Call me Julia Child

This has been a fabulous week! Tuesday I had coffee with Ruzanna, one of my students.

I decided to attend a conference which should be very helpful to myself and the armenian I am taking with me, then went to Meri, my tutee's, house for a delightful Armenian meal with her and her momma.


I had commented to Meri during a tutoring session how much I enjoyed haykakan dolma and belinchik. So, after a feast of those two items at her house, we set up to teach me how to make belinchik for Thursday night.
We met at the shooka to buy the goods, and headed up the hill to Cheramushka to start the preparation. I asked her how long it would take approximately. Her reply, "maybe 2 hours". Great we should be eating by 6:30. Wrong, the entire process took 4 hours. But well worth it!
First, we had tea.
Then we cleaned the meat, and started it a boilin.
Then, we mixed the eggs, milk, water, and flour to create the perfect consistency.

It wasnt quite perfect so we needed to add some more flour.

This was also Meri's first time making Belinchik, of course she had watched it be done numerous times, but we still had some difficulty making the crepe-like wrap.

Lizzie tried to find the perfect Armenian outfit in my coat closet to cook in.

They are starting to be the right consistency

questioning our ability to actually make this work

But we have success! little Armenian, well actually Russian, crepes!!

Lizzie and I attempt to make a crepe, Meri DOES NOT think we are doing an ok job.

Then we took the boiled meat and got it ready to grind.

Meat grinding time

Lizzie gives it a go and we have success.

Actually, we had the most success when Meri realized she hadnt told us to cut the big chunks of meat into smaller chunks of meat. She just took over and ground ground ground!

YUMMY

Next, grind the onions. Saute the onions. Add ground meat, dill, salt and pepper.

Then it is time to start wrappin and a rollin.




Time to start frying. Please add 7x too much haykakan oil to pan.


Fry lil belinchkis FRRRRYYYYYYY

Our first belinchiks are ready

Maladets us!

Feast time


Pure Enjoyment.

Lizzie and I concluded these were the best bilinchiks we have had in country. Light. Fluffy. Delicious.
Fear not everyone, I have this locked in my memory and will put it in the Volunteer Cookbook 2011.