Known far beyond the Caucasus Mountains. Many of her dishes are familiar not only to gourmets - at least once in their life everyone has tasted them, and even more so heard the names. Lobio, satsivi, khinkali, chakhokhbili, khachapuri, kharcho are very popular. This is not a complete list of wonderful dishes of Georgian cuisine.

However, the beautiful mountainous country is known not only for first and second courses, but also for excellent intoxicating drinks, which are traditionally served with various types of cheese. The amazing taste of golden sparkling wine and the mild spiciness of the national dairy product are the timeless classics of gourmet cuisine.

Originally from Imereti

Among the many varieties of national cheese, Imeretinsky is the most famous. It owes its name to the region of the same name in Western Georgia. The area here is very beautiful: there are mountains around, coniferous forests, many turbulent rivers and foamy waterfalls.

If you are lucky enough to visit Imereti, then you should definitely see the local sights - ancient fortresses, monasteries, Christian churches, national parks. A mandatory point of the program should be a tasting of local wines, the best of which are krahuna and tsolikauri. Such wonderful drinks are invariably served with a real brand of Western Georgia - Imereti cheese.

Cheese making traditions

The history of cheese production in this Caucasian republic dates back more than one century. In the "House of Cheese", which is located in Tbilisi, dishes are demonstrated in which this tasty and healthy food product was stored eight thousand (!) Years ago, while in other countries they began to produce cheese only four thousand years later. Therefore, Georgia can rightfully be called the birthplace of cheese.

In the highlands of the country, older women still use ancient recipes for making cheese. For example, some of its varieties are kept in honey, chacha, covered with grape skins. After the revived recipes began to be widely used in production, they found admirers among the modern inhabitants of Georgia.

According to official data, 14 varieties of cheese have now been recorded in the country: chogi, kalti, tenili, kobi, dambal khacho, meskhuri chechili, Georgian, Adjarian chlechili, guda, Imereti, suluguni, tushinsky guda, Megrelian suluguni, Svan suluguni. By the way, all these varieties can be tasted in the Tbilisi "House of Cheese", where you can also learn about the history of their occurrence and see the objects with which cheese was produced earlier, and in some mountain villages even now.

The most favorite are suluguni and Imereti cheese

The most famous are Imeretinsky and Suluguni cheese. These varieties are so loved in Georgia that they are produced not only at special factories, but also at home. Moreover, along with well-deserved popularity, these two varieties are interconnected for one more reason: suluguni is made from Imereti cheese, for this they use heat treatment and kneading the cheese mass in the same way as the dough. As a result of all these actions, a brine with a layered structure is obtained, which Georgians love very much.

If suddenly the Russians have a question: "I did not find the Imereti cheese. What can I replace it with?" - then the answer will be obvious: Suluguni. You can also try to cook it yourself. How? And this is what we are going to tell you now!

Imeretian cheese: recipe

For its production, unboiled fresh milk is used, so all useful minerals and vitamins are preserved in the final product.

Imeretian cheese at home is easy to prepare. Its recipe includes:

• fresh cow's milk - 1 liter;
• pepsin - 60 ml;
• cold water - 1 liter;
• table salt - 1 tablespoon;
• granulated sugar - 1 tablespoon.

Further actions:

1. Milk must be heated to a temperature of 38 ºС and strained into an enamel pan. After that, pour in the pepsin, mix with a spoon and leave in a warm place.
2. After half an hour, the milk will ferment, then the resulting cheese mass must be separated from the whey.
3. The resulting base should be placed in a special form with holes or a colander, and a tray should be placed under it. The surface of the future cheese must be leveled and salted with coarse salt.
4. In order for the Imereti cheese to ripen, it must be placed in a special solution - tsatkhi. To do this, water is poured into a glass container, salt and sugar are added, and then cheese is placed. Everything is sealed with a lid and left in a warm place. In four days, homemade Imeretian cheese will be ready.

