Nino had flour on her apron before I had even said hello. We were making Khachapuri together that afternoon in Batumi, but first there was the boulevard market, and she walked at twice my pace through the stalls. The class she ran out of her apartment was four hours long. It started, as most Georgian cooking classes apparently do, with a chaotic walk through the market in the August heat. I had been in Georgia for ten days, eaten the bread eight times, and still had no clue what I was actually doing.
The Batumi Market Came First
The Boulevard market sits a few streets back from the Black Sea, so close that everything smelled faintly of salt and diesel. Nino kept stopping. She would press a tomato, sniff it, put it back. Move on. The vendors knew her by name and three of them tried to argue her into buying things she had not come for.
She bought sulguni in a wet paper packet from a woman with bright orange hair who was loudly explaining to someone else that no, the cheese in the supermarket was not the same. I watched the whole exchange and made a note. I did not yet realise that note was going to matter for years.
Back in her apartment, the kitchen was small and warm with a single window facing a laundry line two buildings over. There was a cassette player on top of the fridge playing something with an accordion in it. A bowl of plums on the table. Her dough was already proofing in a yellow bowl, which felt like cheating but also like a kindness.
Why Khachapuri Is Not Georgian Pizza
Nino corrected me twice in the first hour. Once on my pronunciation, which I am still getting wrong. Once on a comparison I made out loud, which was that this looked like pizza.
It is not pizza. Khachapuri is leavened bread with cheese inside, not flatbread with cheese on top. The dough is enriched with yogurt, the cheese gets folded into the middle, and the whole thing comes out tasting like the lovechild of a brioche and a calzone, except it is older than either.
The word itself comes out of khacho, meaning curds, and puri, meaning bread. Georgians have been making versions since at least the twelfth century, and Greek writers were already mentioning a cheese filled bread in ancient Colchis in the fifth century BC. The boat shaped one I learned with Nino is the Adjaruli kind, born on her own stretch of the Black Sea coast. The story goes that sailors’ wives shaped the bread like a canoe, with cheese for the sea and a golden yolk for the sun, to welcome the men home. The round Imeruli is actually the everyday loaf inside Georgia. The boat is the one that broke the internet.
What I Used
- All-purpose flour, plus a little extra for dusting
- Whole milk, warmed to about one ten on a thermometer
- Plain whole milk yogurt, the closest stand in for Georgian matsoni I can get
- Warm water, same temperature as the milk
- Active dry yeast and a teaspoon of sugar to wake it up
- Fine sea salt
- One large egg for the dough, plus melted butter to enrich it
- Low moisture mozzarella, shredded coarse on the big holes of the grater
- Greek feta, crumbled, doing the work that sulguni would do back in Georgia
- A second egg, beaten with a little water, for brushing the crust
- Two egg yolks, one per boat, kept in their shells until the very last second
- Two pats of cold unsalted butter, one to drop into each molten middle
What Changed Back in My Kitchen
The first time I tried this back in Highland Park I learned, with great sadness, that nobody near me sells sulguni. Imeruli either. I called three Eastern European shops in the Valley and got the same answer twice and a polite hang up once. Bring them in, or substitute.
So I did what Nino told me to do if I ever ran out at home. Low moisture mozzarella for the stretch, Greek feta for the salt and tang. Roughly seventy thirty. Mozzarella on its own tastes like nothing. Feta on its own is unforgivable, too sharp and crumbly and no pull. The blend is the accepted swap and after eight tries I can tell you it does the job.
I also dropped the oven five degrees off what she used. Her oven was older and ran cool. Mine runs hot, especially with a baking steel preheating for an hour. The steel matters more than the temperature, honestly. Without it the bottom of the boat goes pale and floppy and you do not want a floppy boat.
One more change. I make the dough the night before now and cold proof it in the fridge. Nino did it same day, no problem at all. Mine tastes better with the long slow rise. More flavour, better chew.
How to Eat Adjaruli Khachapuri Like You Have Done It Before
This is the part nobody tells you. When the boat comes out of the oven the cheese is volcanic, the yolk is raw, and a pat of cold butter sits in the middle like a flag.
You stir. With the pointed tip of the crust, which you tear off, you swirl the yolk and the butter through the molten cheese until it goes glossy and slightly thickened by the egg. Then you tear pieces off the boat edges and dip them into the middle.
Eat it now. Right this minute.
Once Khachapuri cools the cheese turns bitter and rubbery, and you will spend the next two hours quietly wondering what went wrong. Nino said this three times before we even sat down. I now say it twice to everyone I cook for.
The first time my friends ate these on a Friday night with a bottle of Saperavi and a tomato cucumber salad sliced thick the Adjaruli way, one of them made a noise I have not heard her make at a dinner table before. The two boats were empty in twelve minutes. Tell Nino, if you ever pass through Batumi, that I am still working on the pronunciation.
Khachapuri
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Stir the warm water, warm milk, sugar, and yeast together in a small bowl. Let it sit for 8 minutes until foamy on top. If it does not foam, your yeast is dead. Start over with fresh yeast.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the flour and salt. Add the yeast mixture, yogurt, beaten egg, and the 2 tablespoons of melted butter.
- Mix on low speed for 2 minutes to bring the dough together, then increase to medium and knead for 8 minutes. The dough should be smooth, soft, and slightly tacky but pulling away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. If it sticks badly, add flour 1 tablespoon at a time.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turn to coat, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm spot for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until doubled in size.
- Place a heavy baking sheet or pizza stone on the middle rack of the oven and preheat to 475 F. The sheet must be screaming hot when the bread goes in.
- In a bowl, combine the shredded mozzarella and crumbled feta. Toss with your hands to mix evenly. Reserve about a quarter of the blend for topping.
- Punch down the dough and divide it into 2 equal pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece into an oval about 12 inches long and 7 inches wide.
- Pile the larger portion of the cheese blend down the center of each oval, leaving a 1.5 inch border on all sides. Roll the long edges of the oval inward and toward each other to form thick ropes that frame the cheese.
- Pinch and twist the two ends tightly together to form pointed tips, creating a clear boat or canoe shape with the cheese exposed in the middle. Scatter the reserved cheese over the top.
- Slide the boats onto a sheet of parchment paper. Beat the second egg with a teaspoon of water and brush the exposed crust edges generously.
- Carefully transfer the parchment with both boats onto the preheated baking sheet. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until the crust is deep golden brown and the cheese is bubbling and lightly blistered.
- Remove from the oven. Working quickly, use the back of a spoon to make a small well in the center of the molten cheese in each boat. Slip a raw egg yolk into each well and drop a pat of cold butter right beside it.
- Carry to the table immediately. To eat, swirl the yolk and butter into the hot cheese with a fork, tear off the pointed ends of the crust, and dip pieces of bread into the molten pool.