Khinkali
The juice inside a khinkali is not magic but water: a good cup of it goes into the filling and turns to broth in the boiling pot. That is why the dough must be firm and the seam airtight. And the tail is not eaten: you hold it while you drink the broth, then leave it on the plate.
- Prep
- 1 h
- Cook
- 15 min
- Rest
- 40 min
- Total
- 1 h 55 min
- Servings
- 6
- Level
- Challenging
- Per serving
- 460 kcal
Ingredients
Dough
Filling
Makes: about 24 dumplings, 6 portions
Shopping list
The ingredients for the servings you chose — copy them or send them to a messenger. Tick what you already have at home: only the rest goes on the list.
Method
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Step 1: Knead the dough
Work the flour, water and salt for 10 minutes until smooth. It must be very firm — soft dough tears under the weight of filling and broth.
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Step 2: Rest it
Wrap and leave 40 minutes. Relaxed gluten lets you roll thin rounds without tearing them.
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Step 3: Chop the meat by hand
Dice the meat small and chop it with two knives. Minced meat gives up its juice at once; hand-chopped meat keeps its structure and its moisture.
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Step 4: Work water into the filling
Add the onion, garlic, coriander and spices and beat in the ice water in stages. The filling should end up like thick cream — that water becomes the broth.
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Step 5: Roll the rounds
Roll 12 cm circles 2 mm thick, leaving the centre a little thicker to carry the weight of the filling.
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Step 6: Pleat them shut
Spoon on the filling, gather the edge in pleats all the way round — 18 to 20 of them — and twist the top, pinching off the excess. More pleats means better sealed broth.
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Step 7: Boil in a rolling pot
Lower them into a large pot of salted water stirred into a whirlpool. Cook 12–14 minutes after they float, uncovered.
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Step 8: Serve with pepper
Lift them out and dust generously with black pepper. Eat with your hands: bite the side, drink the broth, leave the tail.
Tips & variations
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Tip
Khinkali are never served with a knife and fork — a pierced dumpling loses its broth, which is the entire point.
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Tip
Shape and boil in batches: a raw khinkali left standing half an hour goes soggy underneath and bursts in the water.
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Variation
Kalakuri are meat and herbs, as here; Svanetian are cheese and potato; mushroom ones use fried mushrooms and onion. The dough never changes.
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Storage
Freeze them raw on a board, then bag them: boil from frozen, three minutes longer. Cooked khinkali do not keep — the dough goes slack.
Nutrition
| 1 serving | Whole dish 6 servings | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 460 kcal | 2,760 kcal |
| Protein | 24 g | 144 g |
| Fat | 18 g | 108 g |
| Carbohydrates | 50 g | 300 g |
Approximate values calculated from standard ingredient data.
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