Georgian food - the best little-known cuisine in the world

Having become acquainted with Georgian food nine years ago, and having, like many newcomers to the cuisine, fallen head-over-heels in love with khachapuri, I was certain that I would gain a ton of weight when we moved to Tbilisi.

Adjaran khachapuri - cheesy bread with a lake of butter and lightly poached egg on top.

As it turns out, I got sick of the national cheesy bread pretty quickly upon arrival to the country. But my love for the rest of the Georgian table has remained true.  My favorite thing about it is the variety and deliciousness of available vegetarian and vegan cuisine.  Orthodox Christians are called to fast from all or most animal products (with varying intensity) for roughly six months out of the year.  In Georgia, that isn't so difficult.

It's hard to pick a favorite among the vegan stars of the Georgian kitchen, but if pressed I think I'd have to go with the salad with walnuts.  At its core, it's just cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, fresh herbs, and crushed walnuts.  The real standout salads also include white wine vinegar, some of fresh, spicy peppers, and maybe a sprinkle of one of the classic Georgian spice blends.  It is delicious.

Salad with walnuts and beet green pkhali.

Right up there with the walnut salad is my old friend pkhali.  Pkhali is a vegetable-walnut pate made with white wine vinegar, garlic, herbs, and Georgian spices.  The photo above features my favorite pkhali, made with beet greens.  In the photo below you can see some spinach pkhali that I made myself at a local cooking class last winter.

Lobiani, a bean-filled pastry, is another mainstay of the Georgian table. It is sold in roadside stands, too, and is a popular local snack food.  You can either get your lobiani flavored with lard/bacon, or in a fasting, animal-fat-free variety, which is also very tasty.  My housekeeper makes lobiani for us weekly, and it is my son's favorite food.  Unfortunately I don't have any photos of it, but it is a pretty humble looking thing anyway - just flat bread filled with mashed beans.

Georgian cuisine has a lot to offer the carnivore, as well.  Pork, chicken, beef and veal mtsvadi (barbecue/shashlik), meat kebabs, ...

Another mainstay is khinkali - a dumpling usually filled with meat and herbs, but sometimes containing cheese, potatoes or mushrooms instead.  There is an art to eating khinkali.  You are supposed to hold it by the knob, take a small bite out of the side, and drink the juice inside before eating the rest of the dumpling and its contents.

But you always have your rebels, and sometimes you'll find them eating their khinkali like so.

No matter how you eat them, they are darn tasty.

Which brings me to my last item - my beloved favorite, chkmeruli (or shqmeruli, if you prefer).

Ahh, chkmeruli.  This bowl of deliciousness consists of a well-fried village chicken immersed in a butter/milk/garlic sauce that is out.of.this.world.  I think it deserves another photo.

It does not get any better than this, folks.

Yes, I am going to miss Georgia.

Staycation, continued

Our staycation is long since over, but I still have some photos to post. 

We spent a few mornings exploring parts of the town we hadn't seen yet.  On my list was this church, that sits on a ridge to the south above the Old Town. 

We didn't know what it was called, nor how to get there, but we were able to use our GPS to find it when we were in the vicinity.  Turned out it is a small monastery, and there was a service going on. I did not take photos inside the church, which was lovely.

The view was fantastic.

We next went to the Metekhi Church, which stands on a cliff on the left bank of the Mtkvari River.

The statue of King Vakhtang Gorgasali in front of the church is very often photographed from the north, but the sun was in the wrong place at the time we were there, so here he is from the back.



Tbilisi really is a beautiful city.

 

It was a very windy day - check out the water fountain.

After all that touring, we were hungry.  We went down to the Turkish restaurant row in the Marjanishvili district and checked out the Ankara cafeteria.  The food was great, with lots of Lenten options (and some really yummy looking meat dishes that we will check out after Pascha).

Dancing

Last weekend we went out to eat with some friends.  There is a restaurant very close to our house that we drive by every day but have never gone into.  It is along a major highway with a parking lot under a crumbling bridge - I guess I figured that it wouldn't be a very good restaurant because it is in such a strange location.  As it turns out, the food is Georgian, with the standard preparations that don't vary that much from establishment to establishment.

