Armenian porridge from cereals. Armenian kharisa

Armenian cuisine is very interesting and delicious. It has such traditional dishes that date back more than one century, for example, or. And although, in principle, the same products are used as in other national cuisines, each dish bears a special imprint. Many dishes of Armenian cuisine have gained wide popularity, such as, for example.
Recently I was visiting a friend. She is Armenian, but for many generations her family has been living in Russia. However, they continue to cook their national dishes, and this time there was Armenian wheat porridge with chicken on the table. I never thought that from ordinary wheat and chicken you can cook such yummy! Such porridge is called garisa or harisa, and naturally I immediately wrote down the recipe for porridge Harisa. True, when I found out how long it takes to cook, I was a little depressed: with my schedule, I can cook it only on weekends.
But my friend reassured me: it turns out that this unusual porridge is also prepared in an unusual way. For example, she cooked the chicken in the evening and soaked the wheat, and in the morning she simply put all the ingredients in a cauldron, topped up the water to the maximum, put the cauldron on the divider on the minimum fire, covered it with a lid and went to work. And in the evening, when she returned, she just stirred the porridge with a pusher, and that was it. So this dish, although it requires a lot of time, but at least attention.

To cook Armenian wheat porridge with chicken, you will need:

chicken (weighing 1-1.5 kg) - 1 pc.
wheat - 500 g
salt - to taste
bay leaf - to taste

Armenian wheat porridge with chicken is prepared like this.

1. If you have a whole chicken, gut it, tar and cut off the head and legs. If the chicken is store-bought, that is, gutted, without paws and a head, then just wash it.
2. Fill the chicken with cold water, then drain the water, place the chicken in a deep saucepan (preferably a cauldron), cover with water and cook until the chicken is completely boiled. Don't forget to skim off the foam!
3. Meanwhile, soak the wheat.
4. Remove the finished chicken from the broth, cool and separate the meat from the skin and bones.
5. In the broth in which the chicken was cooked, return the chicken, cut into pieces, add the soaked wheat, salt, mix, tightly cover the cauldron with a lid and put it on a divider on a small fire.
6. Cook over medium heat for 3-4 hours, stirring constantly so that the porridge quickly acquires the desired consistency. If you do not have the opportunity to constantly stir the porridge, then make a minimum fire, but then you have to cook for 6-7 hours.
7. As a result, chicken meat practically dissolves in boiled wheat, and a solid mass is obtained, the consistency of which resembles mashed potatoes. Put bay leaves in the porridge, cover with a lid and let it cook on low heat for another 10-15 minutes.
Serve Armenian wheat porridge with hot chicken sprinkled with sweet fried onions as an independent dish. Pickles are perfect for it - pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, sauerkraut, etc.

Description: By ear, often, it is perceived as "harisa". This is the specificity of pronunciation in the Armenian language. A very healthy hearty dish, simple in content, but very time-consuming and lengthy in preparation. I was taught to cook it by my close friends from Gyumri (Leninakan). In this recipe, I will offer several tricks, quite well-known even without me, to facilitate the preparation of this wonderful dish without losing taste. At least this recipe, at the time of publication on this site, is the only one as close as possible to the original.

Time for preparing: 300 minutes

Servings: 6

Purpose:

For kids:
For breakfast

For breakfast:
hearty breakfast

For lunch
For an afternoon snack
Special meals:
For diet

Ingredients for "Armenian harissa":

• Chicken (1.5 - 2 kg) - 1 pc.
• Wheat groats - 300 g
• Butter (originally melted) - 150 g
• Salt (to taste) - 1 tbsp. l.

Recipe "Armenian harissa":

In the original, harissa is brewed from whole wheat. Chicken and wheat are poured with water and boiled with continuous stirring for about 5 hours. The bones, as they separate, are brought to the surface and removed. Everything should turn into a homogeneous paste-like mass. For 5 hours from this procedure, you can go crazy (I tried it))), so I bring to your attention a modern version, but without a blender. This I do not recognize in arisa. I took instant wheat groats (three such bags), already peeled.

I soaked it overnight in water at room temperature. Then washed well. As a result, the wheat softened and swelled. What you need.

My chicken is medium in size. Actually, it all depends on the amount of harissa you want to cook. For more than 6 servings, you can take a large domestic chicken, but at the same time trim the fat from it before making the broth. By adding butter, we already introduce the required amount of fat into this dish.

Fill the chicken with water and put on fire. It is recommended to cook the chicken over low heat and longer so that the meat separates from the bones as easily as possible. If desired, you can add carrots, whole onions, bay leaves, and peppercorns during the cooking process for the best taste of the broth, only then throw it all away. We, as a result, need only boned meat and strained broth.

So the chicken is cooked. We take it out and cool it for cutting,

and strain the broth. It will be the liquid base for the arisa.

We cut the chicken into small pieces. The smaller the better.

