Borano

Adjaran·Easy·30 min

Hot pan of melted sulguni cheese in butter, with cornmeal stirred in until thick — Adjara's fondue, eaten with bread.

Sulguni Cheese

Butter

Cornmeal

Borano is the Adjaran melted-cheese dish — sulguni cheese is cubed and melted in a small clay pot with butter, until the cheese pulls and the butter pools golden. Some versions stir in cornmeal to thicken; others leave it loose and silky. Eaten right out of the pot with hot pieces of bread torn off.

A skillet of sulguni melted into a pool of butter, served straight from the heat — no thickener, no stabilizer, just hot fat and hot cheese stirred together until they cooperate. Eat with bread, with your hands.

Butter melts at 35°C, cheese curd at 65°C — heating both gently to just below boiling allows the fat to coat the cheese proteins, keeping them suspended instead of letting them ball up. Stop stirring and the system breaks within a minute.

Variations

Adjaran borano sometimes adds a single egg yolk for body; the older Laz coastal version (across the Turkish border) stays plain — modern adds richness, traditional respects the fat.

On the Palate

Where Borano sits in the Georgian flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 4

80 gButter

30 gCornmeal

400 gSulguni Cheese

How it's made

5 steps · 30 min active

1
6 min
Cube 400g sulguni cheese into 2cm pieces.
2
6 min
Melt 80g butter in a small heavy clay pot or cast-iron pan over low heat.
3
6 min
Add the cheese cubes; stir gently as they melt — should take 5-7 minutes.
4
6 min
Stir in 30g cornmeal once cheese is fully melted; cook 3 more minutes, stirring, until thickened.
5
6 min
Serve immediately straight from the pot, with hot bread (shoti or pita) for tearing and dipping.

What you'll need

Cast-Iron Skillet

A heavy, single-piece cast iron pan, 25-30 cm across, weighing 1.5-2.5 kg. Once preheated, the thick mass holds 230°C+ even when a cold steak hits the surface — that's the secret to a deep crust. A well-seasoned skillet (multiple thin layers of polymerized oil baked into the iron) is essentially nonstick, gets better with use, and lasts a century. Lodge skillets from Tennessee have been in continuous production since 1896.

Sauteing