♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - We recently got back from Georgia-- the country, not the state-- and came back with some great recipes.

It's an area we didn't know much about.

Now, the first is khachapuri, you may have heard of that.

It's the bouchée pastry filled with cheese.

We found a way to do it at home using store-bought puff pastry.

The next recipe is what we call a chicken tray bake.

It's a creamy garlic chicken, it's really easy to do.

And, finally, a Georgian tomato salad, which is fresh and easy and bright.

So please stay tuned as we bring you the cooking of, and the flavors of, Georgia.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: ♪ ♪ - So if you've spent any amount of time on food social media, chances are you have encountered khachapuri-- sexy, canoe-like oblongs of bread filled with molten cheese and a runny egg.

You rip off a hunk of the crust, you dredge it through the center and you shove it in your mouth.

It's kind of like Georgian fondue.

Pure indulgence.

I had to know how to make them, so I set out from Tbilisi to eat as many of them as I could.

♪ ♪ - I don't know a person who tries khachapuri and says that I can't eat that.

Everybody loves it like they love pizza.

They all love it.

♪ ♪ Khachapuri is something Georgians are very proud of.

But basically it is a cheese bread.

There's cheese and the bread.

It looks good in the pictures, for one.

And then instead of just cheese, you have egg there as well and you have some butter and you make this fondue mixture that you can enjoy with the bread.

And with this social media era where you could, you know, stretch the cheese and show them how to eat stretches and how you eat it, it probably did the trick.

♪ ♪ The world got to know us and our khachapuri culture through this khachapuri.

But in Georgia, I wouldn't say that this is the most popular khachapuri-- it's not.

And I think they claim that there's more than 50.

It's just the variation of whatever they could find.

You know, I remember my grandma used to just pick anything in a garden and make khachapuri filling with it.

We're losing this culture, you know?

It's not there anymore.

You know, some people do still have it up in the villages, but mostly we lost it.

- So I went in search of these other khachapuris, and that led me to the Alazani Valley, the country's premier wine region.

That's where I was welcomed into a vineyard that was celebrating its first harvest with a supra, a long, sprawling feast with lots of food, lots of wine, and probably my favorite khachapuri yet.

- (speaking Georgian) - This is penovani khachapuri, which is nothing more than store-bought puff pastry wrapped around cheese and herbs, almost like a savory breakfast tart.

It was the simplest khachapuri I had on my trip, but it sacrificed nothing in richness or flavor.

Finally, a khachapuri so easy, you can make it even after many jugs of Georgian wine.

(toasting, glasses clinking) ♪ ♪ Really, the only challenge in adapting this recipe for our kitchen was the cheese itself.

Now, in Georgia, the cheese that's used in a lot of khachapuri is called imeruli cheese.

Now, it is a local cow's milk cheese that's got a really fascinating combination of taste and textures.

It's a little bit chewy, it's very melty and creamy, but it's also a little bit briny.

I ate a ton of imeruli cheese trying to figure out, well, what could we substitute because it's kind of hard to find in the U.S.

And the answer ended up being actually a trio of cheeses that together capture the taste and texture of the imeruli cheese.

So what we have is some Mexican queso fresco, some briny feta and some mozzarella.

Now, when I had this in Georgia, they also used tarragon, which you would be welcome to do-- delicious.

We just happened to like the thyme.

And then to cut through all that richness, we're going to add the zest of a lemon.

To give you a sense of how easy this is to make, my host literally made this in the middle of a vineyard.

No formal kitchen, no real equipment, and she just pulled this together on a table in between grapevines.

So I figure if she can do it that way, I can do it here and you can certainly do it at home.

With our cheesy filling set, we can move on to our puff pastry.

When you go to the grocery store, you might find several brands of puff pastry-- look for one that's made with butter.

The flavor's going to be so much richer and so much better.

The size of the sheets of puff pastry might vary by the brand, so depending on what you get, you might have to just cut the sheet in half, and that's what we're going to do with this one because the goal is to have two sheets of nine by 12 inch puff pastry when we're done.

Once your first rectangle is about a nine by 12, you can transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.

And then we repeat the process with the second sheet.

It sticks a little bit.

Don't be afraid.

Just put on a little bit more flour.

So we take our first sheet and we're going to mound our cheese mixture right in the center.

We're going to spread this evenly, leaving about a one-inch border all around.

Now, to help it seal, we're gonna brush a little bit of egg on it.

So we're going to whisk egg yolk with just a splash of water.

Just touch along the edges of the pastry.

This will help it seal while it bakes.

Such a wonderful combination.

I think I just want to actually use the same combination on pizza, actually.

And top it with our second sheet of puff pastry.

Gently set it over.

If you need to, it's fine to nudge it out a little bit so that it covers the whole thing.

