December 2021: Acharuli Khachapuri; Spring Greens and Onion Tart with Braised Red Cabbage; Sans Rival

So this is it. (Except it's probably not.)

It's the final edition of 2021, the final post in this year of the Random Menu, and it's true that I will be giving this blog a little rest for a while. But given I thought this was a 2016 project, only to bring it back firstly during the 2020 lockdowns and then again for 2021, I think it's safe to say I'm not quite done yet - I just need to find the right format, even if that ultimately ends up being "random posts at random intervals". That'd be appropriate in its own way, wouldn't it?

Anyway, before we get nostalgic for a future that hasn't happened yet, there's the small matter of the December Random Menu selection. So, while you munch on your turkey sandwiches and consider a walk around the park before saying "sod it" and watching My Fair Lady for the 794th time instead, let's see what we've been eating this festive month...

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: Jerusalem (Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi)

The recipe: p252, "Acharuli Khachapuri"

An audible "oo, yay!" escapes my lips when random.org picks this recipe from the pages of Jerusalem. I'm going to let Wikipedia show you why:

"Khachapuri is a traditional Georgian dish of cheese-filled bread. The bread is leavened and allowed to rise, molded into various shapes, and then filled in the center with a mixture of cheese, eggs, and other ingredients."

Cheese-filled bread? What's not to like about that? More pertinently, several friends have been to Georgia - or to places with excellent Georgian restaurants (hello, Kyiv!) - and indulged in this particular local delicacy, making me wildly Insta-jealous in the process. The boat shape and the egg on top make it very photogenic. As I've never had one myself, anyway, it's in keeping with the spirit of this blog that I should break my duck with a home-composed version rather than something assembled by an actual expert with an actual wood-fired oven at their disposal.

I'm wondering what the "Acharuli" refers to until I realise that it's just a regional adjective. As Eurovision nerds, we encountered it back when Georgia made its debut in the contest in 2007 and this curious composition was in the running to represent it. Lovely stuff.

Anyway, Ottolenghi's recipe makes six khachapuri boats, "each enough for a substantial snack", so I decide to scale back the quantities to make four.

The dough is simple enough, consisting of white flour, dried yeast, an egg, Greek yoghurt, lukewarm water, and salt. These are duly mixed together; I'm told I can add more water if required, but "not much, this dough should be dry".

I think it's safe to say that more water will not be required.

Yeah, that's... not a great start. (How exactly was Greek yoghurt and water going to result in a "dry" dough, please and thankyou?)

Regular readers will be familiar with my lack of patience, and once I've scraped the majority of that mess off my hands and back into the mixing bowl, I'm all set to give up and make something else instead. Except... ten minutes of hand-washing and general faffing later, I return to the bowl and the goop is actually starting to vaguely resemble dough. I suppose the yeast is starting to have an impact. In any case, I add a little more flour rather than more liquid, and after ten minutes of careful (and still slightly sticky) kneading, I come up with an acceptable dough ball that I leave in a warm place for 1½ hours as per the recipe.

Given my track record with yeast-based rises, I'm not expecting much - but actually, it does rise quite nicely. I'm not sure it's double the size it was, but it's good enough to work with.

I am to divide this dough into four balls then roll each into a 16cm circle. And even with some of the dough having gone down the sink when I washed my hands, they actually do reach that diameter, which is a pleasant surprise.

Don't worry, no one's going to see the imperfections when they're done

Next, the cheese filling. This would typically involve a local Georgian cheese that is so far above Lewisham Asda's pay grade as to be somewhere in the stratosphere, but fortunately Ottolenghi recognises this and gives us a more achievable version instead: a combination of halloumi cubes, crumbled feta, and ricotta.

All well and good, except there... isn't very much of it?

"The recipe is the recipe" and all that, but if this is going to cover the base of four khachapuri, it's going to need to be more substantial than that. So I make a little more of the cheese mix before stirring in the other ingredients, to wit: black pepper, salt, thyme, za'atar, and lemon zest. This mixture gets spread across the middle of the khachapuri bases (insofar as you can spread anything that contains half-centimetre cubes of mozzarella).

Now comes the fun part: making the boat shape. This involves taking the sides of each circle and pinching them together as I stretch and elongate the dough, before folding and straightening the edges of the "boat" so they'll be sturdy enough to hold the egg that I'll be cracking in there later. Artless as I am, this is never going to turn out immaculately...

...but that's good enough for my purposes as long as there are no Georgians reading and judging this post. (Just in case there are, კეთილი იყოს თქვენი, guys!)

These imperfect creations are brushed with egg and sprinkled with thyme leaves before being put in a hot oven for 15 minutes. At this point, they're taken out briefly...

