Armenian cuisine is surprisingly diverse and somewhat exotic. Culinary traditions of Armenian regions inevitably differ from each other. They’ve been created and perfected over centuries, handed over from family to family, and brightened life of the people with a variety of flavors and aromas.
Brave chefs, the Armenians, are fearlessly experimenting with cooking. That is why there are so many recipes of the same treats, including pasrty recipes. These are at least recipes a dozen of gata recipes. And right now I’m going to share one gata recipe with you. We’ll cook gata from the town of Alaverdi, following the recipe of my good friend Ruben Pogosyan, Chef at Tufenkyan Restaurants.
Armenian gata has different names in different regions of the country: gata, katah or kada. As a matter of fact, that’s a sweet dessert, the most popular Armenian pastry. It looks like pies with vanilla filling or puff pastry. Gata is easy to cook, but its taste is unusual and complex
Ingredients
Method
- Beat the softened butter with the sugar and salt for 2–3 minutes, until pale and fluffy.
- In a small bowl, stir the baking soda into the sour cream; it will bubble slightly.
- Beat two thirds of the sour cream mixture into the butter.
- Add the flour and mix with a spatula, then with your hand, into a soft dough.
- If the dough is dry and cracks, work in the remaining sour cream a spoonful at a time, stopping as soon as it is soft, smooth and only slightly tacky.
- Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap it and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- For the filling, chop the walnuts finely.
- Rub the sugar, flour and soft butter together with your fingertips until the mixture looks like damp sand.
- Mix the walnuts and vanilla into the filling.
- Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface into a circle about 30 cm across.
- Spread the filling in the centre in a circle about 18 cm across and press it down lightly.
- Bring the edges of the dough up over the filling in pleats and pinch them together in the centre to seal.
- Turn the parcel over, seam-side down, onto the lined baking sheet.
- Press or gently roll it into a flat round about 20–22 cm across and 2 cm thick.
- Brush the top with the beaten egg yolk.
- Draw a pattern on top with a fork and prick it in a few places.
- Bake for 25–35 minutes, until the top is deep golden and the base is browned.
- Cool on the sheet for 10 minutes, then cut into 8 wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.
- Mix 200 g butter with 100 g sugar, sour cream (mixed with baking soda), 450 g flour. Add the mixture to the butter and sugar.
- Knead the soft dough.
- For filling:
- Mix 200 g sugar, 100 g flour, 200 g nuts and 200 g butter.
- Divide the dough into 3 balls, open each ball, add the filling, close the dough, turn it over and straighten into circles.
- Bake in the oven at the temperature of 200 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown.
- Batch cut to one round (a third of the original) The original makes three large gata; one round gives 8 wedges.
- Butter in the filling follows the ingredient list, not the method The method's amounts add up to 400 g of butter, but the list has 300 g. The lower amount gives the dry, crumbly khoriz gata is known for.
- Sour cream added gradually, holding back the last third At the original 1:1 ratio with flour the dough can be too sticky to roll; add the rest only if the dough is dry.
- Dough chilled for 1 hour Butter and sour cream dough rolls and seals much more easily when cold.
- Vanillin replaced with vanilla extract Vanillin powder is sold in Eastern European shops but rarely in US and Western European supermarkets.
- 'Nuts' specified as walnuts Walnuts are the usual choice in Armenian sweet pastry; any nut works.
- The egg used as a glaze The original lists one egg but never uses it; brushed on top, it gives the classic glossy brown finish.
- Baked at 180°C (350°F) for 25–35 minutes instead of 200°C (400°F) for 10–15 A filled round 2 cm thick needs time for the dough under the filling to bake; judge by a deep golden top and a browned base.
The dish in the photograph was cooked by the restaurant for this story. Photo: Oleksandr Slyadnyev.