Frozen khinkali cannot be compared with those prepared by yourself. We advise you to take a risk and make this dish yourself - this way you will understand that the semi-finished product in the store is not worthy of your attention. This article will be useful to anyone who has decided to properly prepare khinkali at home. Here you will find the best recipes with photos, and also learn a couple of secrets that will help make the cooking process easier and achieve better taste.

If you think that homemade khinkali is something similar to dumplings, then you are mistaken. There is a significant difference between these dishes. For example, for khinkali, the filling is prepared not using a meat grinder, but by hand - the meat must be chopped into small pieces. According to real chefs, this meat filling acquires a special taste.

The classic khinkali recipe does not necessarily contain only one meat; you can add vegetables, mushrooms, and cheese to it. It is also difficult to imagine this dish without the taste of cilantro - Georgians always add it to their favorite treat.

The dough is prepared from three components. All you need to do is flour, salt and water. And you should also add hot pepper - this is the rule of the national Georgian dish, but you don’t have to follow it if peppered food is contraindicated for you or you simply don’t like it.

Cooking real khinkali correctly means not only mixing the ingredients in the right proportions. There are also cooking rules. Cook the treat in a large saucepan, adding just a couple of pieces at a time to boiling water. Cooking a large amount of khinkali can cause them to stick together.

Experienced Georgian chefs believe that care must be taken when sculpting each product. When making a bag with filling, the edges of the dough need to be connected, making folds. There are 18–19 such wrinkles in an ideal product. This art may not be possible the first time - don’t be discouraged, the ability to make elegant bags of meat comes with experience.

Traditional option

If you are planning to cook khinkali at home, a classic recipe with a photo will help you. You can use any type of meat, but we recommend using lamb or a mixture of pork and beef. Buy these other ingredients for the meat:

  • 2 cups of flour.
  • Salt.
  • Water.
  • Bulb.
  • 300 grams of meat.

We start preparing the treat by kneading the dough. To do this, sift the flour onto the table in the form of a slide. Let's make a depression in the center and pour half a glass of cold water into it. Then add salt to the water and knead the dough. Add water as needed. The dough should be tight and elastic. Now let's put it aside and get to the meat.

Ideally, you need to take a knife and chop the meat tenderloin very finely. So you can prepare khinkali at home with your own hands according to the classic recipe. Separately chop the onion. Add onion to the minced meat.

All that remains is to salt the meat filling to taste, add cold water or broth to it. This should be done like this: pour the liquid in a thin stream, and with the other hand actively stir the minced meat (it should absorb water, but remain quite elastic).

We return to the dough, it needs to be divided into parts, which we roll out separately into circles. Place the meat filling in the center of each circle. As the recipe reminds us, you need so much of it that the weight is equal to the amount of dough.

Now you need to collect the edges of each circle with wrinkles. The result will be a pouch with a tail. We'll pull it up a little and twist it into a spiral. Having made as many khinkali as you need, you can freeze them for the future or immediately boil them in boiling water.

Cooking khinkali correctly at home is not difficult. Heat water in a fairly wide saucepan. You need to carefully lower each creation into it by the tail. As soon as the khinkali float to the surface, time it a little (the bags cook for 10–12 minutes). We serve the dish to the table piping hot, don’t forget to sprinkle with ground black pepper. The recipe also recommends decorating the treat with coriander, cumin, mint, and parsley. The taste of the dish will be amazing - store-bought ready-made khinkali will definitely not compare with homemade ones.

Making a treat in a steamer

Now we will propose a method for preparing khinkali in a double boiler. First, gather the ingredients for the dish:

  • 0.5 kg flour.
  • 1 tbsp. hot water.
  • 1 egg.
  • Salt.
  • 0.5 kg of meat.
  • 3 onions.
  • Pepper, spices, herbs.

Let's start preparing the dish by processing the meat. Cut, add onion. Now you need to add broth or water to the filling, depending on how much liquid it absorbs. All that remains is to pepper and salt the minced meat for khinkali, add finely chopped herbs, and mix well.

We'll put the filling in the refrigerator, now we need to prepare the dough for the khinkali. For it you need to sift the flour, making a slide out of it. Make a hole in the center, break an egg there, add salt and hot water. Quickly knead the dough. Let it sit for a while - about half an hour.

Now we begin to sculpt khinkali. Dividing the dough into parts, roll each into a circle. Now you need to put the filling in the center. It should weigh the same as the weight of the dough itself in each individual mug.