...and the egg is added by cracking each one into a cup in turn, gently lifting the yolk and placing it in the centre of the khachapuri, then pouring in "as much of the white as will fit inside". I'm encouraged by the ancillary note - "Don't worry if some egg white spills over, it's all part of the rustic charm". I'm all about the rustic charm, as the following image illustrates:

That's how they look after another five minutes in the oven. As the egg white should be done by now (with the yolk still runny) and it isn't quite yet, I give them a couple of minutes more to be on the safe side, then they come out again and get prepped for serving.

I may have been overly cautious, because two of the four yolks have basically set by now:

Right: jävla bra. Left: inte så bra.

My oven is a bit uneven, though, so it could just be that. Either way, even the set ones have a little runny-ness left in them, so they're good enough for the purpose.

The purpose being the eating, which turns out to be a quite pleasant experience. The cheese and herb mixture gives the whole thing a potent foundation; the egg is, well, an egg; and despite the inauspicious start to the dough-making process, the bread is really very decent - crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle.

Now, if you're thinking at this point that I've basically made mini-pizzas here, you're... kind of right. (Again, don't tell any Georgians I said that about their national cuisine.) Of course, this is a different and very specific iteration of the principle, but I do find myself wishing there was a little more to it than this - the taste experience is crying out for some tomato or pepper to break up the flavours, or maybe even some meat. Heck, even a stringier, more brownable cheese sprinkled on top would be a useful addition. And once you go there, you really are in pizza territory - or at least the shape-neighbour to the khachapuri, the Turkish pide. Thus missing the point, I suppose.

Nevertheless, in and of itself, this is a pretty cool thing to have made from scratch, not least since it turned out well enough. I know what to do better next time, from "more flour in the dough" to "get better at making boat shapes, idiot" - and it was still perfectly tasty even in this flawed version.

File under: ჩემი ხომალდი საჰაერო ბალიშზე სავსეა გველთევზებით

 

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: Riverford Farm Cook Book

The recipe: p333, "Swiss Chard Spring Greens and Onion Tart"; p83, "Braised Red Cabbage"

The random finger of fate takes a while to point to anything useful here. After some general pages about vegetables - thank you, I know what peppers are - it lands on a chapter title page improbably entitled "Posh nosh to choke on". Write your own jokes.

Eventually, though, it settles on a hearty tart that feels like a decent pick for a wintry night. Yes, the recipe calls for Swiss chard, but that's not forthcoming in Lewisham right now, hence the adaptation based on what was in this week's veg box. Shouldn't be a problem, though: The introduction says the recipe is "not set in stone" and I should "consider the base as a canvas: you can add what you like (within reason)". Less a recipe, more a series of ideas, in other words. We've been there before.

I do try to stick to what's called for where I can, though. That starts with the base, which is a slightly sweet shortcrust pastry made with flour, caster sugar, salt and butter plus "enough water to make a dough". These ingredients are combined, wrapped in cling film, and chilled for a while before being rolled out on a floured surface. Once again, the recipe gives me plenty of leeway - it starts by asking for a "rough circle" before adding "or actually any shape - this tart is very rustic, so the less uniform, the better". After rolling my eyes at this proviso, I realise it has its advantages, because this dough isn't the easiest to handle. As you can see from my interpretation of "any shape", which I am calling a "deformed North Macedonia":

After being pricked and chilled, this goes into the oven for a 15-minute blind bake.

In the meantime, I start preparing the topping. This involves shredding and briefly cooking the spring greens to soften them before making sure they're very well drained and squeezed:

...then setting the onions on the hob with some butter and thyme for a slow cook "until soft but not coloured":

You'll notice that I've snuck a red pepper in there too. This is mainly because (as well as being expressly allowed by the recipe) I held one back from this week's veg box haul because I incorrectly believed it was required for one of the random recipes. It wasn't, but fate and/or my subconscious clearly wanted me to use it anyway, so why not.

The base is ready, by the way:

...which means it's assembly time!

The spring greens are stirred into the onion and pepper mixture, and this gets spread across the base. Next, the recipe wants me to sprinkle on some chopped olives (it doesn't say which colour; I go with black) and add some grated Parmesan and "a few blobs" of crème fraîche, which I do - but not before cracking two eggs on top, since this is actively suggested in the introduction to the recipe and I have some left over from the dozen I bought for this month's starter and dessert.

When this recipe came out of the bag, I was concerned it might end up being as insubstantial as its 2016 cousin, but I must say it feels pleasingly hefty as it goes back into the oven for quarter of an hour "until lightly browned". I'm not sure we're quite there by the time it comes out again, but the edges certainly look ready even if the topping could use a few more minutes - and the crème fraîche looks like it's set a little, meaning the eggs underneath should be nicely done too. That will suffice. "Rustic", remember.