Like many of those other places, this place had a rustic decor and live music.  What set it apart, though, is that the live music started earlier than 9 p.m. We went at 5:30 and the music began shortly thereafter.  The patrons at the table next to ours were already knee-deep into a bottle of vodka when we arrived, and were happy to dance with the girls.

Yes, we let the girls dance with strangers.  We were all right there, and this is Georgia.  Everyone loves kids (in the good way, not the gross way) and the perv ratio is smaller here than in the U.S.

I actually have a theory on this.  I don't think the human impulse is different here.  But I do think that things like horrible crimes against children are the "luxury" of a comfortable society.  Here, your average Georgian has to spend a lot more time worrying about finding work, or affording the next meal, or heating their home (if they are lucky enough for that).  That kind of life just doesn't leave a lot of time or energy for pervy indulgence.
 

The band played local instruments and sang the wonderful harmonies Georgian music is known for.  The band members were in their early 20s at the oldest but had I just heard their voices on a recording I would have assumed they were middle-aged.  The singing was excellent.

Drumming on the floor to provide accompaniment to Z's moves.

Heart-shaped food

The girls and I made heart-shaped sugar cookies for Valentine's Day.

We decorated them with royal icing (I used this meringue powder and this recipe) and sprinkles.  I colored the icing with juice from frozen berries - I just nuked them until they burst and then strained out the juice and used it in the recipe instead of water.  I also added some lemon juice to mask the flavor of the meringue powder, which I think is pretty gross.  The meringue powder, it turns out, contains some artificial crap, so I think I will go back to egg whites for royal icing.

Z didn't seem to mind the taste.

My original plan was to surprise Jeremy with the cookies at work.

However, Zoia apparently has the chicken pox, and as our housekeeper cannot remember whether she ever had it (?!), she is staying away for the next week.  So we are homebound and can't in good conscience give anyone our pox cookies anyway.

More for us, I guess.

I also made some heart-shaped garlic knots to go with our dinner last night (recipe to follow).  They were pretty quick to make - I decided I wanted to make them 90 minutes before dinner and even with the yeast rising time, they were ready in time.

Brushed with garlic oil and drizzled with parsley and kosher salt.  If I had had parmesan cheese on hand I would have used that too.

Heart-shaped herb-garlic rolls (makes 15 small rolls).

Ingredients:
1 T active dry yeast
3/4 c warm water
1 T sugar
1.75 c flour
1 T salt
2 T olive oil
2 tsp dried basil
1 Tbs garlic powder
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried thyme

3 Tbs olive oil
1 large garlic clove
1 tsp salt (if you are using kosher, double the amount)
2 Tbs minced parsley
grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Stir yeast and sugar into the water, allow to sit five minutes, or until bubbly.  If it doesn't get bubbly within about 10 minutes, your yeast is bad; start over with new yeast.  Stir in salt, flour, olive oil and spices, and knead, adding additional flour if necessary, until the dough is smooth and elastic (I use my KitchenAid with dough hook for this).  Allow to rise for 30 minutes.  While the dough is rising, preheat your oven to 400 and grease a cookie sheet or prepare it with parchment paper.

After dough has risen a bit (it does not have to double), take golf-ball sized globs of dough and roll them into snakes between your hands.  Connect the snake at the top and push into a heart shape.  I found that pinching the dough at the bottom point of the heart, and the inner point, helped it keep its shape.  When they are all rolled, allow to rest for 10 minutes or so, then put in the oven for 18-20 minutes.  While they are baking, make the garlic oil: mash the garlic with the salt until it is paste-like, then mix into the olive oil and allow to sit.  Chop your parsley and grate your cheese.

When the rolls are done, brush them immediately with the garlic oil and sprinkle with parsley and cheese.  If you are not eating immediately, put the rolls in a bowl or basket lined with paper towels and cover with a kitchen towel.  Mine stayed piping hot for 30 minutes this way, and were still warm an hour later.

Move over, Emeril!

Way back in 2005, on a first date that neither of us thought would actually lead anywhere, Jeremy cooked me dinner.  He lived in a typical apartment in downtown Yerevan; his kitchen was equipped with a two-burner travel stove and a toaster oven. Somehow he managed an impressive dinner of chicken in Roquefort sauce, roasted fingerling potatoes, a cucumber and tomato salad and bread pudding for dessert.  Though I generally only like potatoes with a suitably high fat-to-starch ratio, those fingerlings were good and I ate them all.

