Ingredients
Dough
- 1 kgstrong white flour
- 650 mlwarm water, at 30°C (85°F)
- 20 gfine salt
- 10 gfresh yeast, or 200 g mature sourdough starter
- Extra flour, for dusting the shaping board
Directions
- Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, tip in the flour and salt and mix to a shaggy mass. Knead 10–12 minutes until the dough is smooth, elastic and slightly slack.
- Cover and bulk-ferment 1.5–2 hours at room temperature until doubled; a traditional bakery uses a piece of yesterday’s dough instead of yeast, which takes longer and tastes faintly sour.
- Heat a clay tone oven with a wood fire until the walls glow, roughly 350–400°C (650–750°F), then rake the embers down; at home, heat a baking steel or heavy stone under the grill in the hottest oven for 45 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 4 pieces of about 400 g, round them and rest 15 minutes covered.
- Flatten each piece by hand on a floured board and stretch it into a long pointed canoe, roughly 40 cm long, 15 cm across the middle and thinner at the two tips.
- Poke a hole clean through the centre with two fingers. The hole stops the middle ballooning off the oven wall.
- Wet the underside of the loaf lightly, lay it on a cushion or a floured peel, and slap it firmly onto the hot vertical wall of the tone so it sticks; at home, slide it flat onto the screaming-hot steel.
- Bake 4–6 minutes, until the loaf is blistered, patched with brown, and puffed at the rim. The baker hooks it off the wall with an iron rod the moment the edges lift.
- Cool on a rack for a few minutes only and eat warm, torn by hand, with sulguni, tomatoes and herbs. It goes stale within hours.
Technique
- The canoe shape and the central hole exist because the loaf hangs off a vertical clay wall; both are structural, not decorative.
- Ferocious heat is the whole recipe. Below about 300°C (575°F) the bread dries out before it blisters and you get a flatbread rather than shoti.
- A slightly slack, well-developed dough sticks to the tone wall. Stiff dough falls into the embers, which is the classic beginner’s disaster.
Substitutions
- No tone and no baking steel: preheat a heavy cast-iron pan upside down under the grill and bake the loaf on its base, one at a time.
- Swap 200 g of the flour for wholemeal to approach the darker village loaves of the mountains.
Variations
- Dedas puri, the same dough shaped as a fatter oval loaf.
- Lavashi, rolled thinner and baked flatter in the same oven.
- Mchadi, an unrelated Georgian maize flatbread cooked in a pan, eaten with the same cheeses.
History
Baked in the round tone oven found in bakeries nationwide; the shape lets it stick to the hot wall.
Frequently asked questions
What is Shotis puri?
Shotis puri is a bread & pastry from Georgia: canoe-shaped white loaf slapped onto the wall of a clay tone oven. Baked in the round tone oven found in bakeries nationwide; the shape lets it stick to the hot wall.
How long does Shotis puri take to make?
Shotis puri takes 25 min of preparation and 2 hr 30 min of cooking. The recipe makes 4 loaves. It is rated medium to make.
What can I substitute in Shotis puri?
Yes, within limits. No tone and no baking steel: preheat a heavy cast-iron pan upside down under the grill and bake the loaf on its base, one at a time. Swap 200 g of the flour for wholemeal to approach the darker village loaves of the mountains.
What is the most important thing to get right in Shotis puri?
Cover and bulk-ferment 1.5–2 hours at room temperature until doubled; a traditional bakery uses a piece of yesterday’s dough instead of yeast, which takes longer and tastes faintly sour.