And despite my scepticism about the "any shape you fancy" instruction for the pastry base, it even slices pretty well.

Incidentally, as indicated in the post title, I also pick a red cabbage recipe from the same book - partly because the veg box also gave us a medium-sized head this week, and partly because, as mentioned, I figured the tart alone might not be hugely substantial.

It turns out to be an unnecessary addition on multiple fronts: the tart is plenty substantial in its own right, the use of spring greens instead of Swiss chard means I'm essentially serving cabbage two ways (surely not a meal request anyone has ever actively made - not even Delia), and the Riverford red cabbage recipe is a little too sweet and not sufficiently tart for my liking. Too much apple and not enough balsamic vinegar, basically. Still, it's not at all bad.

And here's a blurry photo of how it all looks when served up:

But how does it taste? Well, at the risk of banging my own drum, this is really quite decent. If I didn't know better, I would swear that the tart base contains wholewheat rather than plain flour, because there's something (that word again) rustic and hearty about it. Might just be the lack of sogginess thanks to the blind bake, I guess? On top of the base, the sweetness of the onions meets the sharpness of the olives and the cut-through of the crème fraîche in a way that feels nicely indulgent without being too bad for you. And while the eggs may not be an official part of the recipe, I feel like they ought to be - they definitely work.

In a way, if khachapuri is "pizza but Georgian", this is another, even more tangential way of approaching "pizza but not". After all, the toppings would make for a really good vegetarian pizza - all we've done here is swap out the dough base for something more quiche-like. Et pourquoi pas? It's probably a bit more filling that way, and it tastes grand.

File under: Would make again, since there are no rules to the recipe anyway

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

The book: Swedish Cakes and Cookies (Sju sorters kakor)

The recipe: p175, "Sans Rival"

You don't know what a "Sans Rival" is either, right? Good.

It's a torte, as it happens - flourless, multi-layered, and ideally a bit posh. This one, for example, is packed full of almonds in various forms and was supposedly the favourite of some Swedish king or other (but I bet they all say that). I've never heard of it before, and a quick Google throws up lots of references to a Filipino cake of the same name using cashews or pistachios and presented like this:

...whereas the one in my book is a lot less tall and, well, more achievable-looking. Even if the funky dyed marzipan does look a bit like boiled ham.

For all I say "achievable", I'm still a little daunted by the prospect of what's to come. There are a lot of stages to this one - it's very Bake Off in that respect - and while none of them is technically difficult per se, each is capable of messing up the whole. Still, I've made some quite simple things from this book before, so it's actually quite nice to be taking on something that, if it turns out right, could grace the display cabinet of a konditori.

Or, to put it another way:

Me: "Why not? This could fail in entertaining ways"
Sam: "And if it doesn't, it sounds amazing. It's basically marzipan cake with marzipan."

The first stage is the cake layers. My meringue-y favourites, whipped egg whites...

...are combined with ground almonds and sugar:

The idea is to take this batter and make three square layers out of it, which I achieve by cutting out three 20x20cm pieces of baking paper and placing them on greased baking sheets (so they stick a bit) before lightly flouring them.

The batter is spread in a thin layer across each square of baking paper, and despite my concerns that it might be a little on the runny side, this basically works out like it's meant to:

Nothing that can't be trimmed

The squares go in the oven for 15 minutes before being left to cool completely on a rack.

They will be sandwiching a combination of buttercream and what the recipe describes as "nougat", but I think we're talking about what the Bake Off people would call "croquant". Sugar is melted in a pan along with some chopped almonds until it's nicely caramelised, then it's spread in a thin layer on a lined baking sheet and left to cool completely.

A tiny bit past "light brown", but it'll do

In the meantime, my almond meringue layers have cooled enough to peel away from the baking paper. I did say they were thin layers, and, well...

Fortunately, they're going to get smeared in buttercream, which famously hides a multitude of sins. So let's get on with making that buttercream!

If you're thinking this will just involve softening some butter in a bowl then adding sugar and flavourings, you couldn't be more wrong. That is the starting point, admittedly - butter, vanilla and sifted icing sugar are beaten in a bowl until soft. But that's not all. Sju sorters kakor then asks me to heat 200ml of water and two tablespoons of butter in a saucepan until they're at boiling point, before whisking through 2 tablespoons of flour and beating this mixture until it "no longer sticks to the side of the pan" (not sticking to itself in big ugly lumps would be a start).

Two egg yolks get added to the mix as well, then this pan-ful of random is left to cool (more cooling!) before being stirred through the butter and icing sugar.

