The World is not Enough

Passport & Plate - Khinkali - Georgian dumplings

Georgia | Thursday, March 6, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
For the dough:
• 1kg Flour
• 200ml Water
• Salt by taste
• 1 egg

For the meat filling:
• 1,3kg of minced lamb or 1kg of minced beef and 300gr of minced pork (for vegetarian version fill with Cheese or potato mash with mushrooms)
• 200gr onions
• 20gr garlic
• Handful minced fresh coriander
• Salt by taste
• A little bit of water
• 5 table spoons spices – if possible use “Khmeli Suneli” – a Georgian spice mix. Alternatively use 1-2 tea spoons of each:
o Black pepper
o Chilli powder
o Grinded marigold petals (also known as Georgian Saffron – if not available replace by turmeric)
o Grinded coriander seeds
o Summer savory
o Blue fenugreek (alternatively use a pinch of nutmeg)
o Dried and grinded red basil leaves (alternatively use green basil leaves)

How to prepare this recipe

1)Cut onions and garlic and mix with meat, herbs and spices. Add water until meat stops absorbing it.
2)Take the flour, egg and salt and start adding water while stirring with a wooden spoon. Then knead the dough until it becomes very hard.
3)Roll out dough until it is about 3mm thick. Cut out circles. They should be around the size of a hand.
4)Put around 20g of meat in the centre and start folding the dumpling:
Hold a corner of the dough circle with both hands. With your right hand stretch the dough circle a bit and then bring it to your left hand while forming an S-shape. Grab the fold with the index finger of your left hand and hold it tightly. With the right hand start forming the next fold. Continue until the dumpling is closed and you have a flower-like top. The dumpling should remind you of a sack. The top it is called ‘navel’ in Georgia. A true Khinkali has 32 folds.
5)Heat water in a big pot. Slowly place the dumplings inside. The water should not be boiling. The dumplings should not touch each other in the pot (5l water is enough for 5-10 dumplings depending on their size). Gently stir with a wooden spoon a couple of times, so that the dumplings don’t stick.
6)Once the water is boiling cook the dumplings for 7 minutes, then take out with a wooden spoon. Place them on a tray and wait a minute for the water to run down. Pour away the water and serve dumplings on a platter. Arrange them in one level.
7)Add water to the pot if needed and continue cocking the remaining dumplings.
8)Khinkali should be enjoyed hot.

The eating:
If you thought you were done yet, you are mistaken – Khinkali have their own special way of eating:
1)Put grinded black pepper of your dumpling.
2)Grab it by the ‘navel’ and bite of a little piece of dough. Gently suck out the meat juice inside, then eat the rest. True masters don’t spill a drop of juice.
3)Leave the ‘navel’ on your plate so that you can later count how many Khinkali you managed to eat.
Enjoy your real Georgian meal.

The story behind this recipe
Khinkali was food for shepherds. It originates from the mountain regions of Georgia, and every corner of the land has its own specific recipe. It is traditionally cooked by men – in summer when they would drive the sheep into the mountains to feed on the fresh grass, they would live there in small huts and make Khinkali. They used what they had: sheep meat, mountain herbs, flour and spring water. Thus creating something tasty to warm up the body and give a lot of energy, needed for a long hard day of sheepherding.
This particular recipe goes back all the way to my great grandfather. He brought is with him from his small village in the Khazbegi mountains when he moved to the capital – Tbilisi. He taught the recipe to his daughter and son-in-law, who passed it on to my mother. When she moved to Germany, she brought the recipe along to the new country and her daughter, me, learned how to cook it. This way a dish from a tiny spot in Georgia traveled all the way to distant Stuttgart, and through the Passport and Plate scholarship it ended up on your desk.
Many nations cook dumplings, but Georgian herbs and spices are quite unique. Georgia was a link between Asia and Europe. The famous silk road led through its territory and still exists today, in form of a highway, connecting two continents. Khinkali are a link of sorts too: I never met my great grandfather, but by eating a dish he cooked and loved and taught us, I can travel back in time – imagine the village he grew up in, picture the scenery, hear voices of people long since gone. It really helps to overcome home sickness. By cooking it for my non-Georgian friends I can teach them about my roots and wake curiosity and passion for a land they never set foot on. I can help them understand what I love about this small country, cradled in the shadow of the Caucasian mountains.