Benefits and more

First of all, the usefulness of this type of cheese will be appreciated by people who watch their figure - its calorie content is only 240 kilocalories. One hundred grams of Imeretian cheese contains 18.5 grams of protein, 14 grams of fat, and 2.4 grams of carbohydrates.

This product, made from milk, Georgians can eat at any time of the day - for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with fragrant cakes, bread, with tea, used in salads, soups.

On this occasion, there was even a saying that says that only the one who died has no cheese. In small Georgia, about 80 thousand tons of cheese are produced annually.

Imeretian cheese dishes

The popular Imeretian cheese is used not only as an excellent appetizer for wine, but also as one of the ingredients in various dishes. For example, Imeretian khachapuri, khychins, foams, various salads are very tasty.

Penovani is a kind of baked khachapuri, which is made from puff pastry, and the product we are considering is preferable as a filling.

Khychiny - a pie with boiled potatoes mixed with suluguni and Imereti cheese. The peculiarity of this dish is that it is fried in a dry frying pan.

Khachapuri - baked yeast cakes stuffed with suluguni and Imereti cheese.

Today I propose to cook, in my opinion, the simplest, but nevertheless delicious Homemade Imeretian cheese.

Imeretian cheese is a fresh cheese of Georgian cuisine. It is with this cheese that real khachapuri is prepared. Cooking it at home is not at all difficult. I will cook this cheese in two versions: classic and with spices.

These are the products you will need to make Imereti cheese at home. If the milk is pasteurized, then add more calcium chloride to this. As additives, you can use your favorite spices or herbs. I have paprika and tomato flakes, as well as cumin.

Heat milk to 38 degrees.

Add sourdough, it can be any fermented milk product, homemade is best, I have homemade yogurt. Mix well and leave for 30 minutes.

Pour zira with a small amount of boiling water and leave to brew, so it will better reveal its aroma. Dissolve rennet in water at a temperature of 35 degrees. Let stand for 10-15 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add the dissolved rennet to the milk. Mix thoroughly and leave for 40-60 minutes, until a dense clot forms. Check for a "clean break". To do this, lower your finger into the clot, it must remain absolutely clean.

Cut the clot into cubes 2-3 cm, leave for 10 minutes until it sinks to the bottom.

Using your hands or a large slotted spoon, transfer the cheese mass to the cheese mold. Since I make two types, I lay it out in two forms, in one - pure cheese, and in the second - pouring layers of salt, strained cumin and paprika flakes. With your hands, press the mass a little for a better discharge of the serum. Leave the cheese to self-press for 10-12 hours. During this time, you can turn the cheese in the forms once or twice.

I immediately sprinkled the cheese with spices with salt, but the simple cheese is not yet salty. For him, dissolve salt in water and put cheese in it, keep in brine at the rate of 1 hour per 500 grams of cheese. I got a head of 400 grams, I kept it in brine for 1 hour.

Here is such a wonderful Imeretian cheese we get at home. I will also make a reservation that this cheese is recommended to be kept in a weak saline solution with the addition of sugar for several months, but I did not do this, we like it fresh.

Suluguni is also made from such cheese, letting it lie in the refrigerator for 3 days. Someday I'll show you how to do it too. I cooked this cheese to order, so there is no cut, but I will show a cut of exactly the same cheese that was cooked three days ago - holes appear in it from aging.

So it’s not at all difficult to cook homemade Imeretinsky cheese, I’ll be glad if someone needs a recipe.

But before the recipe, let's talk in detail about milk - the most important ingredient for making delicious cheese. If you choose the wrong raw material, the whole batch will go down the drain.

What kind of milk is suitable for homemade cheese

There are several rules for choosing the right milk for cheese.

Rule 1

Homemade milk is best for cheese. Many novice cheesemakers use store-bought milk for their first experiments, which is usually pasteurized and sometimes ultra-pasteurized at the factory. Of course, in most cases they fail and become disillusioned with the hobby.

