Oooh, I’ve got a large bottle of sour cherries in the outside pantry. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl @Phoenikia. Thanks.
Have any of you tried Peinirli ? I will be trying it at the Phyllo Café in TO on Sat.
It’s more popular among Black Sea Greeks (Pontians) than mainlanders.
Thought I’d post a recipe for people who might want to experiment at home.
Looks like (the recently trendy in nyc) khachapuri - which makes sense given your Black Sea comment!
@Saregama I loved Old Tbilisi Garden in the Village. I went there with buttertart 4 years ago. Nicer than the Georgian spots in TO. I’m a little obsessed with Georgian food lately. I’ve made dumplings with a khinkali filling, and kharcho, but have not attempted khachapuri yet
The khachapuri at Old Tbilisi Garden. (I can edit to add the photo if linking to CH is verboten)
Peinirli also resemble some Turkish pide and lahmacun.
Makes sense, when one looks at a map!
Have you come across the cookbook Kachka? 2018/2019 there were a couple of high profile cookbooks that focused on the broad region.
ETA: Kaukasis was the other one.
ETA 2: re map overlap - a friend’s babysitter who is Serbian specially made me a meat and phyllo pie when I was visiting, and gave me her mom’s recipe. A few months later, I had pretty much the exact same pie at a Greek friend’s home as part of their Easter feast - and her mom gave me an almost-identical recipe.
@Saregama
I haven’t looked at any recipes from the Kachka Cookbook. I have been aware of the restaurant for a while, and their recipe for Herring under a Red fur coat that was published in Saveur ( I think) .
I was following her (edit Olia Hercules) on IG. I’ve been following/unfollowing food profiles on IG as I try to lose weight, so I haven’t been following her lately. But every so often, I take the time to see what she has been doing. I was aware of the Kaukasis book.
I haven’t tried any of her recipes. She seems to do a lot of pop up dinners in London.
https://www.instagram.com/oliahercules/?hl=en
Yep, Greek, Turkish and Balkan recipes can be very similar. Some foods became common everywhere in the Ottoman empire. Guess some foods also became common everywhere in the Austro Hungarian Empire. And lucky Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia have Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman foods.
My family’s recipes could easily be Turkish.
What I like about Georgian food is that it feels like the place where Russian, Chinese and Greko-Turkish-Balkan food collide, with the addition of more walnuts and some sour plums.
Very affordable restaurants, too, considering the ingredients and flavours.
Drooling with generous envy over the photos!
Eggplant or potato?
Regular globe eggplant; we contemplated using a layer of potatoes since we had only one eggplant. But we decided to get another 
Turned out really well, and is great for breakfast too.
Retsina is definitely an acquired taste. I love it good and cold with some fried shrimp or charbroiled red snapper.
I don’t like it at all, but had some homemade rose retsina in Greece that was actually fairly pleasant. I’d be happy to drink a glass however, with anyone, anywhere, right now, as long as it was a social outing! Well, almost anyone…
Greek comfort food entree for dinner last night with sides. Used king crab leftover from Sunday’s dinner. Simple and delicious. Don’t know if there’s a Greek name for what we had last night, but H’s mom would make it for the family, sometimes with clams.
What is it? I can’t tell from the photo.
