Cookbook Monday: Classic Armenian Recipes, Cooking without Meat

In college I was actually a passionate, curious cook. My culinary training was limited to one-and-a-half years of home economics in middle school and although I was comfortable in the kitchen, I was an uncertain improvisational cook. Embracing my lack of knowledge, I began buying cookbooks from the used bookstore under my house and reading them at night in an effort to understand the food that I enjoyed eating.

Close to where I lived was a neighborhood filled with Armenian shops and restaurants. On a shopping trip out there, I picked up Alice Antreassian and Marian Jebejian's Classic Armenian Recipes: Cooking Without Meat, published in 1981. It is, hands down, one of the greatest Armenian cookbooks ever written, vegetarian or not. Recipes are simple and easy to follow. Results are flawless, and exactly what you might find if you went to the corner "Middle Eastern" store.

There are no photos in this cookbook, just simple, decorative line drawings. There are no charts or step-by-step explanations about the Armenian kitchen. Instead there is an introduction by the authors urging readers to adjust recipes to their individual tastes, to move pages around at will (the first edition was a loose-leaf binder) all the while understanding that Armenian cuisine is a living cuisine and is still evolving.

Here's a recipe from the cookbook that I used to make a lot:

Wheat Pilaf with Lentils -Mudjadera

1 cup brown lentils, picked over and rinsed

3 cups water

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon middle eastern red pepper

1 cup cracked wheat, large

2 tablespoons chopped red or green pepper

2/3 cups olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

Directions:

1. Add lentils to water, bring to the boil, and cook gently 5 minutes, covered. Add seasonings, wheat, and red or green pepper. Bring to a simmer again, and cook about 15 minutes longer or until liquid is absorbed and wheat is bite-tender.

2. Heat olive oil in a skillet until a haze appears over it. Remove skillet, quickly stir in onion, reduce heat, and cook onion until lightly browned, stirring frequently.

3. When pilaf is done, pour skillet contents over it and stir to mix. Taste to adjust seasoning. Spoon into serving dish, garnish with scallions then add several grindings of pepper.

Yield: 5 to 6 servings.

Unfortunately, the cookbook is now out of print. There are, of course, a number of Armenian cookbooks that are still in print. Take one home if you can.