Puff pastry is pretty forgiving.

We're just going to crimp the edges.

You can use a fork or you can just use your fingers.

There we go, okay.

Now we're gonna use the rest of the egg to brush the top so that it bakes up golden and gorgeous.

I think it's very funny that the khachapuri I liked most also happened to be the easiest.

I watched many khachapuri being made in Georgia, and they were all amazing, but they were a little fussy to make at times.

It was a lot like making pizza because of the yeasted dough.

And I was actually a little concerned that they weren't going to be very home cook friendly because khachapuri in Georgia does tend to be a restaurant food.

Then I was lucky enough to be at the vineyard and have penovani khachapuri, and suddenly the skies opened up.

Finally, just to vent it during baking, we're just going to prick some holes in it, every inch or so.

Now we're going to bake this at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes until it's golden, crisp, and puffy.

While the khachapuri bakes, it's going to puff considerably.

And you pull it out and you let it cool for ten minutes in the pan and then for another ten minutes off the pan.

And then it's gonna deflate a little bit, but it's still puffy, crisp, and golden.

Oh, let's look inside.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Okay.

I love the sound of puff pastry being sliced.

There we go.

Now the best part is this is good warm.

It's good room temperature.

It's good cold.

It's just good.

Mm.

The cheese is perfectly briny, salty, savory, chewy, creamy, melty.

Just like every cheese you've ever wanted all combined into one.

And the thyme is just perfect.

But what really brings it all together is the lemon zest.

It really cuts through that richness with really bright notes.

And then, of course, you've got this wonderful, flaky puff pastry.

It's just ever so, like, cracklingly crispy, but still tender.

Now, I will admit this doesn't have quite the visual sex appeal of the boat-like khachapuri, but it has all of the flavor.

It's so much easier, so delicious.

And, frankly, I like it better.

It's so good.

Mm!

♪ ♪ - What I love about this country the most is how small it is and how diverse it is.

You know, you could drive around in, like, I don't know, five, six hours, and you would get from point A to point B, and it's going to be totally different everything.

People, landscapes, food, colors, everything's going to be drastically different.

So this is the beauty of it, and putting these different cultures together is fun.

- Georgian cuisine, always fusion.

Before the fusion was the fusion.

We located in the middle of the Silk Road, and one of the last countries through Europe.

When you try the Georgian food, first time, you think that, oh, it's very like Indian or Persian or Turkish.

We have influences, but the same time, it's very unique.

All our neighbor countries are doing great barbecue, and they work great with the meat.

But for me, what is the taste of Georgia?

I always saying this is the combination of the walnuts, spices, and the vegetables.

- Vegetables and walnuts and walnuts and walnuts everywhere.

(laughs) - The walnuts was only a real source of the protein, and then the vegetables and this combination, it's very unique.

- I don't want to call it a comfort food, but it is at the same time.

It's a food that maybe every grandma cooked in the world.

You know, it's, it's simple food.

♪ ♪ - Walnuts are sacred in Georgian cuisine.

They are the oldest known cultivated plant.

They were used as religious offerings and as a meat substitute during Lent.

They're used to thicken soups and stews and a central ingredient in salads.

But they're also the reason that adjika, a red pepper paste that I'm about to make for you, is rich and creamy, and they cut through some of the fiery heat of the chilies.

While walnuts, garlic, and spices are enough, actually, to make a paste, adjika has a little more going on.

We start with about a tablespoon of oil, and then we put in our half-cup of walnuts, all the Fresnos... all the tomatoes... garlic... the roasted red peppers and two teaspoons of salt.

All right, we pulsed it about 15 times till it's nice and finely chopped.

And now we're gonna cook it down.

I think you should fry all your pestos-- your Genoveses, your Calabrian pestos-- your adjika.

When you cook down a pesto or fry a pesto, you transform it into a whole different condiment.

The fresh versions are great, but when they're cooked down, you mellow out the flavors.

They have time to blend.

They get a little more savory.

They're less sharp in character, so I find that they're a little more versatile.

The quarter-cup of water is just going to help mellow out some of the flavors and prevent it from burning.

So we want to let this cook down until it darkens and thickens.

You can stop at any time.

It's your adjika, but we like it after five or even ten minutes.

While it's cooking, let's talk about fenugreek.

So fenugreek is a spice that I happen to love.

It's nutty and maple-y.

It's got a little bit of pungency and some bitterness.

So fenugreek you'll often find in three forms, and you can use the whole plant.

So here are the leaves.

They're pretty pungent and powerful, so just a small handful cooked in with spinach or kale adds a depth of flavor that's unbelievable.

The spice fenugreek, this is what the seed looks like, and you can toast this, fry it, add it to a tarka.

It's used a lot in Indian cuisine as well.

