Cheese Bread

Actually this isn't my cooking.

I have to come clean and admit that the hard work to produce this is down to another. As it happens to be my mother's hard work I felt I would pay homage to her fine cooking skills and add this to my blog...

I took this on a picnic (we needed to use it up) and so various friends and acquaintances tried this 'cheese bread'. 'Did you make this?' I was being asked..... I was tempted to lie.... 'Yeah, sure, I made this wonderful unleavened cheesy bread' but I couldn't pull it off.... Then I was asked for the recipe... 'Well, it isn't mine... but I will have a look...' sucking my teeth and attempting that look that builders give you when they estimate a job.

So off I trotted to find the recipe....

Returning home I asked my mother where the recipe came from... she just pointed to the Nigella Lawson cookbook with a shrug and a grimace (she had tried it the previous day and not really enjoyed it - it was a bit soggy then but had mellowed the next day into a wonderful firm bread).

Liking the bread more than she I looked it up and was amazed.... this was a Georgian recipe from a little restaurant in Hackney - 'Little Georgia' and that the dish was called Hachapuri or khachapur (depending on the transliteration). Nigella Lawson describes her search for a recipe that was like the cheese bread that she had in St. Petersburg; finally finding it in the middle of London after many years searching. So you can find the recipe and the wonderful story in Nigella Lawson's Feast or head over to The Traveller's Lunchbox for more information on Georgian food and a recipe for hachapuri (which is in fact Nana Eristavi's recipe lovingly reproduced by Nigella Lawson).

Try it and be amazed....