Khinkali – Georgian Soup Dumplings
If I was asked what are the 2 main dishes in the Georgian cuisine, it would be the amazingly delicious cheese bread – Khachapuri and these juicy ground beef dumplings. These are rarely made at home nowadays, as there are lots of Restaurants in Georgia that are specializing in Khinkali as a main dish, but homemade ones taste so delicious. Ground Caraway seed is one of the unique ingredients that goes in the ground beef filling and there should be good amount of juice in the filling too. Making the dough requires a lot of muscle strength, I used the Cuisinart bread machine for kneading the dough. The trick is to eat Khinkali with all that delicious beef bouillon. For more delicious and simple recipes, check out my Intagram page https://www.instagram.com/ketiskitchen/
Ingredients (makes 35-40 dumplings): Filling
2 pounds of ground beef
3,5 cups of cold water
2 teaspoons of salt
Ground black pepper
Onion powder
1 /2 teaspoon of ground caraway seeds
Dough
2 cups of water
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
Flour
Step 1 – Dough for khinkali needs to be very thick and required some muscle strength for kneading, Mix all the dough ingredients with enough flour to make a very thick dough. Knead the dough for 5-10 min, then let it rest for 10 min and knead again. Repeat 3 times. If you have Kitchen Aid or bread machine with the dough kneading function, it will really come in handy.
Step 2 – mix all the filling ingredients with the wooden spoon so that all water is evenly absorbed.
Step 3 – Cut the dough in 4 parts and roll out in a 1/3inch thick sheet. Cut out circles with a medium sized coffee cup. Roll out the circles into thinner sheets, less than 1/4 inch, place 1 tablespoon of filling in the center and start forming the dumplings. More folds you create, the better. Connect the folds well, so that the filling does’t come out.
Step 4 – boil a big pot of water with salt. Place Khinkali dumplings gently in the boiling water. Stirr gently with the spoon so that they don’t stick and boil for about 10 min. Good rule here is that once dumplings float to the surface, boil it another 3-4 min and they are ready. Remove from the pot, place on the plate and sprinkle with some fresh ground pepper.
