Example Recipes from Armenian Cuisine

Pilaf with apricots and almonds

(Serves 6)

2 c rice
3 c chicken broth
50-100 gr almonds, blanched
50-100 gr apricots
1 T butter
Salt

Wash rice, drain, and sauté in the butter. Add chicken stock and salt to taste. Cut apricots longways into quarters and sauté them in another saucepan in a little butter, without browning, sauté and lightly brown the almonds in a similar way. Add half the apricots and almonds to the rice and allow to cook with the pilaf; reserve the rest for garnish while serving.

Sometimes used as a garnish and at other times as a main dish with the addition of various ingredients, pilav is indispensable in almost all of Anatolia’s cuisines and generally plays a central role on the Anatolian table. Like the Turks, the Armenians also call pilaf  “pilav.” There are many different pilafs in Anatolia made with almonds; pilaf with apricots and almonds are one of the favorite Armenian holiday and wedding banquet dishes.

Topik

(Serves 12)

3 medium potatoes
½ kg dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
2 kg onions
½ kg tahini
4 t sugar
2 t salt
3 t cinnamon
2 t black pepper
2 t allspice
3 T pine nuts
3 T dried currants

Boil potatoes with their skins on. Boil chickpeas till soft. Remove skins from potatoes and puree. In the same way, remove the skins from the chickpeas and mash into a puree.

Mince onions or slice very thinly, and cook in water just to cover till soft. Put cooked onion into a strainer and press water out, reserving water. Mix the potato and chickpea purees and add 2 T tahini, 1 t salt and 1 T onion water. Let this puree rest a while in a cool place. With a wooden spoon, mix the remaining tahini into the drained onions, add sugar, 1 t salt, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice and pine nuts.

Take about ½ cup of the potato-chickpea mixture and place on a piece of muslin, cover with another piece, and with a rolling pin, open into a rectangle approximately 6 by 5 inches. (Alternatively, spread the puree on a single piece of muslin to the desired dimensions.) Remove the top piece of muslin, and place around 3 tablespoons of the onion mixture in the center. Holding the muslin, fold the free edges of the potato-chickpea puree over the filling, pull the cloth back off the puree. Turn onto serving plate and allow to rest in a cool place. Dust with cinnamon before serving.

Topik are one of the most unique flavors of Armenian cuisine; they have even been the subject of songs and mani (sung quatrains). The topic sold by Topikçi Hampik in Kumkapı to the accompaniment of mani, like other things, are on the verge of being forgotten. Today, topic are served only at one or two Istanbul meyhanes as a cold meze, and in the heavily-Armenian neighborhood of Kurtuluş, are for sale at some meze shops. Along with stuffed vine leaves and stuffed mussels, they are indispensable at the traditional feasts for the holidays ofDzununt and Zadik.

Khavidz

(Serves 8)
125 gr butter
1 litre milk
8 T flour
9 T sugar
1 t vanilla
1 T fine semolina

Boil the milk, sugar and vanilla together. On a very low flame, toast the flour in a pan for 20 minutes, without browning. Add the boiled milk little by little into the flour, and cook till the mixture comes to the consistency of a thin batter, then add the butter a little at a time. Butter a small baking dish and coat with semolina. Pour in the khavitz dough and cook till browned. When cooked, invert onto a serving plate and dust with cinnamon if desired.

Khavidz looks easy but achieving the correct consistency requires skill. It is one of the most delicious Armenian holiday sweets. Its interior should be like a thick pudding or even slightly runny; its exterior should be well browned just like kazandibi. The special “Khavidz days” at the old restaurants at the Covered Bazaar, where Armenian cooks worked, have long been forgotten. Khavidz today is kept alive only in a few households where traditions are preserved.

Note: Some of these recipes have been taken from the G7 website.