Armenian Meat Dishes

There is a special cult of meat dishes in Armenian cuisine. The most simple and ancient Armenian meat dishes are the famous shashlick, pastynery meat kchuchi and of course poultry dishes. They are cooked in the same way as they were 1,500 years ago.

Shashlick is pronounced in Armenian “khorovats” . Shashlick cooked on a brazier is called “karsi khprovats”. The one cooked in a casserole – “khazani khorovats”; shashlick from beef and fat of sheep tail is called “iki-bir”. All in all there are more than two dozens of shashlik varieties in Armenian. Before frying the meat is marinated – each in its sauce: cognac, wine or vinegar to make sure that all chunks fried simultaneously.

Preliminary preparation of meat is difficult and multi-phased, therefore all Armenian meat dishes have absolutely unique taste.

Kyufta – tender meat balls made from specially beat meat boiled in broth. At first the meat is thinly sliced and then beat with a special beetle. When finished the resulting mass with added eggs, flour, salt, water or milk, cognac, browned onions and spices is further whipped manually The souffle is then turned into balls and put into warm water which gradually heated until boiling. Kyufta is ready in half an hour.

Dolma is a delicious Armenian stuffed grape leaves. By the way, dolma is a Turkish word meaning “stuffed”. Forcemeat is prepared from fat mutton, rice, onions, pepper, salt and greens – parsley, mint, oregano, and coriander. The ready forcemeat is wrapped in salted or fresh grape leaves. It is cooked for an hour. It is served hot with matsun with garlic.

Tisvzhik – beef heart, liver, lungs, and lard are cut into identical slices and then fried a pan until semi cooked. Then they add onion, tomato paste, salt, pepper and cover it all with a lid and cook to finish the process. The dish is sprinkled with green before serving.

Baskyrtat – extremely thin (almost threads) strips of boiled beef are mixed with walnuts and coriander covered in matsun.

Borani - fried chicken with aubergines and matsun.

There are also a lot of pilaus with meat, fish and dried fruits.