Popular dishes of Armenian cuisine

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

A large number of people simply love Armenian cuisine because of the abundant use of various spices and herbs. It uses a large number of different vegetables, from meat products in priority - lamb. Another distinctive feature is spiciness, all dishes have a pronounced spicy taste. Only the best recipes of Armenian cuisine that have proven themselves over the years will be presented here.

Ailazan

For the first time, people learned about this dish in the 19th century, since then it has become incredibly popular in Armenia. Today it is one of the most famous national dishes in this country. By and large, aylazan is a vegetable stew, only with the addition of real Armenian spices.

To prepare this dish, you should prepare a fairly large set of products:

• a few medium potatoes;
• 2-3 eggplants;
• two medium onions;
• two fleshy bell peppers;
• 150g green beans;
• 300g tomatoes.

Armenian cuisine specializes in the use of a large number of different herbs, this dish shoulduse: basil, cilantro, parsley, oregano. Not so many spices are used here: citron, several types of pepper, turmeric.

Cooking method

To make cooking easy and fast, it is recommended to follow the step-by-step instructions:

1. Rinse the eggplants and scald them with boiling water, in which case they will stop being bitter and the skin will be softer. After that, cut them into fairly thin rings - approximately 0.7 centimeters thick. Put them in a bowl, cover with cold water and set aside for 10 minutes. After that, take out the vegetable and squeeze out excess liquid from it, put it on the bottom of the cauldron and add vegetable oil.
2. Peel the potatoes, rinse and cut into medium cubes, put on eggplant.
3. Peel the onion and bell pepper, remove the seeds, after which both vegetables should be cut into half rings. After that, put these two vegetables in a cauldron.
4. The next layer is green beans. Lay tomato slices on it, and throw large enough branches of the necessary greens on top.
5. Pour about 150 ml of water, cover the cauldron with a lid, make a small fire and cook vegetables for one hour.

Pay attention! Each layer of vegetables needs a little s alt, pepper and all the necessary spices. At the end of cooking, arrange the dish on portioned plates and sprinkle generously with chopped cilantro.

Eggplant baked with cheese and garlic

Well, what kind of Middle Eastern cuisine without eggplant dishes, here they are used almost everywhere. This vegetable is my favorite foodlocal population. By and large, this recipe does not stand out for any originality, everything is in the best traditions of the Armenian national cuisine.

List of required products

First of all, you should collect all the products. And only after that you can start cooking. To create this dish, take:

• three medium eggplants;
• 300g hard cheese;
• 6 eggs;
• 5 garlic cloves;
• cilantro and parsley.

From spices it is recommended to use basil, turmeric, oregano and coriander.

How to cook

First of all, you need to put water in the pan. Boil eggs until fully cooked. In the meantime, take the eggplants, cut them in half lengthwise, carefully scoop out most of the pulp with a spoon. Put in a pot of water and boil for 5 minutes.

Now you can start preparing the filling. To do this, you need to grate the cheese on a fine grater, put it in a bowl, add 5 cloves of garlic, which was squeezed through the garlic, to the same place. If it is absent, then the product should be cut very finely. In the same bowl, put finely chopped boiled eggs, season everything with s alt, pepper and the necessary spices. The taste of the filling should be quite sharp and spicy.

Remove prepared eggplant from the pan, squeeze out excess liquid. Put the filling in the center of the vegetable, put on a baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes at 160 degrees. When serving, sprinkle generously with chopped parsley and cilantro. Eggplant prepared according to this recipe is recommended to be served with matzah. If it was not possible to find it, then it can be replaced with ordinary yogurt, which is also sometimes used in Armenian cuisine. The photo below shows the final result.

Halamsha

Another authentic Armenian dish that has been served in this country for many years. In restaurants of Armenian cuisine, it is customary to cook halamsha with lamb. But if you do not like this type of meat, or if it is simply not in the refrigerator at the moment, then you can take beef or pork, but be sure to use a full set of spices. Otherwise, it will be a roast, vegetable stew with meat, but not halamsha.

What products do you need

To prepare this dish for four people you need to take:

• 800g lamb meat;
• 300 g potatoes (meaning peeled);
• 1 large bell pepper;
• 1-2 chili peppers;
• 8 medium tomatoes;
• onion.

You also need to get fresh basil, parsley and cilantro. Of the spices, be sure to use cumin, cumin, tarragon, black and red pepper.

Cooking process

First of all, it is necessary to clean the meat well, it should not have veins, films and other inclusions. Then cut into medium cubes and rinse, put it in a pot of water and put to boil. The product should be cooked for half an hour over medium heat, after which you can proceed topreparing the rest of the ingredients.

Peel the potatoes and cut into fairly large pieces. If the vegetable is small or medium in size, then it will be enough to cut into 4 parts, put in a saucepan. Peel the bell pepper from seeds and stalk and rinse, and then also cut into large pieces, hot pepper should be finely chopped, throw everything into the pan.

Cut the onion into medium cubes, fry a little in a pan with vegetable oil and put to the rest of the products. Cut the medium-sized tomatoes in half, add to the pan and simmer all the ingredients until they are completely cooked. 10 minutes before the end of the heat treatment, add chopped greens, all spices and herbs.

Armenian lavash

Lavash can hardly be called an independent dish, but it is an indispensable addition to almost all national food. In addition, it can be the basis for most other dishes. Therefore, it is extremely important to know the recipe for making pita bread at home.

For cooking, take 3 cups of flour, 1 cup of water, 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil, a teaspoon of s alt. To make pita bread more spicy and have an unusual flavor, you can add dried basil, marjoram or oregano.

Dough kneading and frying

Take a deep bowl, pour the required amount of sifted flour into it. Add s alt, vegetable oil and, if desired, various herbs. Heat the water strongly, its temperature should beabout 80 degrees. Knead the dough, then cover it with cling film and set aside for 20 minutes.

The dough is divided into several parts and rolled out very thinly. Put a frying pan on the fire without pouring any fat or oil into it and heat it well. Fry the rolled dough on both sides until cooked. This completes the process of making pita bread.

If you want to make a large pita bread, in this case, you need to take a baking sheet and put it on 2 burners. When it warms up, fry the thinly rolled dough.

lavash shawarma

There are a large number of different recipes for this oriental dish. This option can be called the closest to Armenian recipes. For cooking you need to take:

• 2 large lavash;
• 200g turkey or chicken fillet;
• 100g cabbage and 50g carrots;
• 100g fried potatoes;
• 40g processed cheese;
• 50g each of mayonnaise and chili ketchup.

First, you should make a coleslaw. To do this, you need to finely chop the vegetable, grate the carrots on a coarse grater, add a little vegetable oil, vinegar, s alt and sugar. Mix everything.

Meat cut into small cubes and fry in a pan with curry, turmeric and cumin. Peel the potatoes, cut into cubes and fry in a large amount of oil. Cheese should be cut into strips.

Put the pita bread on the table, pour the required amount of ketchup, put the coleslaw, meat on top,potatoes and cheese. Cover everything with ketchup. You can add red pepper if you like. Roll up the shawarma and fry in a grill pan. If this is not available, then you can use an ordinary frying pan with a thick bottom.

All of the above dishes are served in various cafes of Armenian cuisine, so it is not necessary to go anywhere to try these fragrant dishes.