I've always said that one of the best parts about life in Georgia is the food. Georgian cuisine features an entirely different palette of flavors that we immediately embraced. Wherever you go the food is always freshly prepared from scratch.
However, after more than two years here I still couldn't prepare a single Georgian thing, so I gathered together with a group of expats for a little instruction.
The Georgian Culinary Academy in Dighomi offers a variety of introductory Georgian cuisine classes in English. I learned about the Holy Grail of Georgian Spices: wild blue fenugreek, Georgian saffron (ground marigold petals), coriander, and Georgian pepper (similar to paprika). These four spices in varying quantities produce the classic flavor ubiquitous in Georgian cuisine.
We also used a fair amount of ground walnuts, parsley, and garlic in the recipes. Here you see our attempts at baking spinach pies. We also made chicken with walnut sauce (satsivi), corn grits with white cheese (ghomi with sulguni), and a sort of spinach/walnut paté (pkhali).
After we prepared and cooked our dishes, we sat down to eat them together. As someone who loves cooking and cooks from scratch daily, I must say that I completely delighted in the experience from beginning to end. They also took pictures for us; the image below captures my dorky smile of happy abandon.
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