Kartuli Supra · The Georgian Table

Georgian Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Step into the kitchens of the Caucasus, where beef stews bubble in butter, mountain trout rests under walnut sauce, and every khachapuri begins with real butter. Honest ingredients and deep flavor, the way Georgia has always cooked.

Explore the Recipes
Butter✦ Clarified Butter✦ Walnut Oil
An elegantly plated Georgian dish on a dark table
✦ Acharuli Khachapuri
From the recipe collection
Karaki

Butter First

The mountain dairies of the Caucasus have always given rich butter and clarified butter. Every stew, sauce, and khachapuri in this collection begins with it, never with a refined seed oil.

Nigvzis Zeti

Walnut Oil

The walnut is the soul of the Georgian table. We finish with cold pressed walnut oil and freshly ground walnuts, the way the old kitchens of Kakheti and Samegrelo still do.

Arasodes

Never Seed Oil

No sunflower, no canola, no shortcuts. Only the honest fats that the Georgian supra has trusted for generations, from the village hearth to the feast.

✦
From Our Kitchen

Georgian Recipes

Six beloved dishes from the tables of the Caucasus, each cooked with the honest fats that bring out the best in every ingredient.

Kakheti Chashushuli, a spicy Georgian beef and tomato stew in a clay pot

Chashushuli

Spicy beef and tomato stew in butter

1 hr 30 min·4 servings·Medium

A bubbling clay pot stew from the wine country of Kakheti. Beef browned in butter, then simmered with tomatoes, garlic, and a fistful of herbs until the sauce turns deep and glossy.

Ingredients

  • 700 g beef chuck, cut into 3 cm pieces
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 50 g butter
  • 1 tbsp clarified butter
  • 2 onions, thinly sliced
  • 4 ripe tomatoes, grated, or 400 g chopped tomatoes
  • 5 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tsp blue fenugreek (utskho suneli)
  • 1 fresh red chili, chopped (optional)
  • A large handful of coriander and parsley, chopped

Instructions

  1. Pat the beef dry and season well with salt and pepper.
  2. Melt the butter with the clarified butter in a heavy pot and brown the beef on all sides in batches, then set it aside.
  3. Soften the onions in the same pot for 8 minutes, scraping up the browned bits from the base.
  4. Return the beef, add the tomatoes and half the garlic, cover, and simmer gently for about 1 hour until the meat is tender.
  5. Stir in the blue fenugreek and chili and cook uncovered 10 minutes to thicken the sauce.
  6. Off the heat, fold through the remaining garlic and most of the herbs.
  7. Rest 5 minutes, scatter with the last of the herbs, and serve from the pot with bread.
Racha Kalmakhi, panfried mountain trout served under a walnut sauce

Kalmakhi with Bazhe

Mountain trout in walnut sauce

40 min·2 servings·Medium

Trout from the cold rivers of Racha, panfried in butter and served under bazhe, the silken Georgian walnut sauce loosened with a little walnut oil and sharpened with garlic and marigold.

Ingredients

  • 2 whole trout, cleaned, or 4 fillets
  • Salt and white pepper
  • 2 tbsp plain flour, for dusting
  • 40 g butter
  • 1 tbsp clarified butter
  • 150 g shelled walnuts
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 1 tsp ground marigold (Imeretian saffron)
  • 1 tbsp walnut oil
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

Instructions

  1. Pat the trout very dry, season inside and out, and dust lightly with flour.
  2. For the bazhe, grind the walnuts with the garlic and marigold to a thick paste, then loosen with the walnut oil, vinegar, and enough warm water to make a pourable sauce, seasoning with salt.
  3. Warm the clarified butter with the butter in a wide pan over medium heat.
  4. Cook the trout 4 to 5 minutes per side (3 minutes for fillets) until the skin is golden and the flesh flakes.
  5. Lift onto warm plates and let it rest for a minute.
  6. Spoon the bazhe generously over the fish and finish with a few walnut halves and pomegranate seeds if you like.
Imereti Badrijani, eggplant rolls filled with walnut paste and topped with pomegranate

Badrijani Nigvzit

Eggplant rolls with walnut and garlic

45 min·4 servings·Easy

The jewel of the Georgian starter table. Slices of eggplant browned in clarified butter, then rolled around a garlicky walnut paste and crowned with bright pomegranate seeds.

