How to cook Armenian pumpkin khapama. Autumn recipes - Hapama. Step nine... and last
From making pies and salad, I was left with the bottom part of the pumpkin - a small, even “pot” just begging to be stuffed. I decided to make khapama, which the female half of my family loves.
Khapama is an Armenian dish. I prepared a small khapama, and in Armenian families this dish is prepared for a noisy festive feast, so they take a large pumpkin so that there is enough for everyone. There is even a song about this dish: “Hey, jan, Hapama!!! What a smell, what a taste!
Pumpkin was traditionally stuffed with rice mixed with raisins, dried cherry plum, dried apricots, an apple or quince was added, and seasoned with sugar and cinnamon. Now, when khapama is prepared not only in Armenia, any dried and dried fruits and berries, fresh apples, quinces, and nuts available on hand are added to it. It is important that the filling contains both sweet and sour additives.
For some reason, it’s hard for me to guess the amount of filling every time, there’s always more, but if there’s some left over, I make another dessert as a bonus.
Somehow I suddenly got the urge to cook Hapama. Moreover, this is the quintessential autumn holiday dish. And why not arrange a little holiday for yourself and your loved ones!
Khapama is an Armenian dish. It is a pumpkin stuffed with rice and dried fruits, flavored with butter and honey and baked in the oven. Try it, I assure you, it is very, very tasty!
So, let's begin.
By the way, there was a pumpkin at home (thanks to my mother-in-law!). After asking... not Google, no... Yandex (I like it better), I was stuck for 40 minutes contemplating the delicious pictures. When I realized that I could no longer endure this punishment, I settled on the following recipe.
Hapama - the simplest recipe
INGREDIENTS
- sweet pumpkin (preferably nutmeg) - small, 1.5 kg.
- Short grain rice - 0.5 cups
- apples - sour 2 pcs. (if large, one apple is enough)
- raisins - 100 g.
- flower honey - 3 tbsp. l.
- granulated sugar - to taste
- butter - 100 g.
- ground cinnamon - 1 tsp.
- salt - 1 tsp.
- olive or sunflower oil - 2 tbsp. l.
Method of preparing Khapama, also known as HOLIDAY:
Step one:
Wash the pumpkin thoroughly, carefully cut off the top with a sharp knife (do not throw it away, we will need it). Scoop out all the seeds with a spoon. Rinse the pumpkin again.
Step two
Wash the apples, cut them in half, remove the core, cut the apples into small cubes.
Step three
Rinse the raisins well in boiled water and lay them out to dry.
Step four
Rinse the rice and cook in plenty of salted water until half cooked, place in a sieve and let cool.
Step five
In a bowl appropriate for the volume of ingredients, mix the cooled rice, apples, raisins, sugar, cinnamon (I still wouldn’t recommend cinnamon, it’s not for everyone, and it ruins the color of the rice... but I took a chance).
Step six
Fill the pumpkin with 100 ml of the resulting prepared mixture. hot water. Place a piece of butter on top.
Step seven
Cover the stuffed pumpkin with the cut off top (if the top was not cut off neatly, you can cover it with foil). Grease the sides of the pumpkin with olive or any vegetable oil (although for me this is unnecessary).
Place the pumpkin in a suitable heatproof dish.
Step eight
Bake the pumpkin at 170`C for about an hour and a half. You can check if the pumpkin is ready with a knife. If it easily penetrates the pulp from the outside, then our khapama is ready!
Step nine... and last!
Carefully transfer the pumpkin onto a plate and serve warm. If the sweetness is not enough for someone, you can prepare honey water. To do this, take our honey and dissolve it in a small amount of warm, boiled water.
Let's start the holiday! Bon appetit!
Amazing pumpkin fruit! It can grow in the garden to such a size that you can’t even lift it! And there are so many vitamins and microelements in it that it would take too long to list.
© DepositPhotos
You can prepare a huge number of dishes from pumpkin for different tastes: soups, porridges, side dishes, pies, pancakes, casseroles, jelly, jams, preserves and even candied fruits.
© DepositPhotos
But all this is familiar. But if you serve not just porridge in a saucepan, but porridge directly in a pumpkin, appetizingly baked in the oven, it will be just a holiday - both original, and fun, and satisfying!
Pumpkin baked in the oven
Traditional Armenian khapama is a pumpkin stuffed with rice, dried fruits, nuts and honey. Since time immemorial, it has been a mandatory dish on Armenian holiday tables; people loved it so much that they even wrote a song about it.
