The story of the missing recipe

Instead, how to make potato kufte

by Maria Titizian

Published: Saturday September 12, 2009 in Food

Potato kufte.

Knar Kerekian .

Toronto - Sometimes there are no recipes to share. Sometimes the story gets in the way.

That's how it was with Knar tantig, my paternal uncle's wife. When I asked her to share a recipe, she wanted to know what kind of recipe I had in mind. I suggested one that she had perhaps learned from her mother. "I really don't have any recipes from my mother, she wasn't very good in the kitchen," she said. I was somewhat surprised but I insisted that she think of one and we agreed to meet a few days later to have lunch and share some recipes.

What I learned that day speaks volumes about what we don't know about our own families.

My aunt‘s story tumbled out over lunch. It was a chronicle of heartbreak, loss, and unbelievable courage. The story she told me was about two young Armenians, orphaned during the Genocide who meet in an orphanage in Lebanon, fall in love, get married and go on to have six children. This story might not appear to be extraordinary to most Armenians. What is extraordinary is that these two orphans were blind.

Tamam Sarkissian was from Fndrchakh in Cilicia. Her children believe that she was born sometime between 1905-1907. Of her earliest childhood memories, she could only remember walking with her mother during the deportations. She thought she might have had a brother, because she recalled a baby boy in her mother's arms. Her next memory was of living with an Arab family and then later being saved by Swiss missionaries and being sent to Ghazir, Lebanon to a Swiss orphanage. That orphanage was for children who were blind and had other disabilities, but mostly it was for the blind. When Tamam arrived at the orphanage, she was alone in the world and she was blind.

It was in Ghazir that Tamam met Garabed Alabashian. Garabed's last name really wasn't his. When he arrived at the orphanage in Ghazir, he didn't know his last name. All he knew was that he was from the village of Alabash, so he was given the last name Alabashian. Garabed was also blind.

When Garabed arrived at the orphanage, he miraculously had gold coins. The family today has no idea how he had managed to save those coins. All they know is that he kept them under his pillow. Tamam, who at the time still had partial sight, had found the gold coins. She didn't know who they belonged to so she gave them to the administration of the orphanage. When Garabed got his gold coins back, he said to himself that the girl who returned his coins must be a very trustworthy person and someone he would want to marry.

Garabed and Tamam got married in 1925. They raised six children. One of their children is my Aunt Knar. "We never went hungry. We had everything we wanted," she says of her childhood. Her parents placed a high value on education and encouraged their children to study. Having blind parents and then being able to complete high school was a very significant achievement Aunt Knar explains. Her father worked at the blind orphanage for most of his life and was able to support his family. Tamam had the daunting task of raising six children without any sight. "My mother cooked very simple, basic things for us," Knar tantig recounted. "Macaroni, rice. She learned how to make sarma and sini kufte from her neighbors."

Garabed passed away in 1983 and Tamam lived until 1993.

Although Knar tantig didn't have any recipes from her mother, she came to lunch with a cookbook and a recipe for a dish that I have eaten many times at her home. "Your uncle would always talk about his mother's potato kufte," she told me. "Five years into our marriage, I finally asked him to tell me the recipe, which he did but he forgot one key ingredient. When I made it the first time, it completely fell apart." The missing ingredient had been flour. Here is the recipe for potato kufte with all the right ingredients.

Potato kufte

1.5 kilo potatoes

4 cups small bulgur

1 cup flour

1.5 cups oil

0.5 kilo onions, chopped

Salt, black pepper, cumin, and pepper paste

Boil the potatoes, peel and mash them. Put 1.5 cups of the potato aside for the outer shell of the kufte and use the rest for the filling.

To prepare the filling, place one cup of the oil in a deep pan and heat. Add the onions and cook until they are translucent. Add the potatoes, salt, the rest of the spices and the pepper paste. Take the filling off the heat and put it aside.

To prepare the shell of the kuftes, place the bulgur in a large bowl and begin kneading it with some water. Add salt, black pepper, cumin, 1.5 cups of the mashed potatoes, half cup of oil and one cup of flour and knead thoroughly. Use water as necessary to soften the mixture.

Shape a small ball in the size of a walnut, use water for your hands and make a small hole in the ball-shaped paste and add the filling. Close it up carefully and give it the shape of a football.

Fry each individual potato kufte in oil.