Hapama gourd dish. Ghapama: a traditional Armenian wedding recipe

26.11.2019 Grill menu

Ghapama is a symbol of well-being, prosperity, family happiness in the Armenian national cuisine. She was the decoration of the wedding table and the newlyweds must have eaten a piece in order for their family life to be successful. Today, hapama is cooked much more often, but still, its appearance on the table never goes unnoticed.

Now to the point. Ghapama is a pumpkin stuffed with rice porridge with dried fruits and honey. Previously, they cooked in a tonir (a special pit with hot coals at the bottom), like in a Russian stove. But you can’t dig tonir in an apartment, so we’ll cook in the oven. Accordingly, the size of the pumpkin should be such that it fits in this very oven.

Ingredients:

Dried fruits;

I do not indicate the number of ingredients, since it all depends on the size of the pumpkin. But the ratio is something like this:

2 parts of rice and 1 part of dried fruit should completely fill the pumpkin;

Honey and oil are added to taste and within reason;

Salt in this recipe is needed in a minimal amount, you can even completely without it.

We take a pumpkin and cut off the lid so that a fairly large hole opens. We put a spoon into it, rake out the seeds and scrape off the long fibers from the walls. If the pumpkin has thick walls, then you need to scrape off some of the pulp. It is then cut into small cubes and added to the filling.

Boil rice in salted water until half cooked. Cut dried fruits into pieces. If they are very dry, then they must first be soaked in cold water. A set of dried fruits can be absolutely anything: raisins, prunes, dried apricots, peaches, apples ... all pitted. You can add chopped walnuts or fresh apples and quince.

Mix rice, dried fruits and honey. We put a little oil on the bottom of the pumpkin, then we fill it tightly with the filling, grease it with honey on top and put a little more oil.

Coat the outside of the pumpkin with oil so that it does not burn and browns beautifully.

We put the cut cover in place. You can nail it with wooden skewers for reliability. Then we send the pumpkin for 1-1.5 hours in the oven at 180 °. We look and sniff. You can still open the lid of the pumpkin and poke into its flesh with a toothpick. As soon as it is baked, you can take it out and serve it on the table.

Ghapama is cut into slices like a watermelon. Bon appetit and family well-being to all!

1) Wash the pumpkin, dry it and cut off the top. The top should not be cut off with a straight cut, but by sticking a knife at an angle so that a low cone is obtained on the cut. This method will securely hold the “lid” on our pumpkin “pot” when baking.

Take out the seeds and fibers with a spoon, take out part of the pulp with a knife and a spoon, making the walls 10-13 mm thick.

3) Prepare sweet additives for rice. Traditionally, dried fruits are added to the ghapama: dried apricots, raisins and cherry plums and fresh fruits: apples or quince.

Since the dish has spread widely not only in oriental cuisine, but also in European cuisine, any dried fruits and nuts of the hostess' choice began to be put into the ghapama.

In this recipe, dried fruits are used: raisins, dried apricots, prunes and dates. Quantity - according to your taste. All these ingredients need to be washed, dried and cut into small pieces (raisins, of course, do not need to be cut). If these components are too dry, they should be pre-soaked. Just chop nuts.

9) Put the pumpkin in a baking dish. I took silicone, nothing sticks to it, in other forms it is better to lay 2-3 layers of baking paper. Cover the pumpkin with the cut top and place in the oven to bake.

Due to the different volumes of pumpkins and the characteristics of the oven, the cooking time may vary. On average, it takes 40 minutes - 1.5 hours at a temperature of 180 degrees.

10) The rice inside has fallen, soaked with the aromas of fruits and the pumpkin itself - you can get it. Usually the pumpkin is cut like a watermelon, from top to bottom in slices.

Melted butter and honey can be served with the ghapama, as well as washed dried fruits if they are soft and plastic. It turns out a very tasty dish.

Somehow I suddenly had a burning desire to cook Ghapama. Moreover, this is the most autumn festive dish. And why not arrange a little holiday for yourself and your loved ones!

Ghapama 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, the house turned out to have a pumpkin (thanks to the mother-in-law!). After the question ... not Google, no ... Yandex (I like it better), got stuck that way for 40 minutes in contemplation of mouth-watering pictures. When I realized that I no longer had the strength to endure this punishment, I settled on the following recipe.

Ghapama - the easiest recipe

INGREDIENTS

sweet pumpkin (preferably nutmeg) - small, 1.5 kg.
round-grain rice - 0.5 cup
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.

How to cook Ghapama, aka HOLIDAY:

Step one:

Wash the pumpkin thoroughly, carefully cut off the top with a sharp knife (do not throw it away, it will come in handy). 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 raisins well in boiled water, spread out to dry.

Step Four

Rinse the rice and boil it in a large amount of salted water until half cooked, put it on a sieve, let it cool.

Step five

In a bowl corresponding to the volume of ingredients, mix the cooled rice, apples, raisins, sugar, cinnamon (I still would not recommend cinnamon, for an amateur, and the color of the rice spoils ... but I took a chance).

