How to make the perfect cheese khachapuri

The first time I tried khachapuri was at Little Georgia on Broadway Market, and the menu description—“traditional cheesebread … baked to order”—understated the reality: a golden round of soft, buttery bread spilling hot, salty cheese. Georgian cooks make many regional versions, but this piece focuses on imeruli khachapuri from Imereti, essentially a flat bread stuffed with buttery Imeretian cheese curds and cooked on the stovetop.

Doughs range from yeasted, crusty versions to tender, soda- or yoghurt-based ones. After trying several recipes, the yoghurt-and-bicarbonate approach proved simplest and most popular with testers: it yields a soft, tender bread that melts in the mouth. I simplified one recipe further by using butter instead of oil and skipping the egg yolk, and found the results unchanged; a light seasoning is all you need.

Finding authentic Imeretian cheese is difficult outside Georgia, so cooks use substitutes.

khachapuri, imeruli khachapuri, imeretian cheese, imereti, little georgia, broadway market, cheesebread, yoghurt, bicarbonate, stovetop