Although I wouldn't say we are foodies in the annoying sense of the word, we do enjoy a good meal.  Our favorite date is a tasting menu at a new restaurant, and we are big fans of Top Chef (we even own all the cook books).

So Jeremy was pretty excited to be offered the opportunity to appear on a Georgian cooking show as part of his job.  His task was to present some typically American food to a Georgian audience.  He had to consider local tastes, and the availability of ingredients.  After polling both American and Georgian friends, he settled on a menu of pork chops with fried apples and twice-baked potatoes.

The segment aired on New Year's Day on Georgian TV.  The video is below - it is dubbed in Georgian but if you listen hard you can still hear Jeremy talking.

We're thinking of sending the clip to the Food Network and are taking name suggestions.  "Foreign Service Foodie?"  "The Diplomat's Kitchen?"

Enjoy!

Garden update (and cool things Jeremy has done part 1)

I spend a lot of space on this blog showing everyone what I do with my spare time, but rarely do I show you what Jeremy does with his.  I have a few of my husband's projects to show off but I figured I'd start off with this garden update.

With temperatures routinely in the high 80s and 90s, my garden has wilted down to nearly nothing.  The downward spiral occurred not long after Jeremy built me a trellis for my spaghetti squash.

I was all excited because I had one fruit starting to grow - but after it reached about four inches long, it just stopped growing and then its vine withered and died.  The vine on one of my plants is still growing but not producing many blossoms (or any female ones until this morning).  The other three plants are decidedly stunted. Here are two of them.  Their leaves are quite small, though they don't seem to be as afflicted with the browning and yellowing around the edges that I'm finding on the more robust plant on the trellis.

This morning I finally saw two more female squash blossoms  - one on one of the stunted plants, shown above). As there is still a dearth of pollinators in the area, I pollinated them myself.  Hopefully they will start doing something.  My suspicion, though, is that the soil is out of nutrients (since it was pretty crummy to begin with) and that they won't bear any fruit.  There go my fall spaghetti squash plans!

XB!

Eggs were dyed with yellow onion skins, collected since September and stored in the freezer.

The mantel was decorated.

Easter baskets were filled.

At midnight, bells were rung and candles were lit.

Baskets were discovered.

Pictures were taken.

Eggs were hunted.

The fast was broken.

  XPUCTOC BOCKPECE!

Mayonnaise

Russians love mayonnaise.  I mean, they really love it.  I have been meaning for two years to take a photo of the mayonnaise aisle (yes, mayonnaise gets its own aisle) at the hypermarket.  I finally got some photos (taken surreptitiously, having already learned that they don't like you taking photos at Auchan).

They have "classic" mayonnaise, mayonnaise "Provencal," olive oil mayonnaise, quail's egg mayonnaise, Lenten (vegan) mayonnaise, chili-flavored mayonnaise, horseradish-flavored mayonnaise, light versions of all of these, and other flavors.  I have never seen so much mayonnaise in one place.

Farmers' Market

I know farmers' markets are a summer thing, but for me, they are inextricably linked to fall.  I don't know why.  I will occasionally stumble upon a market in summer and buy a few things, but it's when the weather gets crisp and slightly overcast and the hats and scarves come out that I start going regularly.  (And then, at the end of October, I lament not having gone sooner - you'd think I would have smartened up by now.)  There's just something about walking around a market, sampling local apples with a cup of steaming coffee in hand.  I guess it's good for my wallet that there are no Starbucks near the market closest to the Embassy, as the chain is even more overpriced in Russia than in the U.S.  Anyone for a $7 Frappuccino?  No?  Me neither.

The double-stroller parade left the Embassy compound mid-morning, and by the time we had made the mile-ish walk to the market, the toddlers had some energy to expend.

We returned home with sweet peppers, potatoes, carrots, Swiss chard, parsnips, basil, cilantro, corn, cucumbers, apples and grapes.  Total cost: about 1.5 times as much as I would have paid at the supermarket (though I could not have found several of these items there).  But it's more fun this way, plus I got some exercise.