Sounds like something that'll look uncannily like scrambled egg, right?

Yep

Fortunately, even though my recipe doesn't mention this, other recipes for similar tortes make it clear that it's perfectly fine if you need to pass this mixture through a sieve to get rid of the lumps. So I do. This makes it a whole lot smoother, which is handy given that it needs to be spreadable. 

Now that my nougat/croquant has cooled, I comprehensively crush it using a mortar and pestle - which, in this household, translates to a mixing bowl and a rolling pin. Whatever the technique, the end result is crunchy and smells like a funfair.

This gets stirred through the buttercream to create a filling that, while smooth, also has some crunchy sugary nutty bits in it. Definitely works for me.

Like sluggish office workers responding to a fire drill, we've finally reached the assembly point. The recipe makes it sound very simple: "Spread the cream over the cake layers. Stack. Spread the cream over the top and sides." It's actually not too bad, though; the filling is quite spreadable and it's not too hard to get it to the edges with some to spare for the sides.

(A word of warning: You're going to have to cope with everything being very beige and brown from here on. This is just how things are.)

(See?)

Now, that photograph does illustrate the flaws in my buttercream blending technique, which isn't great despite the lump-sieving. But there'll be plenty of opportunities to cover that up yet. Starting with the marzipan, which the recipe says I can tint using red or green food colouring if I want to. I don't have red, but I do have pink, which I assume will have at least some visible impact on the marzipan...

...but no.

I could add more, but every additional drop makes the marzipan thinner and harder to handle - which, given my general uselessness when it comes to prettification, seems like a poor idea. Even now the marzipan is already reluctant to "roll into a thin sheet" like the recipe wants. So instead, I create some roughly formed strips by hand and effectively press them to the side of the torte and hope the seams aren't too obvious.

The same applies to the decoration on top - I'm never going to manage the twirls and frills of the example photo at the start of this section, but I do at least manage, well, whatever this is:

A belt with buckle, I suppose?

We're not done with the whole sin-covering thing just yet, either. Next - and I swear this is the final stage - some sliced almonds are toasted ("lightly", ha ha, good luck) and sprinkled over the torte. I use a little more than the recipe calls for because (a) I like almonds and (b) the more sin-covering, the better.

There, that's not so bad, is it?

Before serving, it strikes me that I can make the finished product look even less wonky by adding some icing sugar - not included in the recipe, but another good way of distracting the eater.

That done, I tentatively slice into the torte to see how the layers have turned out:

And yeah, you know what, I'm pretty happy with that. Because it's all basically the same colour, the individual layers don't "pop" quite as much as they could, but I'm not sure they need to. The main thing is it looks exactly as it subsequently eats: buttery, sugary, a little dark and mysterious, highly indulgent, and with a little bit of bite thanks to the nuts and the crushed croquant.

Not gonna lie - it's really good.

With ground almonds, chopped almonds, toasted sliced almonds and marzipan, it's safe to say this isn't one for people who don't like, erm, almonds. But if you do (and I do) then it's terrific - perhaps not unrivalled in the world, but certainly sans rival within the admittedly limited parameters of "things I've ever made". 

I wish it could have looked a little more elegant: even if the brown-ness is largely unavoidable, my marzipan technique leaves a lot to be desired and the buttercream is inconsistent. And obviously this isn't exactly the shortest write-up I've ever committed to virtual paper - it's not a quick make. It's fortunate that I have a quiet enough work day that I can dot away at the various steps across the space of an entire afternoon and early evening. As I said at the start, none of those steps is especially tricky, but there's a lot of cooling and waiting involved, so this isn't something you can whip up for unannounced guests.

It's also very rich, to the extent that I am more than happy to share some with my trusty taste testers (who may wish to retract their glowing review now they've seen how shabby it looks under the bonnet...). But then it's meant to serve 15, which, since you know the dimensions (20x20cm, remember?), gives you an indication of how indulgent it is and how relatively little you can serve up and still make someone happy.

Although I'm not saying I wouldn't go back for more. And I do. Frequently.

Second helpings

In a way, isn't this the perfect dish to round off the current phase of this project? It's actively good (though I realise that isn't a prerequisite for entertaining reading), it's a bit ridiculous and convoluted to make, there's plenty of scope for doing things a bit clumsily without wrecking the end product - and more importantly, it's something I would never have picked out of a cookbook to make myself, which was the whole point of the Random Kitchen in the first place.

Thank you for reading me in 2021. I don't know what the future holds for this blog (although I do owe you all an August menu, so I suppose I ought to at least fix that at some point), but there'll definitely be more randomness in one form or another. Until then...

File under: Happy New Year!