Ingredients

  • 3 medium eggplants, sliced lengthways
  • Salt
  • 3 tbsp clarified butter, for frying
  • 200 g shelled walnuts
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1 tsp ground marigold
  • ½ tsp ground blue fenugreek
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp walnut oil
  • Seeds of half a pomegranate and fresh coriander, to finish

Instructions

  1. Salt the eggplant slices and let them drain 20 minutes, then pat them dry.
  2. Brown the slices in the clarified butter over medium heat until tender and golden on both sides, then cool on a rack.
  3. Grind the walnuts with the garlic, marigold, and fenugreek to a smooth paste.
  4. Loosen the paste with the vinegar, walnut oil, and a splash of warm water until spreadable, and season with salt.
  5. Spread a spoonful over each eggplant slice and roll up from the wide end.
  6. Arrange seam side down, scatter with pomegranate seeds and coriander, and chill 20 minutes before serving.
Kartli Chikhirtma, a silky golden Georgian chicken soup with herbs

Chikhirtma

Silky chicken soup with egg and coriander

1 hr·4 servings·Medium

A soothing golden soup from Kartli, chicken broth thickened not with flour alone but with butter and egg yolks, brightened at the end with coriander and a squeeze of tartness.

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken, about 1.4 kg, or 6 thighs
  • 1 onion, halved
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 40 g butter
  • 1 tbsp plain flour
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp ground marigold
  • A pinch of ground coriander seed
  • A large handful of fresh coriander, chopped

Instructions

  1. Cover the chicken with cold water, add the onion and bay, and simmer gently about 45 minutes until tender, skimming often.
  2. Lift out the chicken, strain the broth, and pull the meat into pieces.
  3. Melt the butter in a clean pot, stir in the flour, and cook 1 minute without letting it colour.
  4. Whisk in the hot broth a ladle at a time until smooth, then return the chicken and warm it through.
  5. Beat the egg yolks with the vinegar and ground coriander, temper with a little hot broth, then stir the mixture back into the soup off the boil.
  6. Warm gently without boiling until it thickens to a silky finish.
  7. Fold through the marigold and fresh coriander and serve at once.
Adjara Acharuli Khachapuri, a boat shaped Georgian cheese bread with butter and egg

Acharuli Khachapuri

Adjarian cheese bread boat with butter and egg

2 hr 30 min·4 boats·Medium

The boat shaped bread of the Black Sea coast. A soft yeasted crust filled with molten cheese, finished at the table with a knob of butter and a barely set egg yolk to stir through.

Ingredients

  • 500 g bread flour
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 300 ml warm whole milk
  • 40 g soft butter, plus 4 knobs to finish
  • 250 g sulguni cheese, grated
  • 150 g Imeretian or mozzarella cheese, grated
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1 egg, beaten, for the glaze

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, then work in the warm milk and soft butter and knead 10 minutes to a smooth dough.
  2. Cover and let it rise about 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  3. Divide into four, roll each into an oval, and pinch the long sides up and the ends together to form a boat.
  4. Fill each boat with the mixed cheeses, brush the rim with beaten egg, and rest 20 minutes.
  5. Bake at 240°C (465°F) for 12 to 15 minutes until the crust is deep gold and the cheese bubbles.
  6. Slip a yolk into the centre of each, drop in a knob of butter, and return to the oven for 1 minute.
  7. Serve at once, tearing off the ends to stir the butter, yolk, and cheese together.
Akhali Tseli Gozinaki, diamonds of honey and walnut brittle for the Georgian New Year

Gozinaki

Honey and walnut brittle for the New Year

40 min·Makes 24 pieces·Medium

The sweet that crowns every Georgian New Year table. Toasted walnuts bound in caramelised honey, spread thin and cut into diamonds while still warm, with just a little butter to keep it glossy.

Ingredients

  • 400 g shelled walnuts
  • 300 g honey
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp water
  • 1 tsp butter, for the tray and the pan
  • A strip of lemon zest
  • A pinch of salt
  • A few walnut halves, to decorate (optional)

Instructions

  1. Toast the walnuts in a dry pan until fragrant, then chop them coarsely.
  2. Warm the honey with the sugar, water, and lemon zest in a heavy pan and let it bubble gently for about 8 minutes until darkened and thickened.
  3. Remove the zest, add the pinch of salt and the butter, and swirl to combine.
  4. Stir in the warm walnuts and cook 3 to 4 minutes more, stirring constantly, until the mixture holds together.
  5. Tip onto a lightly buttered board or marble slab and press flat with a wet spoon to about 1 cm thick.
  6. While still warm, cut into diamonds with a buttered knife and leave to set completely before lifting them away.
A cook working at a warm stove in a busy home kitchen
Our Kitchen

The Kitchen Behind Anafla Supra

Anafla Supra is a small home kitchen devoted to the cooking of Georgia, the mountainous land between the Black Sea and the great Caucasus range, where a meal is never just a meal but a supra, a table set for family and guests alike. We write these recipes down the way they are still cooked in the villages of Kakheti, Adjara, and Samegrelo, patiently, precisely, and always with a generous hand on the butter and the walnuts.

Our only house rule is an old one: butter and clarified butter from the mountain dairies, walnut oil pressed from the year's harvest, ground walnuts folded through everything, and nothing else. Vegetable oil never comes through our door, because it never sat on the tables we learned from.

Gaumarjos, may your table always be full.