A cold pkhali-style mash of green beans and sometimes pumpkin, bound with ground walnuts and finished with sour grape juice and burnt butter. The Adjaran cousin of plain pkhali, distinguished by its burnt-butter pour.
Malakhto is an Adjaran pkhali-style dish prepared specifically in the mountains of Upper Adjara. Like the more widely known pkhali, it binds cooked vegetables with ground walnuts, but the Adjaran version finishes with a pour of burnt butter (iaghi) and a splash of sour grape juice, which the plain pkhali does not. The pumpkin-and-walnut variant is also Adjaran. It is served cold alongside hot mchadi.
Earthy, faintly sweet green beans or pumpkin ground into a dense paste with walnuts, the sour grape juice lifting it, the hot burnt butter poured on top crackling and pooling. Eaten cold with mchadi, it is rich, tart and nutty at once.
The beans (or pumpkin) are boiled soft, drained very well, then ground with raw walnuts, garlic, coriander and dried marigold into a thick paste. The paste is shaped and chilled. Just before serving, butter is browned in a pan until it smokes and crackles, and poured hot over the cold paste, which sets into pools on the surface. The sour grape juice is added last so its tartness stays bright.
Variations
A pumpkin malakhto swaps green beans for boiled pumpkin. Some cooks use tkemali instead of sour grape juice.
On the Palate
Where Malakhto sits in the Georgian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
6 steps · 20 min
- 18 min
Boil 500g green beans in salted water until very soft, about 18 minutes; drain thoroughly and let cool.
Watch outBoil the beans until truly soft, then drain them bone-dry — leftover water makes a loose paste that won't hold its shape and won't take the burnt butter cleanly.
- 26 min
Grind 200g walnuts with 3 cloves garlic, 1 tbsp dried coriander, 1 tsp dried marigold and a pinch of salt to a coarse paste.
- 36 min
Combine the beans and walnut paste, mashing to a cohesive mass; add 1 tbsp wine vinegar or sour grape juice.
- 45 min
Shape into a flat round on a plate and chill 30 minutes.
- 54 min
In a small pan, heat 50g butter until it foams, turns golden and crackles (burnt butter); pour it hot over the cold malakhto.
Watch outTake the butter past golden until it foams, crackles, and smells nutty, then pour it hot over the cold paste — that browned, sputtering butter is the whole dish; stop at pale and it's just greasy.
- 62 min
Serve cold with hot mchadi.
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