Glorious Golden Georgia

There is a remarkable country in the Caucasus region, where rivers run with gold dust. Once upon a time, people would soak sheep’s fleeces in the quick-flowing waters, hoping to catch a fortune with their dampened wool traps. This is a country where for 8,000 years, the sun’s light has ripened acre upon acre of grapes and the soil in which the vines grow is seamed with precious, gleaming metals.  A country with an ancient tradition of winemaking: grapes are placed into womb-shaped vessels made from clay, which are then planted into Mother Earth’s belly and left to gestate into rose-gold liquid – Georgian Qvevri wine.

I travelled to Georgia in late summer, after the weather had been cruel . Earlier in the year floods had struck its capital, Tbilisi. Two days before I arrived, vicious hailstorms had battered the countryside – damaging vines and spoiling grapes. But Georgia is a farming nation with a very long history, and its people know better than to micromanage agriculture, or to be surprised by the vagaries of nature. The Georgians carry on with their lives, they pray, they sing, they drink their wonderful wines and enjoy feasts known as ‘Supra,’ where vast numbers of people gather to celebrate with food, wine and polyphonic song. The country is truly beautiful, and the people charming. It seems right that Georgia should be a country famed for longevity, as such hospitable and kind people deserve to spend many years on our earth.

Georgia is famous for its wine, but its cuisine is wonderful too. Recipes are rustic and make use of the excellent local produce -fresh vegetables and young cheeses, and the walnut is a star ingredient. Walnuts trees flourish in Georgia -in fact most plants and crops seem to do well -a combination of fertile soil, sunshine and millennia of farming experience..

Georgians mix walnuts with chopped beetroot, or spinach, then mould them into delicious spheres of pâté. Walnuts are also used to stuff sweet peppers, or are spread onto slices of grilled aubergine. While I was in Georgia, I enjoyed a delicious walnut sauce which was poured over salad vegetables -such a change from boring old French dressing. This sauce features another Georgian treasure -marigold powder – made from the petals of golden flowers, which open each day with the rising of the sun and close at night when it sets. Marigold adds a floral bitter-sweetness to the walnuts in the paste, which if good and fresh (as walnuts always are in Georgia) do not taste bitter at all. And there could be health benefits to this unusual salad, aside from the happiness felt while eating it -marigold is supposed to still the trembling of the heart, draw evil humours out of the head and to strengthen the eyesight. Hard to argue with that.

November is possibly not the best month for tomatoes and cucumber -but the recent miserable and damp weather makes me crave the sunshine taste of these juicy and colourful vegetables. The main flavour will come from the walnut sauce, but be generous with the herbs -they add a perfect, fresh dimension and will do you good. I can’t promise that you will live as long as a Georgian if you make this salad -but you might just understand what makes the place and its cuisine so very lovely.

Georgian Golden Fleece Salad

Delicious, different and satisfying -Georgian salad with walnut sauce

1 large Spanish onion (or other mild onion) thinly sliced and soaked in cold water for about half an hour

6 vine tomatoes cut into wedges

1 cucumber cut into chunks. I leave the peel on, but you can peel and deseed the cucumber to make it more digestible

1 green capsicum, deseeded and cut into chunks (optional -I don’t hugely like peppers -but they do add a sweetness and crunch)

1 small bunch of purple basil leaves shredded

1 small bunch parsley, chopped.

.250g walnuts -the fresher the better

1 tsp. ground marigold flowers

2 tsp paprika (resist the temptation to use smoked -the sauce is delicious and light with ‘normal’)

1 tsp ground fenugreek

1 tsp ground coriander

3 cloves garlic

3 tbsp. white wine vinegar

cooled and boiled water.

Blitz the garlic and walnuts together in a mixer adding the vinegar to make a paste. Put into a mixing bowl and stir through the spices. Add water, stirring carefully  and adding more until the mixture is a thinnish paste. Season to taste with a little sea salt.

Drain the onions and squeeze them in kitchen paper to remove as much liquid as possible. Place in a bowl together with the other ingredients. Pour over the walnut sauce and serve.

Undercover Walnuts

Muhammara -red pepper and walnut dip with a kick

I am always on the hunt for a delicious dip. If it can double as a marinade -even better. If I can use it as a fancy sort of ketchup, then I am completely thrilled. Satay is the perfect dip/sauce, but I do love Mediterranean flavours. So I was very, very excited to make the acquaintance of muhammara -a lovely  and versatile Levantine walnut and red pepper mixture, with a fiery punch.

I have tried an Italian almond and red pepper dip before, which I loved -but almonds always seem a bit safe and bland. I prefer walnuts to almonds, because there is a touch of evil about them, a slightly bitter taste which gives everything they grace a hint of darkness. I like the presence of an ‘off’ note in both food and wine. Having something in the background which is a little complex and wicked allows  pretty, fruity and light flavours to shine.

I first tried muhammara when I was having dinner with a friend,  a man who has a blacklist of foods which he hates. He regularly delivers lectures to me on the horrors of coriander (he is not alone -I am surprised by how many people hate that lovely herb), beetroot and walnuts. I ordered muhammara, not to wind him up, but because I had never tried it before. I decided not to tell him that there were walnuts in the dish, as I was pretty sure the other ingredients  would drown out whatever problem he has with the flavour . And I thought, greedily, that if he didn’t like the muhammara, well all the more for me.

My friend got stuck into the dip with a hunk of warm pitta and instantly made appreciative noises. I let him have a few more mouthfuls and then delivered the message. ‘It’s a walnut dip’. His face moved through expressions of disbelief, amusement, suspicion and then genuine surprise ‘Well it doesn’t taste like walnuts at all! I like it.’ he announced. I didn’t tell him that the dip contains ground coriander too, in case his belief systems crumbled around him and he began to feel unsafe in the world.