Put the chicken pieces and wheat into the pan.

Fill with water and put on fire. I recommend stirring the arisu with a wooden spatula.

Bring the rice to a boil and start stirring. The main task is that the arisa does not burn.

To do this, gradually reduce the fire to a minimum.

After half an hour, arisa acquires such a still rough texture. As it thickens, add chicken broth little by little.

After another half an hour, the meat fibers become hardly noticeable.

And after another hour, the arisa begins to lighten. Good sign - half way behind. I want to draw your attention to the fact that during the whole process I gradually added the broth, and as a result I added the whole, about three and a half liters. At this point, I added salt.

It is worth noting that harissa is, for the most part, a male dish. The history of its appearance is rooted in biblical times, and the ancient Armenian warriors came up with the arisu during long military campaigns. In the photo we see how the harissa festival is held in Armenia.

So, back to our preparation. After another hour, my arisa acquired a lighter shade and an almost creamy consistency, which indicates the completion of the process.

Butter, and preferably ghee, it is customary to add already to the plate. Feel free to take a small pack for such an amount of arisa. Butter will not spoil the porridge))

This is how we serve fragrant, nutritious and satisfying arisu to the table.
Bari ahorzhak!

"Harisa" is a traditional Armenian dish, the main ingredients of which are wheat and a large amount of poultry meat. Every year on February 27 in Armenia, officially declared as the day of Harissa, the traditional dish is prepared in huge quantities, families gather, a large friendly company and treat themselves to a delicious and hearty dinner.
Usually this dish is cooked in 30-40 liter pots and takes about 7-8 kilograms of chicken meat, 4 kilograms of wheat. But we will prepare a small portion, for about 20 people. We need 3 kilograms of chicken meat and 1.5-2 kilograms of wheat. Get ready for the fact that the dish will cook for a very long time, about 10 hours, until the meat is boiled and moves away from the bones. The cooking method is very, very simple. Any housewife will be able to cook this dish, even if she cooks Arisa for the first time.

Cooking method
1. Sort the wheat very carefully.

2. Fill with water, rinse well, leave for 10 minutes. Then pour out the water and rinse under running water a second time. The wheat must be very clean.

Step 1 For the preparation of arisa, we use the right grits. After all, Armenians cook this dish exclusively from dzavar - mountain wheat. As you can see in the photo, the cereal is very similar to pearl barley. You can, of course, replace groats with durum wheat, and some manage to replace it with bulgur, but this is a mistake. Your dish can no longer be called a real harissa. Dzavar for Armenians is a real treasure, the most expensive and precious pearl. All cereals. It takes quite a long time to prepare. And to somehow make your task easier, soak the dzawar overnight in a sufficient amount of cold water.

Step 2 We will also prepare the broth for porridge in advance. It is best to cook a concentrated broth. Then the taste of the dish will be more saturated. We used chicken meat and brewed chicken broth accordingly. To prepare it, it is better to take chicken parts with bones, and take them out. You should have 400 - 450 grams of pulp left. You can also cook chicken with porridge, but then you have to pick out the bones from the sticky, hot, viscous porridge. After all, in haris only the flesh of the chicken is needed, and the broth is richer on the bones. Also, during the cooking of the broth, it is not necessary to salt it. And take the ratio of water 1:5.

Step 3 This ancient recipe of traditional Armenian cuisine has never been tried to be reproduced in multicookers before. The dish was prepared on a corte, in a tandoor oven. Moreover, at that time Armenian women continuously interfered with haris for 4-5 hours. Let's face it, we just don't have that much free time. Therefore, we will simplify our task and use a slow cooker. We take it out, install it on the work surface and connect it to the network. By the way, the broth for making arisa can also be cooked in this device in the evening.

Step 4 The ratio of broth and cereals is indicated above. You need to disassemble the chicken from the bones. Add it to the broth. It must be hot. If you cooked it in the evening, turn on the STEAM program, so the broth boils very quickly. Now you need to add dzawar to the boiling liquid. Drain the water from the cereal, rinse again. You need to turn on the "REWING" or "STUE" program for 240 minutes. Close the multicooker with a lid, press "Start". Feel free to go and mind your own business. We promised you that you would not have to stand over the porridge and stir it all 4 hours.

Step 5 Of course, you should not completely forget about the dish. When the first 2.0 - 2.5 hours have passed, stir the dish with a wooden spoon every 30 - 40 minutes. During this time, the cereal and pieces of chicken will melt. If you want the dish to become more homogeneous, you can grind it with a blender. Only the state of puree is not worth achieving. A little achieved uniformity - and enough. During the entire cooking time, the dish does not need to be salted.

Step 6 When the specified time has passed, stir the arisu for the last time and serve it to the table. Everyone needs to add oil to taste already in the plate, just like everyone should add salt to the dish himself, in his own plate.