Until now, this dish is prepared for the New Year, Easter, weddings and birthdays, solemnly brought to the table and sung: “Hey, jan khapama, tasty and aromatic. Hey, jan, khapama, with honey inside the khapama.”
Armenian khapama
In the old days, there were several options for preparing khapama. For example, the filling was prepared from wheat, meat and fresh fruit. However, the most common recipe is with rice, dried fruits, nuts and honey.
Ingredients
- 1 pumpkin
- 100 g rice
- 0.5 tbsp. dried apricots
- 0.3 tbsp. prunes
- 0.5 tbsp. raisins
- 0.5 tbsp. walnuts
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 6 tbsp. l. honey
- 100 g butter
Preparation
Dietary buckwheat with pumpkin and chicken
The recipe for this treat, in my opinion, is found only in Russian cuisine. "So simple!" offers an original, easy and super healthy recipe: pumpkin stuffed with buckwheat and meat.
Ingredients
- 1 pumpkin
- 300 g buckwheat
- 500 g chicken meat
- 50 g prunes
- 50 g butter
- 1 clove of garlic
- black pepper, salt, sugar to taste
- vegetable oil
Preparation
This kind of buckwheat takes quite a long time to prepare, but it turns out really tasty, not like the one we are all used to. Try it, maybe this method of preparing porridge will become your favorite.
Pumpkin is not only an indispensable attribute of a healthy diet, but also a wonderful remedy for maintaining facial beauty. The orange pulp of the fruit can slow down aging, restore youth to the skin and fill it with nutrients.
Pumpkin, carrots and ginger: this orange soup will lift your spirits and fill your body with vitamin C, folic acid and fiber!
2016-11-03
Date: 03 11 2016
Tags:
Hi all! Today there are two people on duty in the kitchen - me and Vera Ramazova. I give her the floor. My dears, it is with special pleasure and mood that I want to introduce you to a dish of Armenian cuisine that is very popular and beloved among my people. In national traditions, khapama was served at the wedding table and was considered a symbol of abundance, thereby wishing the young people a rich, sweet, happy and bright life, like pilaf baked in a pumpkin. There is no Armenian who, upon pronouncing the name of this dish, would not smile and sing in his mind an old song about this dish. I really want you to listen to it and smile at its simple content and cheerful melody. So, today we have a recipe for khapama.
The lyrics of the song about the most delicious and aromatic hapama translate roughly as follows:
“Pumpkin ripened in the garden
Cut it and brought it home
Stuffed pumpkin with sweets
And they hung him up in a tondoor.
Guests were invited
Here is dad with mom and her sister,
Here is the mother-in-law and father-in-law with their sister,
Here is a brother and sister and a brother-in-law and his wife,
Here is the mother-in-law, father-in-law, matchmaker and matchmaker,
Uncles, aunties and a crowd of children,
Friends and girlfriends with wives and husbands
With children and godfathers...
Eee-hey jan, hey jan, hey jan...
Of course, the owner greets everyone joyfully and everyone sings and dances about Khapam.”
Even Nadezhda Babkina sang this song. We will listen to a song about khapam at the end of our meeting. 
Since Vera and I are hosting the episode together today, I want to announce that I have finally collected my pumpkins from the garden. There was no time for everything, and now November has crept up unnoticed, and weather forecasters are frightening us with frosts and other autumn troubles. True, my pumpkins are not round, but with a “waist”, but I will come up with something and will certainly adapt them for making khapama. I really want to recreate the taste of Armenian food from my childhood.
, — I’m cooking all these Armenian dishes again, thanks to Vera. But, back to the recipe - I’m sure that khapama will appeal to all pumpkin lovers.
Khapama - Armenian recipe with photo
Ingredients
- 1 pumpkin (about 1 kg without “entrails”).
- 200 g rice.
- 100 g raisins.
- 100 g dried apricots.
- 100 g prunes.
- 100 g honey.
- 100 g walnuts.
- 50-70 g butter.
- 1-2 tablespoons of sugar.
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional).
How to cook
Recipe Author's Notes
- Please note, this is my 1 kg pumpkin. cooked for 30 minutes, and the pumpkin weighed 2 or 2.5 kg. will cook for 1 or 1.5 hours.
- You can check the readiness of the khapama with a skewer, toothpick or thin knife.
- No words of mine can convey the taste and aroma of Khapama! You have to cook it yourself to experience the beauty of this dish. Khapama is prepared, of course, not only for weddings, but also for holidays and simply to gather the whole family.
