Khinkali

Ingredients

• Plain flour500 g
• Water for the dough220 ml
• Beef — chopped by hand400 g
• Pork — chopped by hand200 g
• Onion — very finely chopped2
• Iced water for the filling200 ml
• Coriander1 sprig
• Ground cumin1 tsp
• Black pepperto taste
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Knead a dough from the flour, water and a pinch of salt. It should come out noticeably stiffer than a dumpling dough — hard work to knead. Wrap it and rest it for forty minutes.

   50 min

2. 2

   Chop the meat by hand into pieces a few millimetres across. Mix it with the onion, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper.

   25 min

3. 3

   Work the iced water into the filling a little at a time until the mixture turns sticky and stops taking any more. Chill it for twenty minutes.

   25 min

4. 4

   Roll out discs 12 cm across and about two millimetres thick. Put a tablespoon of filling in the middle and gather the edge in pleats all the way round — eighteen at the least. Twist the top and pinch it shut.

   30 min

5. 5

   Drop them into a large pot of salted boiling water, swirling the water with a slotted spoon first so they do not stick. Boil for seven or eight minutes after they float.

   10 min

About the dish

The juice inside khinkali is not broth someone poured in. Cold water is worked into the filling — a lot of it, until the mixture is nearly liquid — and boiling turns it into broth inside the dough.

The meat is chopped with a knife, never minced. A mincer crushes the fibres and their juice ends up in the pot; chopped meat keeps it. Everyone notices the difference.

The knot is not eaten. It is the handle, and it exists for that: the dough there is three times as thick and never cooks through. The knots left on the plate are how the eating is counted.

Worth knowing

• — Make plenty of pleats: a fine top shows the work, but the real point is that pleats hold the juice in during boiling.
• — They are eaten with the hands: hold the knot, bite the side, drink the broth and then eat the rest. A fork ruins the whole thing.
• — The only seasoning at the table is black pepper. Sour cream, sauces and vinegar are considered a misunderstanding in Georgia.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

26 g

Fat

18 g

Carbs

52 g

More from Georgia

• Imeretian khachapuri — A round flatbread with the cheese inside rather than on top. The dough is made on matsoni, and there is as much filling as there is dough.