Gozinaki is a traditional Christmas and New Year treat from the country of Georgia. It’s made only from walnuts, honey, and sugar, which results in a unique, nutty taste.
While reporting on the 2020 election, ABC News accidentally used images of Georgia voters and mistakenly identified them as Atlanta people.
This led to a lot of posts online, with some people poking fun at the news agency and some posting that they didn’t even know there was a Georgia outside of the US
In our family we actually talk much more often about Georgia in the country than about the state, mainly because my sister-in-law’s husband is Georgian – as in the Eastern European sense.
My brother-in-law is actually just a Texan with a slightly different accent, but he likes to rave about the food and culture of his homeland poetically.
As I was preparing to make goodies for our family Christmas this year, it occurred to me that Georgia needs to have some special Christmas treats. As I did my research, I discovered some traditional dishes that looked way too difficult to me, but then I stumbled upon something that looked doable: a walnut drop called gozinaki (pronounced go-zin-AH-key).
The recipe is deceptively simple with just three ingredients. The actual making process turned out to be quite difficult, but the end result was a salty, only slightly sweet goodie for our Christmas table.
I tried the recipe from the Georgian Recipes website. You can find the original post at https://georgianrecipes.net/2014/01/04/gozinaki-with-walnuts/. I haven’t changed the ingredients, but I’ve converted the items to US standard sizes and added a little bit to the instructions to try to help you avoid some of my problems.
Gozinaki
ingredients
2 pounds of shelled walnuts
12 heaping tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of sugar
Directions
In a large, dry pan, roast the walnuts over medium heat, stirring constantly, until they are warm and fragrant.
Take the walnuts out of the pan and roughly chop them.
Add the honey to your pan and heat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, for about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and add the sugar and keep stirring until the mixture thickens (this took me quite a while – maybe 15 minutes more).
Pour in the walnuts and stir until evenly covered.
Set up an area of your counter with a large piece of wax paper.
Moisten a wooden cutting board with water (wipe off any excess water) and pour about a cup of the walnut mixture on the board. Using your hands (previously wet) or a metal spoon, squeeze the mixture firmly while shaping it into a rectangle.
Once the mixture is well compacted and shaped, take a sharp knife and cut the mixture into pieces (I got mine about two inches long). Traditionally, it is cut into a diamond shape, but cut as desired for serving. (It will very likely fall apart a little. Don’t get frustrated.)
Using a spatula, carefully transfer the cut pieces onto your waxed paper so they can stand up.
Throw any pieces that have come loose back into the pan and repeat until you’ve shaped and cut all of the gozinaki.
Leave the Gozinaki on your countertop until it is fully set and you can pick it up without it falling apart. (I left mine overnight.) Store in an airtight container.
At our Christmas meeting, I put my plate of Gozinaki on the treat table in the basement. I was upstairs when my sister-in-law and brother-in-law arrived and went down to put presents under the tree. Less than two minutes later, my brother-in-law jumped up the stairs with his mouth full and gave me a big hug.
So if you’re wondering, this is a pretty good recipe, and I managed to hit the flavor of traditional gozinaki.
Roasting the walnuts releases some of their oils and gives them a deep, nutty flavor, and the use of honey and low levels of sugar means these aren’t too sweet. The texture also remains tough. It was unlike any type of Christmas present I’ve ever eaten, but it’s definitely worth a try.
Georgians also eat Gozinaki on New Years Eve, so you might want to mix up a serving when 2022 is around the corner. It will be a treat and a geography lesson rolled into one.
Spice Up Your Life is a weekly recipe column from Lindsey Young, who describes herself as an avid hobby cook and can be reached on her website www.spiceupkitchen.net.