Khachapuri

the Adjarian boat of bread filled with molten sulguni, finished at the table with a raw egg and a lump of butter stirred through

Origin: Batumi, Adjara & Georgia

From the journey of Wheat.

Every Georgian region has a khachapuri and they are not variations on a theme so much as separate dishes sharing a name. Imeruli is a flat round with the cheese sealed inside. Megruli is the same with more cheese baked on top. Achma from Adjara is closer to a lasagne of boiled pastry sheets. The one that has travelled is Adjaruli, the open boat, and it is the one given here. The boat is a piece of theatre with a purpose. Dough is shaped into an open-ended oval, the ends twisted into a point at each side, and the well filled with cheese; it goes into a hot oven until the cheese is molten and the crust is set. Then, in the last two minutes, an egg is slipped into the middle and the bread comes to the table with the white barely clouded and the yolk raw. A lump of butter goes in beside it, and the eater stirs egg, butter, and cheese together into a single loose sauce with the twisted end of the crust, then tears the boat apart and dips as they go. The prow is eaten last. The cheese is what makes it Georgian. Sulguni is a brined pasta filata cheese from Samegrelo, stretchy and sour, and imeruli is its fresher, milder cousin; the usual filling is a mixture of the two, the sulguni for the pull and the imeruli for the tang. Mozzarella with feta is the standard substitute abroad and gets close, provided the mozzarella is drained hard. Adjara is the Black Sea coast around Batumi, and the shape is often said to represent a boat with the yolk as the sun. That reading is repeated everywhere and is almost certainly later than the dish, which is the sort of story a tourist board improves rather than invents.

Ingredients

Dough

  • 500 g strong white bread flour
  • 7 g fast-action dried yeast
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp caster sugar
  • 280 ml warm milk
  • 2 tbsp olive oil

Filling

  • 400 g sulguni cheese, grated, or drained low-moisture mozzarella
  • 200 g imeruli cheese, or feta, crumbled

To finish

  • 1 egg, beaten, for the crust
  • 4 eggs, for the wells
  • 60 g butter, in four lumps

Method

  1. Mix the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar, then work in the warm milk and oil to a soft dough. Knead for ten minutes until smooth and elastic.
  2. Cover and leave to rise until doubled, about an hour and a half.
  3. Heat the oven as high as it will go, at least 240°C, with a baking stone or heavy tray in it.
  4. Mix the two cheeses together. If using mozzarella, squeeze it dry in a cloth first, because wet cheese floods the boat and softens the base.
  5. Divide the dough into four and roll each into an oval about 25cm long.
  6. Roll the two long edges inwards towards the centre to make thick rolled sides, leaving a well down the middle.
  7. Pinch each end together hard and twist it into a point, so the boat has a sealed prow and stern. A weak seal will open in the oven and lose the cheese.
  8. Fill the wells generously with the cheese mixture and brush the rolled edges with beaten egg.
  9. Bake for twelve to fourteen minutes, until the crust is deep gold and the cheese is bubbling and beginning to blister.
  10. Pull the tray out, push a hollow into the cheese in the centre of each boat with the back of a spoon, and slip a whole egg into it.
  11. Return to the oven for two to three minutes only. The white should be just clouded and the yolk entirely raw.
  12. Bring them straight to the table with a lump of butter beside each egg, and stir the egg, butter, and cheese together with a torn-off piece of the prow before eating.

Notes

Squeeze the mozzarella dry if you are substituting, since excess moisture is the main reason a home khachapuri turns soggy. Seal the two ends firmly and twist them, because that is what holds the molten cheese in. The oven must be genuinely hot: a moderate oven dries the crust before the cheese has melted. The final egg wants two or three minutes and no more, as a set yolk defeats the purpose of the dish. Sulguni is sold by Georgian, Russian, and Eastern European grocers and is worth finding for the pull it gives, though drained mozzarella with feta is a respectable stand-in.

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