For Cheese and Feast Lovers: A Recipe for Achma from a Georgian Mom
The recipe requires only a few staple ingredients to create the finished pie.
59.RU continues to share family and personal recipes. Our journalists and their mothers and grandmothers have already shared recipes for julienne, kovrizhka honey cake, fried cottage cheese, and Georgian lobio bean stew. This time, the recipe is also from Georgia. We«ll tell you how to prepare a type of khachapuri—achma—which is made from many layers of boiled dough. The recipe isn»t the fastest, but it«s quite simple.
The recipe for achma originates from the western regions of Georgia. It is a special type of khachapuri that doesn«t look like the familiar flatbread with cheese—it»s a large layered pie, each layer of which is boiled before the dish is assembled. Achma is an integral part of large Georgian feasts; it«s considered a festive dish, so it»s usually prepared on large baking sheets. The recipe was again shared by our journalist«s mother.
A slice reveals achma«s crispy, browned top and soft, cheesy, juicy interior layers.
To prepare achma, we will need one kilogram of cheese, 800 grams of flour, four eggs, 200 grams of butter, two tablespoons of vegetable oil, a glass of water, and a teaspoon of salt. The original recipe, of course, uses Imeretian brine cheese, but here in Russia, you have to try very hard to find it—in general, it can be replaced with Suluguni, which is more common in stores, or with Adygean or other Caucasian cheeses.
The preparation process involves using several pots, bowls, and utensils.
First, prepare the dough—sift 800 grams of flour through a sieve into the bowl where we will mix everything. Next, crack four eggs into another bowl and beat them until smooth. Add a tablespoon of salt and a glass of warm water there, mix again. Make a well in the flour mound and carefully pour in the egg mixture. Then mix and add a couple of spoons of vegetable oil. Knead the dough. It should become smooth and elastic and not stick to your hands.
The dough needs to rest for about 30 minutes. During this time, you can grate the cheese on a fine or medium grater (we grated it in advance; it«s up to you how you do it). Sometimes a little cottage cheese is added to the cheese, but that»s optional.
Fill a pot for boiling the dough with water and place it over medium heat until it boils. At the same time, melt the butter for greasing the baking sheet.
Return to the dough. Form it into a tight loaf shape and cut it into 6–8 pieces—we will roll these out into thin layers.
Roll out the next layer with a rolling pin to the size of the baking dish you are using. The thickness of the layer should be literally a few millimeters. Drop it into the boiling water and time it for about a minute. Remove the dough with a colander, rinse under cold water, and remove excess moisture on a clean waffle-weave towel. Place the layer on the cheese. Brush with melted butter again and add more cheese.
Earlier, we shared the recipe for the «Zebra» cake, popular in Soviet times.
