Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Khachapuri!

Hey everyone! Nice to see you again.

We have a very cool episode today and what could be an inspirational beginning to a shareable, versatile and incredibly adaptable “super food.”

We will be making khachapuri! That’s what that lovely food porn that caught your eye on the banner image is called.

Khachapuri is a cheese bread from Georgia, no not that inbred, idiotic, hillbilly, southern state, fuck that state. This comes from the Georgia formerly known as Soviet Georgia.

The best part about khachapuri is the “community” element. It’s eaten with your hands, meant to share and no plates required. You are literally breaking bread with others. In fact, I invited eldest right, eldest granddaughter and the Wahini over to all participate.

Actually, truth be told, this dish was 100% eldest right’s inspiration. She saw a photo of it out there in the internet wild, did some research and on a visit to San Diego where youngest right was living at the time, she actually found it on a breakfast menu. Both of the girls tried it and loved it and well here we are.

Don’t tell anyone this but inviting the ladies over also gave me the perfect opportunity to have them do the bulk of the kitchen work, while I sipped a few beverages and conducted.

It was fucking awesome.

Ready for this?

Khachapuri!

recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com

Dough:

½ cup warm milk or cream

⅓ cup warm water

1 package active dry yeast

1 ½ teaspoons white sugar

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, or more as needed, for dusting

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt

To the dough we go!

Salt and yeast go into the working bowl of your stand mixer.

Next we add in the warm water and warm milk or do what I did and use this instead of milk.

I used warm tap water measured with a thermometer at 105 degrees. I nuked the cream in a small bowl – too long honestly – then let it cool to about the same temperature. Add this to the sugar and yeast and let it get all frothy and shit. Maybe 5-7 minutes.

Now we add in the first 2 cups of the flour, the olive oil and salt and give it a mix with the paddle attachment. Just a few minutes here to combine.

Next we have to take matters into our own hands. This is a pretty sticky dough initially so we will need to knead it by hand. In addition this is my very first attempt at this dish and I like to get a feel for the dough to see what I’m working with. I do this so when I make this dish in the future I’ll know the exact texture that works best.

You know what this means.

Floured surface and get your hands on in there. And yes, this is me doing work. I get some credit here you know.

Like this.

I ended up using the entire remaining 1/4 cup of flour to achieve the correct texture.

Now we form the dough into a ball.

Place in a bowl that’s been coated with oil. 

Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel, place in a warm area of the kitchen and let this rise until doubled in size. An hour or so give or take.

While we’re waiting on the dough to rise let’s get crazy with the cheese blend.

Cheese Blend:

8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled – Swear to god man I saw this amount on 3 recipes

4 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded or do what I did and use colby jack for this one

4 ounces low-moisture mozzarella cheese, shredded

Get to work on that cheese blend.

Take it away eldest right!

Cube up the colby jack.

Then shred the mozzarella.

Break up the feta.

If your brain is processing this correctly and you are realizing that we did indeed use 8 full fucking ounces of feta, your brain really should be reacting like this:

More on this later.

This will yield us an ever-loving shitload of cheese.

That’s a full fucking POUND of cheeses. 

Dude. Look at all that fucking feta!

The dough has risen so we need to start the rolling process.

Take it away eldest granddaughter!

We’re going after rectangular as our principal shape today.

What we’re trying to eventually accomplish is turning the dough into a “canoe” shape that will act as a molten cheese bowl if you will.

Start by placing a line of cheese near one of the long sides of the rectangle.

Grab the edge of the dough and roll it over the cheese tucking it in at the bottom. Do the same for the opposite side of the dough. 

Roll the edge over this side too. Then carefully stretch the edges apart giving us more surface area.

Grab one side of the dough and twist the ends together. Repeat with the other side.

This is a lot easier than it looks and eldest granddaughter nailed it on the first try.

Add the cheese and don’t be afraid to fill that fucker up.

See what we did here? We constructed the boat on parchment paper then trimmed off the excess paper so we could cook both of our canoes at the same time.

Yes typing out “boat” or “canoe” rather than “Khachapuri” each time saved me a shitload of work and potential typos.

We made two boats today. Just prior to baking apply an egg wash to the outer edges of the dough.

The original recipe called for adding salt and cayenne just prior to placing in the oven and thank CHRIST I omitted the salt. One of these was sprinkled with essence and we added a clove of freshly minced garlic to the cheese blend of the same boat. We left the other as written for a test subject

Into a hot 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.

While these bake, cut some small UNSALTED butter cubes up and crack an egg for each loaf. The egg placement is a lot easier when pouring from a ramekin into the khachapuri. 

When the 15 minutes have elapsed.

I don’t know about you but that just looks sexy as fuck to me.

Using a spoon create a well in the center of each boat and add in the egg. Then add in 2 of the butter chunks on either end while you’re at it.

Then back into the oven for 4 minutes.

When the 4 minutes are up, we’re done.

Holy shit it’s goddamn gorgeous!

We discovered that to increase the ease of access for our diners, transport the “canoes” to a serving vessel or dish.

Now let it cool for a bit, rip off a corner of the bread and dip that shit right in the middle of the goo.

The first several bites were incredible! Yes, we finished both of them. My initial thought was “This is a lot like homemade pretzels with beer cheese.” A lot like that.

The other canoe with the essence and garlic was like dipping garlic bread into a cheese dip and just what the fuck is wrong with that?

Not a damn thing!

I have to tell you, this dish was flawlessly cooked. Dough, filling, all of it. Mixing that soft cooked egg with the cheese makes a perfect dipping sauce.

We were about halfway through when suddenly everyone needed something to drink.

Then we paused and realized…This motherfucker was salty as FUCK! I mean clench your jaw salty.

That’s your goddamn feta at work. I think cutting the amount of feta in at least half would be good next time – and there sure as shit will be a next time – and also maybe adding a soft farmer’s cheese or ricotta could tame the salt level down too.

Now.

I want you to take a moment and think of the possibilities of this dish. 

I’ll wait.

It’s basically an open faced calzone isn’t it?

Think of all of the delightful things you could put in the goo in the center of the dish. My brain went straight to some crumbled Italian sausage or salami. Holy shit you could put ANYTHING in there.

How about making the cheese blend closer to a nacho cheese sauce then maybe adding some taco meat and jalapenos or some shit.

Oh Fuck! Crab and spinach! Holy shit!

Think about the possibilities man!

A perfect shareable finger food. I’m going to experiment like a bastard on this during the NFL season. It’s simple to make and customizable. Shit, I’ll see if I can come up with something for your Superb Owl parties at the end of the year.

I absolutely fell in love with this dish despite this particular one being like drinking a refreshing glass of ocean water.

And that’s a wrap for this week.

We’ve got the goddamn Hall of Fame Game this week and Hard Knocks starts next week.

As always this is the time of year when you want to hear NO NEWS at all from your teams camp. It’s never good news this time of year.

We’re in official countdown to the end of the Sunday Gravy season and the start of the NFL season. Just around the corner it is.

In the meantime, be well, be safe and enjoy your Sunday.

See you back here next week.

PEACE!