Khachapuri, or Georgian Cheesy Cheese Bread

I should say at the outset, by way of warning (or invitation), that “Georgian cheese bread” turns out to be about as ridiculously decadent as it sounds. More so, actually, because the dough for this particular variation, which has yogurt and a stick and a half of butter in place of yeast, is much closer to a dense pie crust than bread. (You’ll also notice that the cheese in this recipe is measured in pounds.) So, if you are still in post-holiday convalescence mode, this might be one to bookmark for later. But if you (like me, apparently), are craving a reprieve from the Lenten fare we like to sentence ourselves to in January, read on!

This recipe is from Darra Goldstein’s The Georgian Feast, a wonderful and unusual cookbook that I’ve read through almost cover-to-cover since it was given to me for Christmas. In her other life, Goldstein is a professor of Russian at Williams College, and this book is both scholarly and charming, with excerpts from seventeenth century travel narratives leavened with personal anecdotes. I fell in love with Georgian food during a summer I spent in St. Petersburg, where Georgian restaurants are incredibly popular, but haven’t been able to try it since, and I was excited about preparing a little Proustian madeleine-like moment with my first foray into Georgian cooking.

After my first rifle through the book, I’d dog-eared almost every other page – including recipes for chikhirtma, a lemony chicken soup with cinnamon, saffron, and coriander, and badridzhnis khizilala, which Goldstein nicknames “eggplant caviar” – but khachapuri, which could be considered the Georgian national dish, was an obvious place to start. The khachapuri I remember from St. Petersburg was a chewy yeast bread with an elaborate top knot. It was a weeknight, though, and time was short, so after noting the double rise time on the yeasted version, I opted for “Georgian Cheese Bread I,” in which the cheese mixture is enclosed in a yogurt-based pastry dough. It comes out looking like a giant meat pie and tasting better than your favorite grilled cheese sandwich.

Like grilled cheese, this would be a delicious accompaniment for a hearty tomato or root vegetable soup. Though you will certainly be tempted, I do not necessarily recommend consuming it (as I did, about four times in a row) as the sole basis for your meal. It should be served warm, so if you’re eating leftovers, it’s worth re-heating in the oven.

I ended up paring the 1 1/4 pounds of cheese in the original recipe down to a modest 1 pound, though for structural, rather than dietary reasons – I was having trouble fitting it all in the pastry.

Khachapuri, adapted from The Georgian Feast, by Darra Goldstein

2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons cold butter, cut into ½ inch pieces
2 eggs
¼ cup plain yogurt
1 pound mixed Muenster and Havarti cheeses
1 egg yolk, beaten

In a medium bowl, mix the flour and salt and cut in the butter.

Beat one of the eggs and stir in the yogurt. Add to the dry ingredients, mixing until fully integrated but not longer. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 1 hour. While the dough is chilling, grate the cheeses, beat the other egg, and combine.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a large baking sheet. Roll out the dough into a large oval. Cover half of the dough with the cheese mixture, leaving a small perimeter for crimping. Fold the other half over the cheesy half and pinch the edges together. (I opted to halve the dough and assemble two smaller pies.)

Transfer the pie to a baking sheet and brush with the egg yolk. Bake until golden, about 50 minutes.