Or you can grind it up.

In Georgia, they tend to use most a blue fenugreek, but it's also a little tricky to find, and we have found that a mixture of coriander, fennel, and mustard provides that sort of citrus, nutty, herbal-y, slightly bitter, pungent flavor profile that fenugreek has.

It's not a one-to-one match, but it's pretty delicious.

All right, so you can see how much this has cooked down and concentrated.

And now it's this lovely paste and less of a sauce.

Time for the spices.

And they'll sort of bloom a little bit in the heat of the sauce, and you'll be able to smell them, especially that coriander, right away.

And that's it, we're done.

That's our red adjika.

Most commonly, adjika is served with meats, grilled meats in particular.

It's also great with roasted vegetables.

You can stir some into yogurt for a dip.

Serve it with a khachapuri you just learned how to make as your bread course.

It's really versatile-- I even slather it all over bread for sandwiches.

One of my favorites, though, is a good roasted potato just dipped straight into the adjika.

It's amazing that five Fresnos are not sending me searching for some yogurt.

It's balanced from that cooking time and that half-cup of walnuts.

That fat balances out the heat into this beautiful, spicy, but not too spicy, rich, really decadent sauce that's going to improve anything it goes on.

♪ ♪ - So it's time that we had a talk.

Now, this is a private conversation between me and all of you who think that salad dressings always need to be emulsified, which is utter nonsense.

Most people in the world who make salads do not emulsify their salad dressing.

Now, if you go to Paris and hang out in kitchens and bistros, which I've done a couple times, you will notice they put mustard in anything, and that's a perfectly valid way to make a dressing.

We're going to do a Georgian tomato cucumber salad, which is going to, in a way, have an emulsified dressing, but it's not really emulsified.

It's using a different technique, which is using some ground nuts.

So let's start with the cucumbers.

So these are the world's largest cucumbers.

So I'm going to take strips off, alternating like that.

We're going to split this in half lengthwise to get rid of the seeds.

And I like to use a measuring spoon.

And the reason I do that is they have very thin edges to them.

Okay, the tomatoes.

We have some cherry tomatoes.

You could use cocktail tomatoes that are a little bit bigger, which actually have pretty good flavor, and two regular tomatoes.

Now, as Americans, when we walk in the supermarket, we buy everything based on what it looks like, right?

We're very visual.

So these look great.

But I always find, even if they look great, I do find they're always not quite as great... ...as I would like.

I think the rule is the smaller the tomato, the more flavor, probably.

So anytime we're doing a tomato salad or I'm using tomatoes without cooking them, I'll put them in a colander, and I'm going to put the cucumbers in as well.

And what we're going to do is salt them and some of the water gets to leach out.

Small red onion, thinly sliced like that, a little vinegar, and we'll let this sit as well.

Let's just talk about vinegar for a second.

I have another big problem here, which is vinegar.

You know, if you go to the supermarket and buy red wine vinegar, it's going to be six or seven percent acid, right?

A rice wine vinegar is four percent.

Some other vinegars, calamansi, which is a sour orange vinegar, which we use here, is low.

So the problem is vinegars are just too strong.

And that's why people talk about emulsions, because they want to hide that surrounded by the oil.

Last thing, if you have a really high acid vinegar, you can actually dilute it with water.

So you can take a six-and-a-half percent vinegar, make it a four or three-and-a- half percent acidity just by adding water to it and mixing it in.

In Georgia, this is a classic approach, which is to use walnuts.

And we're going to use the walnuts, not to emulsify the dressing, but it's gonna make it thicker.

You get a thicker dressing, which will actually hold everything together.

Okay, walnuts, one clove of garlic, smashed, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, and cilantro.

So we're just gonna give it four or five pulses.

We're looking to have some texture with the nuts a little bit.

This has now been about 20 minutes.

Cubanelle peppers, Not hot, just good flavor.

A little more cilantro.

And then we have the onions that have been sitting in the vinegar-- just a tiny bit of vinegar.

Now there's a little bit of liquid from the tomatoes and the cucumbers, and that's going to help take that dressing we made, thin it out a little bit and help it coat everything.

Two things about dressing salads-- you want to get a large bowl so things don't fly out of the bowl; and two, I found that you really need to toss dressing with a salad for a full minute or more.

And the reason is it takes that time to get the dressing or the oil or whatever you're using-- the pesto-- fully covering all parts of it.

Now, there's nothing wrong with mustard vinaigrette, but this is a lot better, that's all I can say.

Growing up, every time I had a salad, it would be the taste of vinegar, right?

The acidity would... always sort of made it, "Oh, this is a salad."

There's a tiny bit of vinegar in here, like a tablespoon.

You really don't taste acid in this.