Step Six

Fill the pumpkin with the resulting prepared mixture with 100 ml. hot water. Put a piece of butter on top.

step seven

Cover the stuffed pumpkin with a cut top (if the top could not be neatly cut off, you can cover it with foil). Grease the sides of the pumpkin with olive or any vegetable oil (although for me this is superfluous).

Put the pumpkin in a suitable heat-resistant form.

Step eight

Bake the pumpkin at 170`C for about an hour and a half. You can make sure the pumpkin is ready with a knife. If it easily enters the pulp from the outside, then our ghapama is ready!

Step nine... and the last!

Transfer, carefully, the pumpkin to a dish and serve warm. If someone finds sweetness not enough, you can prepare honey water. To do this, we take our honey, dissolve it in a small amount of warm, boiled water.

Let's start the holiday! Enjoy your meal!

Pumpkin, having a special form of a natural pot, is often used for cooking directly in it. In Russian cuisine, millet porridge with pumpkin is prepared in this way, and in Armenian - sweet pilaf, or ghapama.

It seemed, well, what such a tasty and interesting thing can be prepared from this ordinary vegetable - a pumpkin? These questions will disappear on their own if you cook pumpkin according to this wonderful recipe, which rightfully belongs to Armenian cuisine.

For ghapama you need a pumpkin. The top of the pumpkin is cut off, it turns out a pumpkin pot. Scoop out pumpkin seeds with a spoon. A little pulp is set aside for the filling.

Rice Amber after boiling is cooked for about five minutes.

Dried apricots, raisins, prunes are thoroughly washed.

The apple is cut into thin sticks.

In Armenia, onions are not added to khapama, but I decided that it would not spoil the taste at all. Finely chop half an onion.

In Armenia, there is even a song praising the pumpkin. I will translate an Armenian song, at the same time describing the preparation of hapama.

Imagine the head of an Armenian family singing in anticipation, or rather in anticipation of Khapama, who is languishing for two hours in the oven: "Hey, jan, Ghapama! What a smell, what a taste !!!" - the owner sings joyfully, and in order to pass the time, he tells: "How we went to the vegetable garden (melon melon), how we searched and found an excellent pumpkin, how they brought it home" - smacking his lips with pleasure and does not forget to hum: "Hey, jan, Khapama !!! What a smell, what a taste! ", And then he begins to enumerate with delight - what is put in a pumpkin (after thoroughly cleaning it; Rice (already almost cooked) raisins, dried apricots, prunes.

The pumpkin inside is smeared with butter, rice, onions, dried apricots, prunes, apples, pumpkin pulp, cinnamon, black pepper are put into it, slightly boiled in salted water. Everything is mixed up. Butter is placed on top. The filling in the pumpkin is not laid out to the very top, because it will still increase.

The pumpkin is closed with a cut lid. Wrapped in foil and sent to the oven for 2 hours (200 degrees.)

Here the strength leaves the owner-singer and the hostess enters in a tenor, noticing in horror how relatives are gathering for the smell - like bees for honey ... Almost crying, she sings that a hundred people have come and a friendly enumeration begins: "Here is dad and mom and her sister, Here is the mother-in-law and the father-in-law with his sister, Here is the brother with the sister and the brother-in-law with his wife Here is the mother-in-law, father-in-law, matchmaker and matchmaker, Uncles and aunts and a crowd of children, Friends and girlfriends with wives and husbands, With children and godfathers .. .. Eee-hey hey jan, hey jan, hey jan..." Of course, the owner happily greets everyone and everyone sings Hosanna to Hapame and dances...

And the aroma is actually very, very, the appetite is played out.

Ghapama is a dish designed for a big noisy feast - it is customary to cut a pumpkin at a round table, when at least the whole family gathers - everyone will get a piece.

Ghapama is ready, come dear guests, eat our pumpkin.

Ghapama is a sweet pilaf cooked in a pumpkin, a very tasty Armenian dish. Ghapama used to be prepared for wedding feasts as a symbol of abundance. I have long wanted to cook this dish, but I could not find a beautiful pumpkin. Finally lucky, I came across a suitable pear-shaped nutmeg gourd. After cutting off the top part of the pumpkin, a wonderful japama pot came out. For this dish, you should use basmati rice, any dried fruits, candied fruits and nuts that you like, as well as apples.

Cook basmati rice in a ratio of 1:1.5, that is, 1 part rice, 1.5 parts water.

Peel the apple, remove the seeds and cut into cubes. Also chop dried apricots. Combine with rice.

Remove seeds and fibers from pumpkin. Using a spoon, remove some of the pulp from the walls. The wall thickness should remain about 12 mm. After I removed everything superfluous from the pumpkin, its weight remained 850 g.

Add candied fruits and nuts to rice. I chose candied pineapple, raisins, cashews and walnuts. Nuts must be chopped with a knife. Chop some of the pumpkin pulp and add to the rice filling.

Lubricate the walls of the pumpkin with butter, fill with the prepared filling. Place some pieces of butter on top as well.

Put the pumpkin in a heat-resistant form, cover with two layers of foil, pressing well against the walls of the pumpkin. Pour some water into the mold, about 100 ml.