We do the jewelry work - we collect the dough into a bag, folding the edges in the form of wrinkles. When each khinkali is molded, we put the bags into a double boiler. Cooking time – 30–40 minutes. By the way, after that you can additionally fry the khinkali in the oven - this way they turn out a little crispy.

Immediately after finishing cooking, we hasten to put the food on the table. Sprinkle it with black ground pepper. Separately, you can offer greens to your household or guests. Tarragon, cilantro, parsley, and mint will perfectly complement the taste of the dish. It will be very tasty!

The secret of taste is in proper use

Even if you used a classic step-by-step cooking recipe, you can experience the taste of Caucasian treats if you learn to eat correctly. To do this, you will have to forget about the usual cutlery and etiquette rules. This dish is usually eaten with your hands. If you manage to get into a real Georgian khinkal restaurant, you will notice that its guests are not shy. Moreover, modest and quiet eating of a dish here will be considered an insult: it is believed that the guest did not like the treat, since he behaved with restraint during the meal.

Cooked khinkali should be held by the tail, biting the bag with the filling with your teeth. First you need to drink the juicy and aromatic broth, and then proceed to the meat and dough. By the way, real connoisseurs of this delicious dish do not eat tails. They turn out to be quite tough, and Georgians call them umbilical cord. Even in Georgia, it is not customary to serve khinkali sauce with a meal: the dish is considered perfect, so it does not require additional flavors.

If you are used to eating dumplings or dumplings dipped in sour cream or ketchup, then you can put them on the table. But it’s better to just melt the butter - it doesn’t have too strong a taste and doesn’t interrupt the aroma that real khinkali exude.

Description

Homemade Khinkali- these are, in fact, the original Georgian dumplings, the main distinctive feature of which is their shape in the form of the famous knotted bag with folds. Moreover, sculpting folds is a separate topic. Georgian craftswomen are capable of creating 24 of them at once, and even more, using one khinkali. Now do you understand why khinkali is so unique and why Georgians have high demands on their preparation?

Homemade khinkali in Georgia is prepared in every home, and each housewife has her own secrets. Today we will share with you one of the recipes for making khinkali at home. And to make it easier for you, we accompanied the recipe with step-by-step photos. And please, pay attention to the folds, because they are made for a reason, for beauty, but so that during cooking the dough does not tear and the juice does not leak out, without which the khinkali would no longer be khinkali.

So, let's start preparing delicious Georgian khinkali!

Ingredients


  • (200 g)

  • (300 g)

  • (2 pcs.)

  • (3 tbsp.)

  • (1 tbsp.)

  • (1 PC.)

  • (1 tbsp.)

  • (taste)

  • (taste)

Cooking steps

    Grind with a knife or in a meat grinder ( it tastes better with a knife because it will be juicier) both types of meat. By the way, take fattier lamb. Salt and pepper the resulting minced meat and mix thoroughly, gradually pouring in the broth. As a result, the minced meat should become moist and sticky.

    Sift the flour into a separate container and make a hole in its center, where we pour salt and pour in water.

    Break a chicken egg into a glass, beat it a little and add it to the flour. Now you can knead the dough for khinkali.

    Roll the finished dough into a ball, cover with a cloth and set aside to “rest” for 30 minutes.

    After this, knead the dough again and then roll it out thinly. From the resulting layer, cut out circles with a diameter of about 10 cm.

    Place minced meat in the center of each circle and carefully pull the edges of the dough around the circumference to form folds.

    We form a neat “tail” at the top of the resulting bag, lift it by it and hold it at the top for a while so that the edges grip better. After this, carefully cut off the edge of the tail with a knife.

    Place the khinkali blanks on a surface generously dusted with flour.

    In a spacious fireproof container, bring water to a boil, salt it and add khinkali there one by one. After some time they should float up. When this happens, continue cooking for another 6 minutes.

    Place the finished Georgian khinkali on plates and sprinkle with black hot pepper.

    Bon appetit!

There are many dishes in the world where ground meat is wrapped in dough; one of these options that we will consider is how to cook khinkali at home (step-by-step recipe with photos). Khinkali, unlike dumplings, is very difficult to prepare; the dish requires attention and skill. But the resulting khinkali are much juicier and more tender, which everyone will certainly appreciate.

Ingredients:

  • two hundred grams of beef;
  • three hundred grams of lamb;
  • two onions;
  • one hundred milliliters of meat broth (water);
  • three glasses of flour;
  • one glass of water;
  • one chicken egg;
  • salt to your taste;
  • ground black pepper to your taste.

    Cooking process:

    1.Assemble the meat grinder and grind the meat in it. Peel the onion and also twist it into meat. Add salt and pepper, stir. Next, pour the broth into it and mix everything again.

