Silverbeet khachapuri

November 6, 2022

   

My friend Erin and I recently traded some things that we can't/won't use anymore, and thus I've acquired three new cookbooks. I want to be realistic about how well I might use these books, too, so I've flicked through each one and bookmarked the recipes I'm most excited to make. (There are plenty more that I'd be excited to eat if somebody else cooked them, but I'm strictly ignoring those!)

This recipe for silverbeet khachapuri is one of the more effortful ones in Alice Zaslavsky's In Praise of Veg, but it looked so good that it earned a bookmark. I was in self-imposed kind-of-sick isolation on the weekend, and had enough energy to make a Sunday project of the khachapuri.

Khachapuri are Georgian cheese breads - this version boasts three kinds of cheese, sautéed onion and silverbeet, and a baked egg, all baked into a bread dough that's enriched with milk and eggs. I tried to stay true to the recipe, but ended up using almost an extra cup of flour in my very sticky bread dough and an extra-large bunch of silverbeet. I was intrigued by the fenugreek sprinkle on the original version (and I've included it below), but it wasn't convenient for me this time and I used some oregano-sesame salt instead.

As you can see from the photo above, the results are spectacular, and I especially liked this with a squeeze of lime. The recipe makes far more than the two of us can eat in a sitting, so we made use of Zaslavsky's best tip: you can half-bake the khachapuri, store them in the fridge, then just add the egg and do the final bake when you're ready for seconds.

Silverbeet khachapuri

(slightly adapted from Alice Zaslavsky's In Praise of Veg) 

dough

1 cup milk, lukewarm

7g sachet instant dried yeast

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3-4 cups bread flour, plus extra for dusting 

2 eggs

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

sesame seeds

filling

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, diced

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

leaves from 1 bunch silverbeet (265-300g), chopped

200g cottage cheese

200-250g mozzarella, grated

200g feta

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek

4 eggs

to serve

40g butter

lemon wedges

Stir together the milk, yeast and sugar in a bowl and set them aside to let the powders dissolve. Place 25g of the flour and 100mL of water into a small saucepan and stir them over medium heat until thickened. Take them off the heat and allow them to cool slightly. Whisk the olive oil and 1 egg into the milk-yeast mixture, then whisk in the flour slurry.

In a large bowl, stir together 3 cups of flour with the salt. Slowly pour in the milk mixture and stir until well combined. Continue to knead the mixture to form a dough, adding flour as needed (Zaslavsky assures us that this dough cannot be overworked!). It's ready when the dough springs back from a finger-poke. Drip a little olive oil in a clean large bowl, roll the dough around to lightly coat it, then place a tea towel over the top and let the dough rest in a warm place for an hour.

Use this time to make the filling. Pour the olive oil into a frypan set over medium heat and add the onion. Cook the onion for around 10 minutes, mostly with the lid on, until it's well softened but not browned. Add the garlic and silverbeet, give everything a stir, then pop the lid back on to cook for 5-10 minutes, until the silverbeet has reduced. Transfer the silverbeet mixture to a large bowl. Stir through the cottage cheese, then the mozzarella, then crumble over the feta and stir everything to combine. 

Preheat an oven to 240°C. The aim next is to make four khachapuri, and I laid out one sheet of baking paper for each one. Lightly flour one sheet. Punch down the dough and take a quarter of it to roll out on this sheet. Roll out the dough to roughly a 17cm x 35cm rectangle, continuing to sprinkle flour as needed to keep everything from sticking. Spoon a quarter of the silverbeet-cheese filling onto the dough, spreading it out but leaving 1cm clear on the long sides and 1-2 inches clear on the short sides. Gather the long sides in towards the filling, allowing some of the filling to be captured under the dough. Pinch together and twist the short sides to form an overall boat shape. Cover the khachapuri with a tea towel to prove for a further 15 minutes, and work your way through the remaining three.

Use the baking paper sheets to carefully transfer however many khachapuri you can fit onto baking trays. Beat one egg and brush it onto the visible dough, then sprinkle the egg wash with sesame seeds. Sprinkle the khachapuri fillings with salt and fenugreek. Turn the oven down to 180°C and bake the khachapuri for 10-15 minutes, until the crusts are just starting to turn golden.

Press the base of a 1/3 cup measuring cup into the centre of the khachapuri filling to form a little well. Crack an egg into a glass and gently pour it into the well, repeating for the other half-baked khachapuri. Return them to the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the eggs are just set and the crust is thoroughly golden brown. (Repeat the baking process with any khachapuri you couldn't yet fit into your oven.)

Serve the khachapuri with a 10g slab of butter melting on top, and a wedge of lemon on the side.