Khychiny with farmer cheese and herbs
I first tried khychiny about 15 years ago: thin meat-filled flatbreads generously brushed with butter and topped with sour cream. They were delicious. Recently I found this version with farmer cheese and herbs. They worked on the first attempt: thin, tender, slightly tangy from the cheese and rich with butter. My family loved them. They are easy to make; just keep plenty of flour handy for dusting.
If flour left on a flatbread starts burning in the pan, wipe the pan with a clean, dry cloth before cooking the next one.
I have also heard of wiping excess flour from cooked khychiny with a clean, damp cloth. I tried that at first, then learned to roll them out using less flour. Use whichever method suits you.
Khychiny are delicious warm or cool on the day they are made, but less appealing the next day. Halve the recipe if you need fewer; a full batch gave me 14 khychiny.
Enjoy!
Pour a little kefir into a glass, stir in the baking soda and set aside. You can knead the dough by hand or in a mixer. Combine the remaining kefir, flour, salt, sugar, oil and kefir mixture in a large bowl and knead to a soft, sticky dough. It should not be stiff; as the photo shows, it clings to the dough hook. Use plenty of flour on the work surface when rolling it out.
Cover the dough and let it rest while you prepare the filling.
Mash 600 grams of farmer cheese in a bowl with a fork; mine has 5% fat. Add salt and 1 raw egg.
Finely chop the greens (you can take any you like).
Add chopped greens to farmer cheese and mix. You definitely need to taste it for salt. Add salt if necessary.
I have a frying pan with a diameter of 26 cm. That’s why my khychins turned out so big. The frying pan should have a thick bottom. We put it on fire above medium. While we are rolling out the first khychin, it will just warm up.
Pour flour onto the table. Lightly dust your hands with flour and lightly dust the surface of the dough. Take a small piece of dough. About the size of a child's fist. Roll it in flour, forming it into a ball. Then, slightly flattening it, place a tablespoon of filling in the middle
Gather the edges of the dough over the filling and pinch them together in the center to seal.
Dust a rolling pin with flour and gently roll the filled dough from the center outward. Keep dusting as needed so it does not stick to the work surface or rolling pin. Roll it into a thin, almost translucent flatbread the same diameter as the pan.
Shake off excess flour from the cake and carefully transfer it to a hot, DRY frying pan. Only on the third flatbread did I get the hang of choosing the perfect diameter of the flatbread and transferring it to the pan without wrinkles. So, if the first khychin doesn’t turn out very beautiful, don’t worry - the next one will be better. There are no photos here because I had to quickly roll out the next one.
The flatbreads cook quickly. Turn each one over as soon as the first side is browned. When the other side is browned, remove it and brush generously with melted butter while still hot. Stack the cooked flatbreads on a plate.