I experimented with a few muhammara recipes at home and came up with the following observations: The basic mixture is delicious -but fairly rich. Adding some finely-blitzed breadcrumbs makes it easier to eat as a dip -and by easier I mean you can eat more of it. To use as a marinade (it is very good with lamb rump steaks) add a little more oil to make the texture runnier and less likely to burn on a barbecue/under a grill. After grilling, scatter the meat with some fresh torn mint leaves to add freshness, then dip the meat in the basic muhammara mixture for a further walnut/pepper/chilli hit..

This recipe calls for 5 red peppers -which need to be charred and peeled and deseeded. If you fancy cheating -then use those wonderful ready peeled ones in a jar – a large jar usually contains 5 peppers.Oh -and the recipe SHOULD contain pomegranate molasses, but I used tamarind paste. Sweet and sour -does the same job.

 

Magnificent Muhammara

5 peeled and deseeded red peppers

1 tbsp. olive oil

200g walnuts

7 sundried tomatoes

2 tbsp. tamarind paste

1 garlic clove

1 tsp. crushed chilli flakes

1 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan for a couple of minutes until they start to smell delicious and turn a deeper colour. Place them and all the other ingredients into a blender and blitz until they form a slightly gritty paste. Season with salt and pepper. Feed to coriander/walnut haters.

To use as a dip: add 1 heaped tablespoon of fine fresh breadcrumbs

To use as a marinade: add 2 further tbsps. olive oil

 

 

Nigvziani badrijani – or aubergines even my sister will eat

Aubergines here are wonderful. Long, skinny and purple. Not for us the bloated, black-as-your-hat European ones, Asian aubergines are milder in flavour, less bitter and better suited to Eastern dishes. Like their fat, Mediterranean cousins, Asian aubergines benefit from being degorged (sliced, sprinkled with salt and left to drain) and when placed in hot oil, will drink it, like a stag party in Prague drinks lager, but their texture is firm and they tend not to disintegrate during cooking.

Most cuisines can find something exciting to do with the aubergine. You can bake it and squish it up into a dip. You can chop it into hunks and stew it with other nightshade vegetables. You can slice it and griddle it and eat it lukewarm. It needs garlic, likes sesame, is acquainted with lemon and pomegranate and can get on fine with coriander and ginger.

As I have been thinking about Georgian food recently, I am going to give you a Georgian recipe for aubergines stuffed with a garlicky, walnut paste. I have adapted it slighty and used a bunch of fresh coriander and flat leafed parsley, which improves the colour from a cement-like grey, to a fresh, bright green. It also obviates the dilemma one always faces when stuffing things; the problem of more stuffing, than stuffee. No matter what I cook, how obediently I follow the quantities in a recipe, it always happens that I am left with a bowlful of stuffing. It’s not the end of the world, leftovers are marvellous and can often be the springboard to another delicious meal. Any excess walnut paste from this recipe can be converted into a rather delightful pesto, which you can simply spoon through warm pasta, or spread on a fish steak to make a fresh and beautiful crust, or slather onto slices of baguette to make bright green, fragrant crostini.

I have eaten badrijani in Georgian restaurants all over the world, and I was served something similar in an Azerbaijani place – but with a slight twist – they provided a harissa-like dip to spice it up. I am totally behind that, especially if you like things a little on the hot side. The aubergines themselves are nicely seasoned, but they don’t have a lot of heat. So – if you have some harissa, or even some of that incredibly fiery, Jamaican hot pepper sauce, I would give it a try. It cuts through the richness very well.

I used lime juice to lift the darkness of the walnuts. I love the combination of coriander and lime and feel it works well here. If you don’t like the thought of that, then replace with lemon – or if you are feeling very daring, a little dash of pomegranate  juice.

They make a perfect starter, are ideal for a mezze style buffet, or to accompany barbecued lamb. Allow three to four per person – they are pretty filling.

Nigvziani Badrijani

Four long, skinny, purple aubergines. Mediterranean ones are fine too but you’ll just need two of them

100g walnuts

 1/2 onion very finely chopped

4 peeled cloves garlic

1 small bunch coriander

1 small bunch parsley (flat leafed is best)

juice of 1 lime

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

sea salt

Cut the stalks off the aubergines and slice them lengthways. Make them about half a centimetre in thickness.  If you are using mediterranean aubergines, you will need to cut the slices in half lengthways as well, so they are about 5 cm in width. Leave the skins on. Sprinkle with salt and leave to drain for 20 minutes. Rinse off the salt and pat dry.

Put a little olive oil in a frying pan and fry the onion, curry powder and paprika gently until fragrant. Place in a mixing bowl.

Put the walnuts into a food processor and blitz to a coarse powder. Remove and set to one side.

Put the garlic, coriander and parsley into the food processor with about two tablespoons water. Blitz until a fine paste. Return the walnuts to the processor, along with the onion mix and blend until all ingredients are an even, smooth pesto-like texture. Add the lime juice and season to taste.

Cover the bottom of a frying pan with a mixture of sunflower and olive oil. Shallow fry the slices of aubergine on each side until a glamorous golden colour. Drain on kitchen paper. You will need to replenish the oil, as they do tend to suck it up as they cook.

Take the strips of aubergine and spread them with a thin layer of the walnut paste. Roll them up and pierce them with a cocktail stick. Decorate with pomegranate seeds and serve with a spicy pepper dipping sauce.