shopping center. It’s a pretty good one and I love going there. However, it’s not on my way, so I have to go there especially just to visit Goodwill supermarket. There are many public transports going there and you can even go on foot from Delisi metro station and it’s about 15 minutes walk from there to Goodwill supermarket, if you want to know the truth.

Another Goodwill supermarket is located on Chavchavadze avenue just beneath the Pixel building and near the Ilia State University and the State university and there are always many people there. It’s in the underground, so you will have to go down and then you will see the sign of 'Goodwill'.

Well, if you don’t want to buy that 'already prepared' Nadughi and you want to prepare it by yourself, you can just go to the bazaars in Georgia, where you will easily find Nadughi if you ask them, otherwise you will have to walk for a long time until you find it. I usually buy Nadughi in Varketili bazaar, which is just nearby the Varketili metro station and it’s a pretty good bazaar, if you want to know the truth. There you can buy many things and it’s a good one, because I often visit it to buy some things. There’s this section of cheese and dairy products, in general, where they sell Nadughi too. When I bought it, they said, that it cost 6 Laris a kilogram, so it’s not that expensive, if you ask me. However, you should know things about Nadughi, like how it looks and how it tastes. They usually let you taste it there in the bazaars and then you can decide whether you want to buy it or not. However, you shouldn’t get confused, because they all offer you their Nadughi and they talk to you and try to convince you to buy theirs, so you should ignore all of them and decide for yourself, which Nadughi you liked better, so that you can buy that exact one. Then you can just buy some fresh peppermint and some milk or sour cream or cream and add it to the Nadughi, so that it won’t be that thick and it will have a creamy consistency, so that you can eat it as a sauce with other dishes. And it’s pretty good with Ghomi, which is a Georgian dish from the western Georgia prepared with corn which is very delicious and low in calories.

Though Nadughi is kind of like cottage cheese, the technology is not the same and they say that eating cottage cheese is better than eating too much Nadughi. However, you should also consume Nadughi because it contains proteins and is good for the organism.

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