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Ghapama (Pumpkin Baked Whole with Rice, Dried Fruit and Honey)

Name: Ghapama (Pumpkin Baked Whole with Rice, Dried Fruit and Honey)
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 2 h 10 min
Total time: 2 h 50 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Armenian
Ingredients: 1 pumpkin; 300 g long-grain rice; 1 tsp salt; 80 g butter; 4 tbsp honey; 80 g dried apricots; 60 g prunes; 50 g raisins; 50 g walnuts; 40 g almonds; 1 tsp ground cinnamon; 1 tbsp honey

An Armenian holiday dish: a whole pumpkin hollowed out, packed to the brim with rice tossed in butter, honey, dried fruit and nuts, lidded with its own top and baked whole. The rice goes in already cooked, so it does not swell, which is why the pumpkin can be filled right up; the oven time is all for the pumpkin wall. It is cut open at the table and served in wedges, wall and filling together.

Steps

Heat the oven to 180°C. Wash and dry the pumpkin and cut a lid round the stalk, 10-12cm across, angling the knife inwards so the lid sits on the rim instead of dropping in.
Scrape out the seeds and the stringy pulp with a spoon. Leave the wall about 2cm thick: thicker and it needs longer in the oven, thinner and it slumps when you cut it at the table.
⏲ 10 min
Rinse the rice and boil it in plenty of salted water for 7-8 minutes, until the centre of a grain is still slightly firm, then drain. It heats through again inside the pumpkin, so it is not finished here (cooking rice).
⏲ 8 min
Turn the drained rice through the melted butter, 4 tbsp of honey, the apricots, prunes and raisins, the walnuts and almonds and the cinnamon, folding with a spatula so the grains do not break.
⏲ 2 min
Pack the filling into the pumpkin right up to the rim. The rice has already taken its water and will not swell. Put the lid on.
Stand the pumpkin in a roasting tin with 1cm of water in the bottom and bake at 180°C for 1½-2 hours. The skin darkening is normal.
⏲ 100 min
Test it by pushing a skewer into the side wall. When it goes in without resistance it is done; if not, give it another 15 minutes at a time.
Let it sit 10 minutes, take it to the table, lift the lid, trickle a little honey over and cut it downwards into wedges, so that each piece has wall and filling together.
⏲ 10 min

Variations

With meat: some households put meat in the filling. It then becomes a meal rather than a dessert, and the meat goes in cooked, for the same reason the rice does.
The dried fruit is a household choice: apricots, prunes and raisins are usual, figs or dried cherries common. The nuts are walnuts and almonds.
A small pumpkin: a squash of about 1kg is done in 50 minutes to an hour. The one in the photograph is a small one.
The name: from Turkic qapamaq, "to close, to cover". A dish baked under its own lid kept that in its name.
The pumpkin was a newcomer: pumpkins, potatoes, peppers and tomatoes reached Armenia from the New World in the 19th century and were folded into the existing cooking.

More detail and the reasons why (1)

When it is eaten: in autumn to mark the harvest, and at Christmas, New Year, Easter and weddings. The Armenian folk song "Hey Jan Ghapama" is about the dish and is a wedding standard.

Tips

A black skin is not a failure. While the skin is acting as the pot, the outside darkens and the flesh inside stays orange. What you eat is the flesh and the rice.
The water in the tin. If the base sticks to the tin and splits, the butter and honey leak out. A shallow layer of water protects it.
Honey goes in twice. The honey in the filling soaks into the rice; the honey at the table is aroma on top. What sugar does besides sweeten is in what sugar does.

More detail and the reasons why (5)

Cooking the rice first is the design. Iraqi dolma fills its vegetable cups two-thirds: "The rice doubles; a full shell splits." Raw rice grows inside its container, and the water it grows on has to come from somewhere. Ghapama's rice has already drunk that water in the pan. So the pumpkin can be filled to the brim, and nothing needs to be poured inside it.
Which leaves one clock. Braising says of samgyetang: "The bird is stuffed with glutinous rice, so there are two clocks in one pot and the shorter one governs." Samgyetang matches the clocks by choosing the age of the bird. Ghapama solves it the other way: the short clock, the rice, runs out before the pumpkin goes in, and all the oven time belongs to the wall. That is why a skewer through the wall is the only test.
That is also why the rice goes in underdone. For nearly two hours inside the pumpkin it heats through, taking up butter, honey and the juice that runs from the softening flesh. Fully cooked in the pan, it would get those hours on top and the grains would go soft.
The wall sets the time. At 2cm a 2kg pumpkin softens in 1½-2 hours. A thicker wall takes longer, and the extra time dries the rice at the top. The lid and the butter hold that off only so far.
Cut it downwards. Spoon out only the rice and the pumpkin is left behind. Cut from stalk to base in wedges and each piece carries wall and filling. Unlike spanakorizo, where rice takes up a vegetable's water, the pumpkin here is eaten with the rice.