Armenian · main

Harisa (Beaten Wheat and Chicken Porridge)

Harisa (Beaten Wheat and Chicken Porridge) reads richness 5.9, salinity 3.6 and earthy 3.4 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Armenian main, about 17 hr 42 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Richness 5.9 · Salinity 3.6 · Earthy 3.4 · Warm Spice 3.3 · Heat 2.8 · Umami 2.3 · Bitterness 1.4 · Sweetness 0.8 · Herbaceous 0.6

What's in it (9)

Time & effort: about 17 hr 42 min (5 hr 42 min active) · effort: involved

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (8 steps)

  1. Soak the hulled wheat in cold water overnight, at least 12 hours, then drain it. Hulled wheat is the whole grain with only the outer husk removed; pearl barley and bulgur are different grains and give a different, looser result.
  2. Poach the chicken with the water and bay leaves at the barest simmer for 90 minutes, until the meat is falling from the bone. Keep the broth.
  3. Lift the bird out, pull every scrap of meat off and shred it finely with two forks, discarding skin and bones. This takes about 15 minutes and the finer you shred it the better the finished texture.
  4. Return the meat and the drained wheat to the broth with the salt and black pepper and cook over the lowest heat for 3 hours 30 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes with a wooden paddle and scraping the bottom, adding hot water if it tightens too far.
  5. For the last 20 minutes, beat it hard and continuously. This is the dish: the wheat breaks down, the shredded meat disappears into it and the whole mass turns glossy and elastic, so that a spoon dragged through leaves a wall that slowly closes. Harisa is judged entirely on this, and a lumpy one has simply not been beaten enough.
  6. Brown the butter in a small pan over medium heat for 5 minutes, until it smells of hazelnuts and the solids have gone amber.
  7. Ladle the harisa into bowls, pour a spoonful of the brown butter into a well in the middle of each, and pass the cumin and red pepper at the table. It is traditionally cooked in a great cauldron for a whole village on the Sunday nearest the Musa Dagh commemoration.
  8. Substitutions: 1.2 kg bone-in lamb shoulder can stand in for the free-range chicken.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.