Machkatebi are rustic pancakes of the Tusheti highlands, which fall administratively and culturally within Kakheti; TasteAtlas lists them among Kakheti's traditional foods. Cooked in a pan, they are filled with khavitsi, a Tushetian specialty of melted curd cheese (kalti) blended with clarified butter. The dish is a hearty dairy-and-grain specialty of the Tush shepherds, eaten in the mountains, and it shares its filling with the layered Kotori khachapuri.
Soft, slightly chewy pancakes split open and filled with molten, buttery, salty curd cheese that stretches when pulled. Eaten hot, the contrast of plain dough and intensely rich, cheesy, buttery filling is the whole point.
The pancake dough is a simple flour, egg, milk and salt batter, cooked in a dry or lightly oiled pan into soft rounds. The khavitsi filling is made separately: dried curd cheese (kalti) is melted into hot clarified butter with a little flour to bind, becoming stretchy and rich. The pancakes are split open while hot and the molten filling spooned in, so the cheese melts further against the hot dough.
Variations
A richer version adds more butter to the filling. Some cooks use fresh instead of dried curd.
On the Palate
Where Machkatebi sits in the Georgian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8How it's made
6 steps · 40 min
- 18 min
Make a batter of 300g flour, 2 eggs, 200ml milk and a pinch of salt; rest 30 minutes.
- 28 min
For the khavitsi filling, melt 80g clarified butter in a pan and stir in 100g crumbled dried curd cheese (kalti) and 1 tbsp flour.
- 310 min
Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring, until it melts into a stretchy, glossy mass.
Watch outCook the curd-cheese filling gently until it melts into a stretchy, glossy mass — pull it while it still ropes and shines; overheat and it seizes greasy and grainy.
- 412 min
Cook the pancakes: ladle batter into a hot lightly-oiled pan, cook 2 minutes per side until golden; repeat to make 8.
- 58 min
Split each hot pancake open and spoon in the molten khavitsi filling.
Watch outSplit the pancakes and fill them while both are piping hot — the heat melts the cheese further against the dough; fill a cool pancake and the filling just stiffens.
- 62 min
Serve at once, folded, while the filling is still molten.
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