Rule 2

If there are no options to get homemade milk, use store bought milk. But it also has a number of specific requirements:

1. UHT milk is definitely not suitable. When processed at the factory, all microorganisms that are responsible for the coagulation of milk die in it. Use only pasteurized. It was subjected to less temperature testing.
2. With pasteurized milk, be sure to use calcium chloride. Without it, the milk just won't curdle.

But even if these rules are observed, it cannot be guaranteed that cheese from purchased milk will turn out. A suitable variety and manufacturer will have to be sought empirically.

Therefore, the most important task for a beginner cheesemaker is to find a constant source of homemade milk.

Requirements for the quality of homemade milk

Once you have found a source of homemade milk, you need to check its quality. It also has a few requirements:

1. It must be unpasteurized.
2. Age - no more than 24 hours, provided it is properly stored.
3. After milking, it should stand for 4-5 hours before use.
4. It should not be diluted or refrigerated.

A simple recipe for homemade Imeretian cheese

So, after we have found the right milk, checked it for quality, we can proceed directly to cooking. The recipe for making Imereti cheese is a task that is quite feasible even for beginner cheese makers.

We will need the following ingredients:

• unpasteurized milk - 10 l;
• Meito cheese enzyme, 1 g - 1/10 sachet.

Of the equipment, only a home cheese factory is needed. In our case -

Procedure:

1. Cleanliness is important for cheese. Therefore, first of all, we rinse our equipment with boiling water and wipe it dry with a clean cloth.
2. Pour the milk into the cheese factory, pour water into the water jacket and start heating the milk to 35°C.

While the milk is heating, prepare the enzyme. Scatter it on a plate and visually measure 1/10 of the total volume.

After the milk warms up to 35 ° C, dissolve the enzyme in a small amount of water and pour it into the milk. We mix.

3. Now you need to wait for the formation of a clot. To do this, leave the milk for about 1 hour at a temperature of 35 ° C.
4. After an hour, a clot forms. Our task is to slowly cut it with a lyre into small cubes. We leave them for 10 minutes so that they finally settle.
5. After 10 minutes we start heating the milk to 42°C. This will help the cheese clots become more solid and dense. Heat slowly, stirring constantly.
6. It took us about 10 minutes to complete this process. During this time, the cheese cubes turned into cheese grains. So, it's time to extract it from the serum.

We do it as follows - pour the mass into a colander. We wait about an hour until the serum drains. Then we turn over the already dense cheese and wait until the remaining whey drains from the other side. We repeat the procedure of turning over 6 times for 3 hours.

7. After drying, put the cheese in the refrigerator overnight (for about 10-12 hours). The next day, we take out the already prepared cheese and salt it. Fragrant Imeretian cheese is ready to eat.

For final ripening and formation of taste, it can be put in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

Imeretian cheese recipe at home (video)

Conclusion

Many may have a logical question - is a cheese factory really necessary? After all, you can cook cheese in a regular pan.

Yes, you can cook cheese in a regular saucepan, but this comes with a big risk of spoiling the batch. Firstly, milk is heated unevenly in a saucepan, and we cannot accurately monitor the temperature throughout the entire volume. And this is very important when making cheese - a deviation from the recipe by a couple of degrees threatens to fail.

And secondly, the heating in the pan is more intense than in the cheese factory. We can simply miss the moment when it needs to be stopped. This will also lead to failure.

In the Fansel cheese factory, heating occurs more gently and evenly due to the presence of a “water jacket” in the design. That is, we do not heat the milk itself, but the water in the shirt. And already it transfers its heat to milk simultaneously in the entire volume of liquid. Also, the cheese dairy kit includes the much-needed thermometers with a long probe and a lyre for cutting the curd.

Cooking homemade cheese in a Fansel cheese factory is much safer and more comfortable than in a conventional saucepan.

The simplest homemade cheeses are made from milk using only rennet.

The cheese grain is well mixed, transferred to a mold or just a basket for draining the whey. As soon as the cheese is compacted, it is salted. Cheese can be eaten immediately after preparation or stored in the refrigerator for several days.

