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Armenian Food

2004-02-19 20:45:08.588323+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Oh yeah, so for that dinner mentioned in the marriage comments, we did soup:

  • an onion, chopped fine
  • a third of a cup of chopped dried apricots (less is more)
  • a couple of cloves of garlic, chopped
  • a splash of ground cumin and dried thyme

Sauté and add:

  • 5 cups of chicken stock
  • a cup and a half of red lentils

Cook until the lentils are soft (20-30 minutes) add a few diced peeled tomatoes, take half of the soup and puree it, add it back in, then just before serving add:

  • a third to a half a cup fresh lemon juice

Garnish with some grated lemon zest, maybe a little mint.

I'll try to dig up the recipe Charlene uses for sarmas, rice wrapped in grape leaves that beat any dolmas I've ever tasted all to heck. I'd have loved to get some bastermat (a sirloin type cut of beef preserved with fenugreek and paprika, sliced thin and served on a soft flatbread). A basic salad, grilled veggies with a pomegranite, lemon and mint dressing, sweet vermouth and rosemary marinated leg of lamb. Dessert was an orange and yoghurt cake with pomegranite sauce that I need to refine a bit (and pomegranite sauce can get tannic real fast).

The soup and the sarma were "oh my" delicious, everything else was good.

[edited to change "lentils" to "red lentils"]

[ related topics: Dan's Life Food ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2004-02-20 02:58:12.252901+00 by: Shawn

Sounds scrumptous. Just out of curiosity, did you soak the lentils before cooking them? I only learned in the last year or so that they should be soaked before cooking. My mother used to make lentil soups all the time. I hated them. The lentils were always hard and dry-crumbly.

#Comment Re: made: 2004-02-20 04:40:24.369317+00 by: Dan Lyke

I should have specified: Red lentils. Which don't need soaking. Different lentils cook differently.

#Comment Re: made: 2004-02-20 15:38:13.842709+00 by: Shawn

Zoiks! There are different lentils now!