    2.Let's prepare the dough. Sift the flour into a bowl (you can do this on the table), make a well in it and add salt, then pour in water.

    3.In a separate glass, beat a little egg and pour it into the dough. Start stirring it with a fork, and then continue with your hands.

    4.Roll the dough into a ball and cover it with a towel. Leave it to sit for thirty minutes.

    5.When the specified time has passed, knead the dough again. Using a rolling pin, roll it out into a thin layer. Using a round cutter, cut out circles. Their ideal diameter is ten to twelve centimeters.

    6. Place a small amount of minced meat in the center of each tortilla. Gather the dough along the edge to form an accordion. In general, khinkali should look like a bag.

    7.Press the tail of the bag tightly, and then lift it by it and hold it suspended. This way its edges will stick together much better. To ensure that nothing sticks out, trim off the excess with a sharp knife.

    8. Place the formed khinkali on a board dusted with flour.

    9.Put a pan of water on the fire, salt it and wait until it boils. Place the khinkali one at a time into boiling water. When the water boils again and the bags float to the surface, cook them for about ten minutes until fully cooked. Remove the finished khinkali with a slotted spoon into a deep bowl. To prevent anything from sticking, put the butter in there and shake.

    10.Khinkali is ready! Place them in portions on plates, sprinkle with ground black pepper and freshly chopped herbs (optional). Bon appetit!

If you have meat and flour, then you have the main ingredients of a dish that is considered the hallmark of Georgian cuisine. We will prepare the legendary khinkali. These dough products with meat filling have the ability to make you fall in love from the first bite - of course, if they are prepared in accordance with national technological recommendations.

Khinkali is not dumplings at all, albeit large ones. Of course, both can be called relatives because they belong to the same category of dishes. But still, there are more than enough subtle differences in their preparation, and you will never cook real khinkali if you do not want to understand at least the most important features of the Georgian dish.

We will cook not from minced meat, but from meat finely chopped with a knife - this is what Georgian khinkal makers recommend, claiming that it turns out juicier and tastier. Tender dough, aromatic meat filling and a rich, satisfying broth in the middle - this is what awaits you if you spend a little time and effort getting to know the legend of Caucasian cuisine.

Ingredients

  • premium wheat flour 500 g
  • sunflower oil 30 ml
  • salt 1 teaspoon
  • sugar a pinch
  • ground black pepper
  • dry thyme pinch
  • cumin pinch
  • garlic
  • onion 250 g
  • beef entrecote 300 g
  • pork neck 300 g
  • parsley to taste
  • water 250 g

Khinkali recipe with meat

  1. To make the khinkali dough, sift the wheat flour and fill it with air.
    Then pour the flour into a wide bowl and make a well in the middle. Remember: To prevent the dough in khinkali from breaking, the ratio of water to flour should be 1:2.
    Now pour water into the flour, add a pinch of sugar and salt. It is important to use very cold (ice) water for the dough - it will prevent it from spreading.

  2. Start kneading the dough with your hands, and to make this process easier, add vegetable oil. Work the dough first in a bowl, then on the counter for 15 minutes. Wrap it in film and put it in the refrigerator.
  3. Let's get to the filling. First of all, wash the meat under running water and pat dry with a napkin. If there is a film on the pieces, cut it off with a sharp knife.

  4. Now the meat needs to be cut into small cubes. If you make minced meat by turning the pieces through a meat grinder, you will end up with meatballs in the dough. The dough will envelop the filling, and your products will look like large dumplings. Meanwhile, when you take real khinkali in your hand, you feel empty inside and a broth with meat. By the way, a meat grinder tears the meat and it loses a lot of juice. To make the meat easier to cut, first keep it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

  5. To make the khinkali filling juicy, you need to add onions to the minced meat, and 150 grams of vegetables per 500 g of meat. Cut the onion into very small cubes.

  6. Combine the onion with the meat, add a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of cumin and dry thyme to the minced meat. Squeeze a few cloves of garlic. If desired, you can add a little parsley or dill. To make the minced meat even juicier, pour warm water (100 ml) into it. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes to marinate slightly.

  7. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. It became very soft and elastic.

  8. Knead the dough into a sausage and cut into pieces of approximately 3 cm. Roll each into a flat cake with a rolling pin. Cut out circles from it using a glass. Now the circle needs to be rolled out to a diameter of about the size of your palm and a thickness of about 2 ml.

  9. Place a tablespoon of minced meat in the center of the resulting cake.

  10. Start gathering the khinkali into folds. There should be at least 14 such folds. After this, squeeze the khinkali from above into a knot.