Such cheeses are found in the culinary tradition of many cuisines of the world, where cheeses are made - Brynza, Feta, Chanakh, Imeretinsky, Chechil and many others. These cheeses can be fermented in different ways, they can be salted and stored under different conditions, they can use the milk of different domestic animals.

But in fact, all these cheeses are simple fresh rennet cheeses.

Chechil cheese recipe

Chechil is a figured fibrous pickled cheese of Armenian origin in the form of dense thick or thin threads gathered into a tight bundle or folded into tied bundles, sometimes in the form of a pigtail or a ball.

The peculiarity of cooking Chechil is that ripening takes place in a concentrated saline solution, which is why such a rich taste is obtained.

Ingredients:

Milk - 20 l

1/5 of the package for 100 liters of dry , dissolved in 50 ml of water

1/2 teaspoon as a solution (if you have pasteurized milk, as it increases rennet coagulation and helps to form a denser clot)

1/5 of the package for 100 liters dissolved in 50 ml of water (optional)

Salt - 10% saline solution (you can see how to prepare a solution )

Cooking:

1. Add citric acid to milk at a temperature of 8-12 degrees and mix well.

2. Heat up milk up to 38°C. (or cool pasteurized, use ).

3. Dissolve Calcium Chloride in 50 ml of water, also dissolve Rennet in 50 ml of water.

Add both solutions to milk, mix thoroughly, remove from heat and leave to cool at room temperature for 40 minutes.

4. Cut the formed cheese clot into small squares with a knife and leave for 30 minutes to separate the whey.

5. Cover with 2-3 layers of gauze or lavsan napkin , throw cheese on it, leave for 1 hour.

6. Prepare a concentrated 10% saline solution, you can use a more concentrated one, depending on how salty you want the homemade cheese to be.

7. Place the cheese in hot water at 70 degrees and, wearing gloves, pull the cheese strings out of it and lower them into a cold saline solution.

8. Leave the threads in brine for 1 day.

9. Remove the threads from the brine, braid them into a pigtail or give a different shape and you can serve.

You can buy a ready-made set for making Chechil / Imeretinsky / Brynza / Suluguni cheese .

Imeretian cheese recipe /Cheese

Imeretian cheese is a fresh Georgian cheese with a mild taste, aged in brine for several months. In the Caucasus, freshly prepared Imeretian cheese is called the first cheese or young cheese. Khachapuri is baked with it and snacks are made, mixed with fresh herbs and spices, suluguni is made from it.

Ingredients:

10 l of milk (any, preferably fresh - cow, goat, sheep)

1/3 teaspoon dry or 1/4 teaspoon 10% solution

0.4g (or 1/10 of the package per 100l)

You can also add the following ingredients:

Add coriander or cumin seeds to cheese grain

Coat the finished cheese with paprika and store without brine

Roll the finished cheese in a mixture of any herbs and store without brine

Add chopped sun-dried tomatoes or olives to the cheese grain

Exit 12-15% - 1.3 kg of cheese

Cooking:

1. Heat milk to 35⁰-37⁰С.
2. Measure the required amount of calcium chloride, dissolve it in 50 ml of water at room temperature. Pour into milk and mix well.
3. Measure the required amount of rennet, dissolve it in 50 ml of water. Pour into milk and mix well.
4. Cover the pan with a lid and leave to form a clot for 35-40 minutes.
5. Check the clot for a “clean break”, if the serum is not yet clear, leave for another 10 minutes.
6. Cut the clot into cubes about 2x2 cm in size. Mix for 10 minutes.
7. Leave the mass alone for 5 minutes so that the cheese grain settles to the bottom.
8. Remove most of the whey so that the curd shows just below the surface.
9. Take a form for soft cheese or a colander, if desired, put a lavsan napkin, bag or gauze into it.
10. Put all the cheese grain in the form. Leave for self-pressing for 2 hours at room temperature.
11. If the cheese has compressed well, then you can transfer it to a storage container.

If the cheese still seems too soft to you, rearrange the form with a tray in the refrigerator and leave it there for pressing for another 6-10 hours.

