Zhengyalov Hats

I was doing some research about Armenian cooking… when I was living in Manchester in my 20’s, our favourite restaurant was the Armenian restaurant, founded by Arto der Haroutounian and opened in 1969. I adored the food, when we first went in the 1970’s it was like nothing we had ever tasted before, wonderful, just wonderful, and I have loved that type of cuisine ever since. Arto published several cookery books, all of which I have, and apparently he was a very talented artist too. sadly he died very young, at the age of forty-seven.

In my Radwinter novels, one of Thomas Radwinter’s friends is Armenian and he has a café/restaurant in my imaginary town of Strand. So, I was doing some research about Armenian food, and Armenia in general and came across an intriguing recipe for Zhengyalov Hats…yes  hats… They aren’t actually hats or even shaped like hats, that is just the name in Armenian; they are flat breads, typical of the region, and filled with what sounds like a delicious combination of fresh green herbs, some of which are spring onions, garlic, a sort of spinach, vine leaves, coriander, beet tops, nettles, chickweed, sorrel,flax leaves, grapes leaves, dill, coriander, mint and one recipe I saw said leeks… well, I think ti sounds wonderful, but definitely a summer thing if you need nettles and chickweed, both of which we have in our vegetable beds!

To find out more about Arto:

http://artoderharoutunian.com/index