"Georgian cookbook" news and stories

The Georgian Feast is now officially my favorite cookbook. I've been meaning to get around to making the spice bread, Nazuki, for a while now and I'm glad I finally did. This one made the house smell so fabulously delicious that I'd make a killing if I could bottle the scent. Next time I sell my house, I'm making Nazuki every day (in case you didn't get the "Good Eats" reference, Alton did an episode where the premise was to make sticky buns for a nice homey aroma in the house so it would sell more quickly).

As with most of the recipes I've tried from my Georgian cookbook, this one was pretty simple. The author calls for active dry yeast, but that needs to be bloomed prior to use and adds an extra step. I just substitute instant yeast, aka bread machine or rapid rise, which can be mixed in with everything else. That way, all you have to do is throw everything in a bowl and mix it all up in one step (called the straight dough method).

My sister could not wait for the Nazuki to come out of the oven, and she cut into it as soon as it was cool. Sadly, my Georgian friend has been pretty busy this week, so he didn't get to try it and tell me if I got it right. Either way, it's delicious, and it will definitely be one of my holiday breads this year. Check out the gallery, and the recipe is after the jump.

This weekend I got it into my head that I really wanted to try some bread from my Georgian cookbook. Up til now I've pretty much stuck to vegetables and sweets, but it was high time that I made one of the delicious looking bread options. I chose the Lobiani, which is a simple bread with a kidney bean filling, because I had most of the ingredients. I only had to get sour cream.

The Lobiani was very simple to make, you'll just need plenty of space to roll the dough out (which can be a problem in my tiny kitchen). I have an extra large cutting board that I use for rolling out bread doughs. The dough is made from sour cream, eggs, butter and flour, and it's leavened by working baking soda into the dough after it's mixed. The filling is made with lots of onions and kidney beans, plus seasoning and coriander.

Let me just tell you, I will make Lobiani again! It is so good, with the mild kidney beans mixing quite nicely with the sweet onion flavor and coriander. I took a loaf over to share with my Georgian friend and he told me more than once how delicious the Lobiani was.

I did change a few things. First off, the recipe said not to leave the dough out for more than 8 hours or it'll turn sour. Of course I did (just FYI, don't fall asleep on the couch at about the time you're supposed to be starting a baking project), but I just threw the dough in the fridge overnight and let it warm up the next morning and everything was fine. I actually liked the sour taste. Also, I used canned white kidney beans because I had them. Other than that, I did everything the recipe told me to do, and everything was great. The recipe after the jump.