Join twowildtides on the country challenge. Each week, we’re going to be heading to a new country (in spirit). Primarily, we’ll be cooking a meal from each country; but we’ll also be watching travel documentaries, reading travel blogs, and listening to music. During the global pandemic, travel is largely inaccessible. We want to reignite our wanderlust, satisfy our travel bug as much as we can, and learn some new things along the way. I have a feeling our bucket list will have a number of items added to it through this experience as well. We created a simple alphabetical spreadsheet with all the countries of the world, and each week we will draw a random number that corresponds with a country on the spreadsheet.
Shockingly, I didn’t know much about Georgia the country until this week, as that is the country our random generator sent us to. And now, I simply cannot wait to make it a #1 stop on a European/Eastern European backpacking trip. They’re known for gorgeous countrysides, excellent cheese of all varieties, and incredible wine perfected over centuries– sounds like the ultimate place for me! To learn about what Georgia has to offer, we watched this travel vlog:
And read this article by Lost With Purpose:
The national dish of Georgia is Khachapuri, which is basically a cheese pizza, but with a twist. I was excited to try this as it is not like anything we’ve made in the country challenge so far. But, I’ll admit, I was worried. My sister is gone back to NL and she is the better baker (she nailed it when we made Fijian Lolo Buns) so I was left to tackle this on my own. I did not have high hopes, but it turns out I should have given myself more credit.
Check out this interesting article from Forbes about Khachapuri and this list from Georgian Journal that places Khachapuri as the #1 dish. We followed this recipe:
I’ve never made a good dough in my life… until this weekend. I was so impressed with myself and my dough that I couldn’t shut up about it. It was fluffy, stretchy, not too sticky, and formed the perfect little boats for our Khachapuri. I’ll be keeping this recipe on file for the dough alone– I could use it for buns, toutons, or bread.
The cheese mixture was great too. I used cottage cheese as the farmer’s cheese in this recipe, and the combination of cottage cheese, mozza, and feta was mild, which was nice as it didn’t overpower the dough or the egg. I used a third of what the recipe called for though– the full amount of cheese (4.5 cups altogether) would have been way too much! I made a bit of a mess with the egg as the wells I made in the cheese were too shallow, so the whites slid over the edges. It wasn’t a big deal though.
Our Khachapuri turned out great. The flavours are delicious and complimentary, the dough was perfect, and the eggs were cooked the way we like them. It was filling and tasty and an ultimate comfort food. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any Georgian wine in our small Alberta town to enjoy with this meal. I would absolutely make Khachapuri again, without a doubt. This one ranks high in my favourites of all the countries so far!
Stay tuned for next week!
Let us know what you think!