You can also put a plate on the surface of the cheese and a small weight on it (for example, a liter bottle of water).

To store cheese, you can cut it into large pieces or leave it whole. Place the cheese in a food container and store in the refrigerator for up to 10 days. During this time, the cheese must be eaten.

To keep the cheese longer and bring it to maturity, the cheese must be poured with brine in a food container (in a glass or enamel bowl).

Ready young cheese after 2 - 3 days can be used for cooking Suluguni .

In order for the Imereti cheese to form holes, you need to put the container in a warm place for 3-4 days.

Brine preparation :

2 cups water at room temperature

60g rock salt

0.5 ml vinegar 6%,

0.5g of dry Calcium Chloride or 4ml (teaspoon) of 10% Calcium Chloride solution

1. Boil water, add salt, mix well. Leave to cool to room temperature.

2. Carefully drain the brine into another container so that the dirt from the salt remains at the bottom of the pan. 3. Add vinegar and calcium chloride to the brine, mix.

4. Pour the cheese with this brine.

The cheese is ready to eat. Bon appetit!

Suluguni recipe

Suluguni is the most famous Georgian cheese, which is very popular in Russia.

This is a fresh pickled cheese.

It has a dense layered texture, white or light cream color.

Ingredients:

Basis - Imeretian cheese

Cooking:

1. Prepare Imeretinsky cheese / Cheese according to the recipe.

2. Bring the cheese to the desired acidity of 5.0-4.5pH (use ), at which the cheese mass begins to melt and stretch, by aging. To do this, leave the cheese in a colander over warm whey for about 2-3 hours, periodically turning the cheese over. Or put the cheese in the refrigerator for 2 days.

3. After the specified time, start doing a “stretch test” - cut off a small piece from the edge and lower it into water at a temperature of 70⁰С. If after half a minute of heating the piece stretches more than three times its length and does not tear, then you can proceed to the next step.

4. Heat water in a saucepan to 70C.

5. Cut the cheese into cubes with a side of about 1.5 cm. Place chopped cheese in a large bowl.

6. Pour hot water into a bowl of cheese and start stirring the cheese. Gradually, the cheese will begin to melt and gather into one lump.

7. Drain the cooled water from the bowl and pour hot water again at a temperature of 70⁰С. Take two wooden spoons with long handles and begin to fold and knead the cheese dough under water until the dough becomes very elastic.

8. Transfer the finished Suluguni into a mold and leave to cool first at room temperature, then in the refrigerator.

9. Next, suluguni needs to be salted in . The salting time is calculated as follows: for every pound of cheese 3 hours in brine (i.e. for a head of 1 kg, stay in brine is 6 hours). Since the cheese floats, its top is above the surface of the brine, you need to turn the cheese over once in the middle of the salting time.

After salting, the cheese can be eaten. Store this cheese in the refrigerator just in a food container or in 10% brine.

The cheese is ready to eat. Bon appetit!

You can buy a ready-made set for making Chechil / Imeretinsky / Brynza / Suluguni cheese.

How is it done

The enterprises prepare Imereti cheese from whole milk and rennet. In households, the product is produced without any drugs that accelerate the curtailment of raw materials. That is, in fact, they wait until fresh milk ferments itself.

If you plan to make cheese yourself, then the latter method will not work for you, because you will have to buy ingredients on the side, which means they need to be pasteurized. Such milk without enzymes will not curdle.

To prepare 300 grams of the product you will need:

4 liters of milk;
a quarter teaspoon of pepsin.

The procedure is as follows:

The raw material should be heated to +38 °C;
then an enzyme mixed with 50 milliliters of warm water is added to it;
the pan is wrapped in a warm blanket and left for an hour;
the resulting clot is cut into pieces directly in the container (cubes 2 by 2 cm);
wait 15 minutes for the serum to stand out;
the cheese mass is transferred to a sieve (colander, or a special form);
rammed.

