Ghapama

Ingredients

• Pumpkin — round, firm-skinned3 kg
• Rice — boiled until half done400 g
• Dried apricots150 g
• Prunes120 g
• Raisins100 g
• Walnuts120 g
• Almonds80 g
• Butter100 g
• Honey3 tbsp
• Cinnamon1 tsp
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Cut the top off the pumpkin with its stalk; that is the lid. Scoop out the seeds and loose flesh with a spoon, leaving a wall two fingers thick.

   15 min

2. 2

   Boil the rice in salted water for seven minutes, to half done, and drain.

   10 min

3. 3

   Cover the dried fruit with boiling water for ten minutes, drain, and chop the apricots and prunes coarsely. Chop the nuts.

   12 min

4. 4

   Mix the rice with the fruit, nuts, melted butter, honey and cinnamon. Salt it: a sweet filling without salt tastes flat.

   5 min

5. 5

   Fill the pumpkin, without packing it down, put the cut lid back on and set it on a baking tray.

   5 min

6. 6

   Bake at 180 °C for an hour and a half. Test at the side with a knife: it should go into the wall without resistance.

   90 min

7. 7

   Rest fifteen minutes, carry it out whole and cut it into wedges from the crown to the base.

   15 min

About the dish

The pumpkin is both dish and vessel: the filling bakes inside it and takes up the pumpkin's juice. Nothing is plated in advance — the pumpkin arrives whole and is cut in front of the guests.

The rice goes in half-cooked. Raw rice will not finish before the pumpkin starts collapsing, and fully cooked rice turns to porridge over ninety minutes in the oven.

Ghapama belongs to New Year and Christmas, and Armenian families sing about it: the folk song "Hars ekav" is about this very dish on a wedding table.

Worth knowing

• — The pumpkin has to stand steady. If it rocks, shave a thin slice off the base — not through it, or the juice runs out.
• — Variety matters more than size: a watery field pumpkin collapses. Choose a dense one with deep orange flesh.
• — The leftovers make a good breakfast: cold ghapama with a spoon of matsun is an ordinary Armenian morning after a feast.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

470 kcal

Protein

9 g

Fat

18 g

Carbs

71 g

More from Armenia

• Spas — A soup of matsun and wheat groats. The whole difficulty is keeping the yoghurt base from splitting.