Oh they are. I met an Armenian-American man from the US who said his wife chastises him when he buys apricots at home. “They don’t taste like anything.”
I’ve only had very mushy, very bland apricots so I never buy them anymore. We often get asked whether we’ve traveled to Armenia or have plans to, and we always giggle. The joke is ‘what’s there besides dusty goats,’ but who knows… maybe one day we’ll make it there.
With respect to home cooks who make a lot of stuffed grapeleaves, torn, imperfect, and/or smaller grapeleaves are often used to line the bottom of the large pan in which stuffed grapeleaves will be braised on the stovetop or in the oven. Additional imperfect or small leaves often make a layer of leaves to separate 1 or 2 layers of stuffed grapeleaves, and to top the top layer of stuffed grapeleaves.
Of course, some home cooks do not do this.
1 Like
Thanks for the tip!
Steve, if you are in DC there apparently is an Armenian restaurant in Adams Morgan called appropriately Yerevan. I haven’t been and my husband and I met in Armenia while working there. We live near there, too. Ironically, they get their pastries from the Azeri bakery down the street. There is hope for the world!
3 Likes
Thanks, Janet - and welcome to Hungry Onion!
I have been to Yerevan Cafe multiple times. It started off as 87% coffee shop, 11% market, 2% restaurant. Now they have very few market items and have expanded a bit their food offerings. At first the food was uninteresting, but I did very much enjoy a soup and salad there recently, so I think they are devoting more attention to that. It is on the upswing. I look forward to going back, especially before or after a show at DCAC, which I assume you know about.
1 Like
We’re boring older folks so I don’t even know what DCAC. is. We also have lived outside the US for a while so we are behind.
I doubt you are either boring or older, but either way DC Arts Center is nearby up a flight of stairs. Rotating exhibits plus a pocket-sized theatre where I have seen some seriously great plays.
On a related note, these were a nice read.
https://www.laweekly.com/venn-food-diagrams-l-a-s-idea-of-armenian-food-vs-what-armenians-eat/
1 Like
Aside from going to an Armenian juice bar in Glendale, I did not go to any of the Armenian restaurants there. I have looked at their menus, and it seems that they are dominated by kabobs.
Here is the list of foods I ate in Armenia:
Lavash (ubiquitous, ultra thin flatbread)
Sea Buckthorn Juice
Apricots, Cherries, Green Apples, among other fruits
Preserved walnuts, raspberries, peaches, pears, cherries, Armenian ‘Cough Syrup’ made from mulberries or plums)
Rejena (described as baked milk, tastes like like milk-flavored butter, not sure how this is made or why it isn’t everywhere on every table in the world)
Gavurma (meat preserved in butter)
Qalagosh (lavash topped with yogurt and lentils)
Red Bean Soup (with walnuts, onion, and parsley)
Many different cheeses including farmers cheese and smoked cheese
Jingyalov Hats (lavash stuffed with a variety of cooked greens)
Topik (potato galette stuffed with onion, walnuts and peas)
Agulisyan (dumplings stuffed with beef and prunes)
Bread Rusks (crisped lavash) with dips of tarragon, beet, and mushroom
Vana Mshosh (lentil puree with dried apricot)
Arishta (noodles, often with buckwheat but also could be rye flour or others added)
Lahmajo (flatbread topped with minced meat)
Tan (yogurt soup with butter, parlsey, and bulghur served hot)
Piti (lamb stew topped with a dough and baked in a clay pot)
Tomato stuffed with eggplant
Ghapama (stufffed baby pumpkin)
Fried Sickleweed
Ishli Kufta (meat wrappped in dough and fried, aka kibbe in other lands)
Fried potatoes
Cabbage Salad
Roast peppers, zucchini, eggplant
Omelette with sausage and peppers
Chicken Kiev
Pancake rolled with pork
Cucumbers in matsoun (strained yogurt, often with dill)
Summer Salad (tomato, cucumber, onions, parsley)
Lula kabobs (ground meat, wrapped in lavash)
Julien (mushrooms and cheese in cream sauce)
Uzbek Pilaf
Borscht
Homemade pickles (many varieties)
Khashlama (lamb stew)
Fried Chicken in Garlic Sauce
Beet Salad
Pasuch Tolma (cabbage leaves stuffed with rice, dried fruits, vegetarian)
Khashil (porridge with tan and butter)
Tolma (meat stuffed grape leaves)
Goris Hummus (made from Goris beans)
Carrot Salad
Adjeani Kachapuri
Red Bean Salad (served warm with walnuts and onions)
Boiled ishram (trout)
Basturma (dry cured meat)
Aveluk Salad (wild horse sorrel)
Aveluk Soup
Walnut Gata (like rugelach on steroids)
Gavar Bakhlava (far thicker and far less sweet)
Pork Khorovats (BBQ)
Sig (trout) Khorovats
Tan (soup served cold, same ingredients as the hot version)
Tjvjik (can be variety of offal, but commonly liver)
Harissa (chicken porridge)
Olive salad
Kololak (in this case, balls of bulghur and potato in tomato sauce)
Etchmiadzin Qyufta (like a foamy meatloaf)
Bulghur with onion
Soup of corn, beans, peas and bulghur
6 Likes
Can you share a link or pic for this? I tried but couldn’t find anything.
I wonder if this is similar white butter in India, which is freshly churned (cultured) butter that’s the step before making ghee. Never thought about it as “milk-flavored butter”, but that’s a good description.
I adore it, and have been taking advantage of plentiful access at the moment.
Very interesting – this looks like a less spiced version of Indian Khichda and Indian / Bangladeshi Haleem. I’m sure it traveled.
WOW! I’m going to share that list with my PIC and see how many things he recognizes.
Looks like you ate all the things.
1 Like
Here is the rejena, served in scoops like ice cream:
And this is the Gavurma, meat preserved in butter. I had both dishes more than once.
And my favorite food photo of the trip, bread rusks, in this case lavash (ultra thin) is torn up and cooked into crisps. You really do need the spoons to top the rusks, or they would break up with dipping:
4 Likes
That meat dish sounds amazing. What kind of meat?
It was beef. First salt cured, then stored in butter.
A few more sources for TONS of Armenian recipes:
1 Like
That looks very much like Clotted Cream
1 Like
I like the Armenian version of tabbouleh as it has more bulgur than parsley. I lived in Jordan, and of course everywhere else seems to have the parsley dominant recipe. I’m not that fond of a mouthful of parsley. I really like bulgur! Turkey has the bulgur dominant recipe, too. The recipe from the Armenian museum looks really good.
1 Like
Funny, and I love tabbouleh heavy on the parsley. So fresh!
1 Like