  11. Twist the tail counterclockwise and cut or tear it off so that there is no excess dough in the finished khinkali.

  12. Make all the khinkali according to this model.

  13. Boil water for khinkali in a large saucepan, add a pinch of salt, and add a bay leaf if desired. Make a funnel in the water, lower the khinkali one at a time. When cooking, the water should not boil too much.
  14. After 5-7 minutes, remove the finished khinkali from the water and serve it immediately, hot.

They are eaten like this: hold it by the tail, take a bite and drink the broth first, then proceed to everything else.

I have been to Georgia several times and the first thing I always eat is khinkali. They cost in Tbilisi, if translated into ours, 15 rubles per piece or 50 tetri! You take 7 pieces for a hundred and overeat.

If you are an ardent fan of Georgian cuisine, then khinkali is worth trying. Modeling this dish is considered a real art, requiring a creative approach and originality.


There is no rush to prepare this delicious dish, so it is best to prepare khinkali on the weekend. You will learn more about how to sculpt and cook khinkali by reading this article, in which I will explain in detail and step by step.

— Don’t drink khinkali with wine, Georgians believe that beer is much better


Some landscapes. I filmed it in November.


View of the mighty Caucasus Mountains


I cook khinkali in Georgia, Mtskheta, local cafe.


I cook khinkali in Georgia, Mtskheta


I cook khinkali in Mtskheta, Georgia. Khinkali is ready!


Read my full review for more details

The main ingredients in the khinkali recipe are flour, water and meat. However, before you start cooking, it’s worth mastering the secrets of Georgian chefs, which will make the process of cooking at home easier.

Preparing the dough and minced meat for khinkali

The secret to preparing the dough is very simple - just stick to the required consistency when kneading. The ideal dough for khinkali, a step-by-step recipe with photos of which is presented below, should have sufficient elasticity and softness, but not tear during modeling. The test preparation process takes place in several stages with short breaks. To save time during these breaks, you can start preparing the minced meat.

Without properly prepared minced meat, khinkali will not work. According to Georgian traditions, previously only lamb was used for this dish. After some time, various variations of khinkali appeared, combining several types of meat. In modern khinkali you can find beef or pork, both individually and in combination with lamb meat.

When preparing the traditional and extremely appetizing khinkali presented in the photo, the meat must be finely chopped into small pieces. To improve the taste, it is recommended to add chopped onions. Water is added to the almost finished minced meat, which makes it possible to add juiciness to the finished dish. If you still prefer rolled meat, then use a large grinding rack for this.

To give the dish a unique aroma, add cilantro, parsley or mint to the minced meat to taste. You can use a mixture of Georgian herbs - and then your dish will be impossible to distinguish from the traditional one made in Georgia.

Features of preparing and serving Georgian khinkali

Having understood the intricacies of preparing dough and minced meat for khinkali, you can begin to sculpt them. To do this, you need to roll out the dough into a sausage with a diameter of 3 cm, cut it into “nickels” the thickness of a finger and roll them out to a thickness of 3 mm, and a diameter of 12-15 cm. Then a tablespoon of minced meat is placed in each circle. And here awaits you the most exciting stage in preparing khinkali - creating a bag with folds. Famous Georgian chefs manage to create khinkali with about thirty-six folds. A novice cook can create literally twenty folds.

— Khinkali is not eaten with sauces, as there is a lot of broth inside

When creating bags of minced meat, you should pay attention to how tightly you pinch the resulting tail. If you rush and do not secure the edges of the curled tail, then during cooking the tasty broth will simply flow out of the khinkali. It is also worth considering that when cooking khinkali, a broth is formed, so you should not be overzealous with the amount of minced meat, otherwise the dough will simply break - and all efforts will be in vain.



Machine for sculpting khinkali and a lot of khinkali

How to cook khinkali? — The secret of cooking khinkali is quite simple: just arm yourself with a large container of water and cook in several stages. Khinkali should never be crowded. It is recommended to stir very carefully during cooking so as not to damage the almost finished dish. This should be done not with a metal, but with a wooden spatula. Make sure that the water does not boil too much - otherwise the bags may open, losing the precious broth. The average cooking time for khinkali is six to seven minutes.


Chef Niko with whom I studied in Telavi

Gourmets recommend serving khinkali hot, after sprinkling them with coarse black pepper. It is customary to eat Khinkali with your hands - this is the only way you can experience all the facets of the taste of this unusual dish with a truly Georgian flavor. Below is a recipe for making khinkali at home.

— If the khinkali has cooled down on the plate, ask them to fry it. Fried khinkali is a separate story.