So it's the flavor of the cucumbers and the tomatoes and a little bite from the onion, and the walnuts, of course, make it a little creamy.

But you don't have that bite in the salad, which I think, if you're not careful, really is unpleasant.

Mm.

So you can do this with cucumbers and tomatoes, but this idea of creating kind of a pesto that you could use in a thousand different salads.

So a Georgian cucumber and tomato salad with a walnut dressing.

And it's a totally different way to think about what is a salad and what is a salad dressing.

♪ ♪ - Here at Milk Street, we love a good tray bake.

Because one, they're very easy to make.

Two, they're easy to add a lot of flavor to.

And three, if you do it right, you get an incredible pan sauce that develops right on the sheet tray.

Everything happens right in the oven.

This tray bake is our converted version of a Georgian chicken dish called shkmeruli.

We learned this in Tbilisi, Georgia, from two incredible chefs, and we took our favorite elements from both of those to make this tray bake.

What we start with is a little bit of oil, and then we're going to add a selection of spices that most closely resembles the iconic seasoned sea salt called Svanuri.

Now, this sea salt blend contains garlic, fenugreek, coriander, and chili, and we're using those spices here in this mixture.

we have the salt and pepper.

Then we have some paprika, and that's going to take the place of the chili.

We have some ground coriander, and then we have ground fenugreek.

I was a little surprised, actually, that fenugreek was so endemic to Georgian cooking and is used in this salt blend that's used on practically everything, because fenugreek is very, very popular with Indian cooking.

But it's an incredible addition to this simple sea salt blend that we're using for our tray bake.

Now, in Georgia, some of their classic dishes use a load of garlic-- however, in most of those recipes, the garlic is allowed to cook down and become incredibly sweet, and it becomes really well-blended within the entire dish.

So we're adding eight medium crushed garlic cloves to this mixture, and then we'll add our chicken.

So for this particular chicken tray bake, we're choosing bone-in, skin-on chicken, and we're using all the dark meat cuts.

You can use pretty much any cut of the chicken you want.

If you choose to add breasts to this mixture and if they're really large, just cut them in half, but make sure they're on the bone.

Another advantage of using bone-in chicken is not only the increase in flavor, but it's because it takes a little bit longer to cook.

And that gives those garlic cloves time to fully cook and soften and develop all of their sweetness.

This is how simple the tray bake is; it goes from one bowl to one sheet tray and right into the oven.

I'm going to place the chicken around the perimeter of the pan, and I'm going to save the center of the pan for all the garlic cloves.

And the chicken makes this, like, protective wall around the garlic cloves so they don't get scorched in the hot oven.

The chicken also releases a little bit of steam and fat as it cooks, which helps the garlic cloves remain moist as well.

The oven is preheated to 450 degrees.

This tray will go in with the chicken skin side up, and it's going to stay skin side up for the full 30 or 40 minutes.

And that lets the skin get nice and dark brown.

This really does smell incredible.

Not just the fenugreek, but everything.

Browned chicken is a fantastic smell, even on itself.

Okay, so I'm going to take the chicken pieces off the tray.

I'm going to do this right away while the tray is still hot, because this is where we're going to make the pan sauce.

You can see how the garlic got golden brown.

It's really beautiful.

And look how soft it is.

It just mushes up.

So use a fork, mush it up right in the middle of the sheet tray.

It mixes with all those chicken juices.

And what the water does is it helps to release all this beautiful sticky stuff on the bottom of the sheet tray.

This is really the good stuff.

Okay, by now we have some nice thyme mixed in with there.

We'll take out these thyme stems.

This is one of those activities that you can get into, and it becomes sort of meditative and you just kind of keep doing it, don't want to stop.

But obviously we'll stop because the best part is yet to come.

Now you want a little bit of fat in this.

We tried this with just milk, we tried it with other things.

But sour cream not only gives the sauce body, but it has that little bit of tanginess that offsets the sweetness of the garlic, it's really nice.

The heat of the pan keeps the sauce warm, and it just lets the sour cream just kind of melt into the whole thing.

Okay, great, now I'm going to switch to a spatula here.

All that's left now is to pour this sauce over the chicken waiting on the platter and take it to the table.

I mean, it is gorgeous as it is, but a little bit of chopped green parsley always brings out the beauty.

You know what?

I'm going to take this piece, my favorite piece right here.

You know, salt and garlic alone would make an incredible chicken tray bake, but it's the addition of those spices, the coriander, the fenugreek especially, a little bit of paprika.

Oh, and of course the garlic mushed up in there.

So this is Milk Street's Georgian creamy garlic chicken.

Now there's a title that describes the dish perfectly.

And you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

- Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From Vietnamese chicken salad and tiramisu to easy-stretch pizza dough and Austrian apple strudel, the new Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $29.95, 40% less than the cover price.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

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