Lobio - kidney beans in plum sauce

lobio - kidney beans in plum sauce

There are many delightful things about Georgian cuisine - the most obvious being khachapuri which I've posted about before.  My second favourite Georgian dish is lobio - kidney beans in plum sauce.  I tried making this a while back, using an attractively straightforward recipe involving plum jam.  It was nice but not like the lobio that you get in a good Georgian restaurant.

So, when I took Claudia Roden's "The Book of Jewish Food" out from the library, one of the first recipes to catch my eye was the one she gives for lobio.  It was amazing.  I think I demolished about 10% of it in the kitchen while supposedly cooking other stuff to go with but actually, mostly, just sneaking bits of lobio.

Mmmm - Lobio

One of the things that's interesting to me about it is that it doesn't really taste of plums.  I am not a huge fan of fruit in savoury food but that doesn't matter for this because what it adds to the flavour is not fruity/sweetness but sourness/depth/something.  

It's actually remarkably straightforward to make as well - definitely something that the Mighty Aubergine household will be returning to.  A warning - like all of the recipes in this book, it makes lots, not that that is a particular problem..

Essentially, you steam a pound of plums until they're soft, then peel and stone them (this is probably the most annoying aspect of the whole recipe), add to a bunch of coriander and whiz in the food processor with some garlic (about 4-5 cloves), chilli powder (about a tea spoon), some lemon juice (to taste but roughly half a lemon's worth).  And of course a bit of salt to taste.

Whizzing plums and coriander

Lobio sauce - post whizzing

And then you add to 500g of cooked kidney beans (either tinned or dried - I prefer the latter but mostly, if I'm honest, because I'm cheap rather than because of some incredible difference that I can perceive in the flavour) and voila - lobio!

Lobio 

You can serve it warm or at room temperature - either is good.  Obviously, it's best eaten with khachapuri but, let's face it, what isn't best eaten with khachapuri?  But you could if - for whatever reason, you don't want to make khachapuri - eat it with bread, rice, or couscous or as part of a general mezze selection.  I am tempted to experiment with using the plum sauce to go with other things...

Lobio

Khachapuri - the food of the gods

Mmmm, khachapuri

So, we went to Moscow about a year ago, and - apart from the Kremlin and other irrelevances - the best thing was the Georgian food.  And the best thing about the Georgian food was khachapuri.  I could try to describe it but it wouldn't really work - you just need to try it.  There are variants but, essentially, it's flat bread with cheese on top and eggs cracked in and cooked on the hot bread.  I know, what you're thinking, "I can eat bread, cheese and eggs any time", but khachapuri is just SO much more than the sum of its parts.  It is glorious stuff.

As soon as we came back, we investigated Georgian restaurants in London - Tamada, in St Johns Wood, is pretty good but, really, I wanted to make it at home.  I was thrilled to see that Ottolenghi's Jerusalem cookbook, which I have out from the library, had a recipe, so I gave it a whirl.

It was great fun to make - particularly the final bit where you had to make little boats with the dough (made in a similar way to this recipe) and put an egg yolk in each one, along with as much of the egg white as you could fit in.  The recipe suggests that you  pinch two ends of dough and then straighten the side "walls" but I found it easier (after a bit of trial and error) to make the "walls" first and then pinch the ends.

Khachapuri

Khachapuri boats

They were yummy.  Key, I think to them, is the spicing - za'atar, along with some lemon and salt and pepper.  It's odd because I hadn't previously realised that khachapuri were spiced but, as soon as I'd spiced the cheese mixture, I knew it was going to taste like the khachapuri of Moscow.  The mixture of ricotta, halloumi and feta also worked well but I'd be inclined - next time - to have more cheese mixture: dough ratio.  And probably to make a couple of bigger ones to split rather than the small ones as they are a) fiddlier and b) mean that there's more bread than eggy/cheesey goodness!

Putting egg yolks in the khahapuri

Putting egg yolks in the khachapuri

Khachapuri with yolks ready to go into the oven

Khachapuri all done!

It does all make me realise how geographically close Gujarat is to Georgia/other Middle Eastern countries generally, "khachapuri" means "undercooked bread" in Gujarati, doubtless referring to the fact that the egg cooks on the bread.