Blog Author's Notes
- I am sure that the reviews from your family and friends will be the most enthusiastic. After all, a pumpkin was simply created to put something tasty in it and bake it. This natural edible “pot” is very beautiful and tasty. Even those who don't like pumpkin often have to admit that it's excellent as khapama.
- Serve the hapama, cutting it into slices.
I thank Verochka with all my heart for the excellent recipe for traditional Armenian food and the most delicious photos!
Khapama, a traditional autumn dish consisting of pumpkin stuffed to the brim with rice, nuts, raisins, dried apricots (dried apricots) and other seasonings depending on personal preference, is very Armenian. It's so Armenian that Harut Pambukchian, an Armenian-American singer who is such an international treasure that we'd preserve him in gold and cast his profile on coins if we could, dedicated a song to this dish called "Hey , jan, khapama."
The entire song is all about the amazing pumpkin, detailing bringing a ripe pumpkin home, chopping up the ingredients and putting it in the oven and having 100 people, including various relatives, and sisters-in-law bring it out to eat (it's that good). So, if you speak Armenian, listening to this song will practically give you the recipe. The problem is that, generally speaking, this song is played towards the middle or end of weddings or other public events, when alcohol and sweets flow freely for hours, leaving you full of joy and complete freedom from any proper coordination. Everyone knows the chorus. If you are that lucky person, you would also be singing about a filled pumpkin.
The process of making hapama is quite simple and makes a colorful and unique addition to any fall Thanksgiving table. The beauty of this exceptional dish, prepared during October or November, lies not only in its warmth (especially useful considering how cold the transition of the seasons is in Armenia into autumn and winter), but also in the fact that the vibrancy of its colors never overwhelms , but honors others with every bite.
However, it is very difficult to go wrong with dried fruits, butter, cinnamon and honey mixed with white steamed rice. This is a very versatile dish. You can use other melons if you like, swapping rice for cranberries, for example, or adding pecans instead of walnuts.
If you go traditional and use pumpkin, choose sugar pumpkin (used for pumpkin pie). It's a lovely, comfortable size; and since it is used for baking, you are guaranteed to get your hands on a good quality hapama.
If you leave the stem/tail of the pumpkin when serving, the view will be magnificent when you present it to your hungry family of 100 people who will of course be vying for this majestic Armenian delicacy. Harut Pambukchyan says so.
Whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving or looking to add a quirky twist to your table during the colder months, it doesn't matter where you're from, hapama is the perfect app to take you from wherever you are to covered a snow-covered village where foreigners (strangers), especially the frozen ones, are family.
Armenian khapama
This recipe comes from a now stained, very old piece of paper written in Armenia, acquired by my mother (and stolen by me!) many, many years ago.
Ingredients
1 cup white, short grain rice (you can substitute brown rice, increase or decrease the amount depending on the size of your squash)
½ cup raisins
½ cup dried apricots
½ cup walnuts
½ stick butter (room temperature)
6 tablespoons honey (reduce or increase depending on taste) + 2 tablespoons to line the walls of the pumpkin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Cooking method:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit (about 230 degrees Celsius - ed.)
Wash the pumpkin and cut off the top of the head in a circle, paying attention to symmetry throughout the circle from start to finish.
Use a spoon to scrape out the pulp, including the seeds. Pro tip: Save the seeds to roast later.
Cover the walls of the pumpkin with 2 tablespoons of honey, coating thoroughly.
Cook the rice, making sure it is half cooked so that the rest of the cooking takes place inside the pumpkin. Place it in a separate bowl.
Cut the butter into pieces and add to the rice.
Place dry ingredients, including rice, dried apricots, walnuts and cinnamon, in another bowl.
Pour the rice along with the melted butter into the dry ingredient mixture, being careful to mix well.
Add the remaining 6 tablespoons of honey to the rice, nuts and dried fruit mixture.
Fill the pumpkin to the brim with the mixture, being careful to fill it tightly.
Brush the outside of your pumpkin with oil [optional - the pumpkin in the recipe above did not have oil, but it does come out of the oven with a delicious crispy color].
Place the top of the pumpkin and place your pumpkin on a level baking dish.
Cook for an hour at 450 degrees F [you'll know it's cooked when you touch the squash and it's soft; your finger will leave an imprint]
Let cool before slicing, which you can do sequentially along the backs of the squash to create a stunning dish while still providing everyone with an extra slice.
While eating, listen to the song “Hey, jan, khapama” (Alcohol is required)
All photos: © Ianyanmag