After 12 hours, when the buttermilk has drained, the head is sprinkled with salt and left in the refrigerator for a couple of days. Then the cheese is placed in a brine consisting of 2 liters of water, half a kilogram of salt and a spoonful of vinegar.

This is not to say that the above recipe is the only one. In fact, each locality of Georgia has its own unique variations and additives. Cheese is often supplemented with spices, spices and herbs.

What is better to eat Imeretian cheese with

Fresh cheese goes well with fruits and vegetables. Its delicate taste is well set off by red wine such as Kindzmarauli or Saperavi. It is also suitable for sandwiches, but it is better to use not the usual bread, but fresh pita bread. To do this, the cheese is crumbled and mixed with crispy herbs, and then wrapped in a tortilla.

The taste of the product is emphasized by:

Garlic (including young);
radish;
sweet summer tomatoes.

It will also take its rightful place on a cheese plate garnished with white grapes, honey, and toasted walnuts. There are many options for using imeruli kveli, but it was the use of cheese in traditional pastries that made it famous in the world.

Imeretian khachapuri

Many recipes for this pie are known today, but in 2010 the Georgian authorities patented only one of them. It is about him that we will tell in more detail.

In addition to cheese, dough is also important in khachapuri. In the original, it is made without yeast, using a specific national fermented milk product called yogurt.

You will need the following ingredients:

900 grams of premium wheat flour;
three eggs;
0.5 liters of matsoni.

An important point - the flour should be mixed gradually. A lack of it will make the dough watery, and an excess will make it too stubborn.

For the inhabitants of our country, the main difficulty lies in matsoni. What can replace it? Without much loss of taste and quality, fat-free kefir is used.

It is also necessary to remember that the original Georgian khachapuri is brought to readiness in a frying pan, and not in the oven.

The softness and tenderness of the dough must match the filling. For her, only Imeretian cheese is taken. At the same time, too ripe does not fit - it is excessively dense. A good product is easily wrinkled by hand. No other tools such as graters, meat grinders, etc. are used in Georgia.

Also, nothing superfluous is put into the filling (except an egg, if it comes out watery), so real khachapuri consists only of a fried crust and chopped melted cheese.

To prepare a pie made according to the above recipe, the dough is cut into 8 identical pieces. Each should be rolled into a round cake. The filling is placed on it, so that it does not reach the edge by 2 centimeters. They cover it with the second circle. The khachapuri is carefully pinched around the perimeter.

Finished products remain to be fried in a dry, very hot frying pan on both sides, covered tightly with a lid. The finished cake is smeared with a piece of butter.

Gebzhalia

This is another interesting Georgian dish, where Imereti cheese is the main one. It is a roll stuffed with greens. No less tasty gebzhalia is obtained if you use suluguni.

The only thing you should be aware of is that you cannot use imeruli kveli if another day has not passed since its manufacture. In such a product there is not enough acidity, which means that it will not be able to melt.

So, for gebzhalia you will need:

Milk - 1 liter;
olive oil - a couple of tablespoons;
medium bunch of fresh mint;
Imeretian cheese - 0.7 kg;
salt - at your discretion.

At the very beginning, even before cooking the rolls, you need to prepare a place for laying out the melted cheese. The surface of the table, wiped and covered with cling film, will do. The mass freezes very quickly, so you have to act with lightning speed.

From the tools, prepare a wooden spatula and a slotted spoon.

Prepare the stuffing for the roll ahead of time. For her:

Pluck the mint leaves from the stems;
knead them in a mortar or blender;
mixed with oil.

The last ingredient in this recipe is not at all necessary - it is permissible to simply chop the greens finely with a knife.

Now it's the turn of the cheese. It should be cut into cubes of 25 by 25 millimeters or so - so it will quickly melt.

When the cheese softens, it is spread on the prepared surface and leveled, giving the clot the shape of a rectangle. The thickness of the layer can be made anything, but the optimal one is 1.5 cm.

Eating a snack is allowed immediately after cooling. It is recommended to serve it with tkemali or other sweet and sour sauce. Very tasty gebzhalia with nut crumbs.