Something was missing from my life this week with the rain and mush of “Armenian” chicken salad served on polenta. Who does that? Not an Armenian, I’m pretty sure. It felt necessary to treat this country with the care it deserves, and buy some lamb. So I did.
But I wasn’t quite sure I’d have the nerve to actually prepare it. So I waited. A day. And then 2. And on this day I asked a friend if she eats lamb, she said yes, and I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
The task was short and simple – one recipe – Armenian stuffed bell peppers. How hard could that be?
It called for ground lamb and ground sirloin. Check.
(Yes, I am a part-time vegetarian, and yes, I do eat the meals I prepare for World Cuisine Machine. I heard once that the Dali Lama, a religious vegetarian, ate a hamburger when visiting the United States to partake in our nation’s culture. So I’m going about this the same way.)
But there came that moment where I had to actually mix the meats together with my bare hands. At first I couldn’t – I just couldn’t. I grabbed a wooden spatula and a spoon and tried to marry the meats with utensils between myself and them, but it just wasn’t working. So I turned my head away like Diane Keaton in Baby Boom before she had to stick a thermometer into her freshly inherited baby’s bottom.
There I mixed 3/4 pound ground lamb, 3/4 pound ground sirloin, 1/2 cup of rice, 1/4 cup green bell pepper, 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley, half an onion, crushed tomatoes, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and salt, pepper, cayenne, and basil.
I wasn’t sure how all of this was going to work. The recipe said to mix the filling, stuff it into hallowed bells, and prop them upright in 2 cups chicken broth with crushed tomatoes on top and stick the whole thing into the oven for 60-90 minutes.
After the first hour, I checked the oven, and the rice was not cooked. The dish went back in for another 30 minutes, and my friend and I took in treasure from Whims of Wanderlust Jewelry on Instagram and Etsy. Such beautiful creations from a soul just as sparkly. Before we knew it, the timer went off and for better or worse, we ate.
At first it was just ok. But after cutting through the bells and letting the juices fall inside the bowl, we found our way to yummy noises. And then we remembered a bottle of mint cilantro chile sauce purchased a few weeks back for Angola, and that really tipped the scales to yum yum hollers. The mint paired with the richness of the lamb balanced the flavors completely.
Thank you, dear reader for pushing me to keep cooking. I now have basil and ginger in my pantry, and fresh basil growing on my window sill. Every week, the house changes just slightly, and I like it.
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Up next: The Caribbean flavors of Aruba. . .
