Armenian Katah

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all doing just fine!

Now I want to tell you about this recipe that I know and it’s really delicious, if you ask me. Well, first of all, I must tell you, that it’s something they call the Armenian Gatah or Katah. I guess, everyone loves it who has tasted it, because it’s not something you eat and forget about it. It has something that makes you want to eat it even more, even though it just has sugar and flour in it mainly. To be honest, it’s not very healthy, in fact, it’s really bad for your health, especially if you are fighting against obesity or something like that, you know.

Anyways, this is something that I really love and whenever I see it, I just want to eat it even if that’s not really a good idea, of course. However, I learned how to prepare it and I hav ebeen preparing them for a couple of times now, and, trust me, it was so delicious that I couldn’t stop eating them, even though I knew that it was not good to eat so much Katah at the same time. Well, what could I do? It was really good and I was at home; it was raining outside in this Autumn day and, you know, those pictures with people with mugs in their hands full of hot chocolate or something like that, sitting nearby the window and fireplace or whatsoever. It was one of those days and I had hot chocolate, too, and I had these sweet Katahs and I was just enjoying everything, however, I knew, that I would regret eating all those things the next day or after some time. Well, sweet things are sweet and we can’t really reject everything and I did eat almost all of the Katahs that I prepared, however, I was planning on sharing them with my parents or whoever would want to eat them. Though, I still had some of them left and they had a taste of those Katahs, too, if you want to know the truth.

How it all started

Well, to tell you the truth, there have always been some Katahs in our kitchen in my childhood. You know, we always had some sugar and flour and, I guess, it was easy to prepare them for us and it didn’t need much ingredients and, besides, it was delicious that my grandmother and aunt and everyone would bake those Katahs and we loved to eat them. Well, at least, I know that I loved eating them, and, I guess, it was me, who really loved those Katahs and everyone knew that. My grandmother used to prepare them specially for me when I visited her, however, she used to prepare them with some kind of butter, which had this different taste and it made the whole Katah taste not that good, however, I couldn’t say anything and I would still eat it. it was a round Katah prepared on a pan without any additions, just like Imeruli Khachapuri.

My aunt used to prepare different Katahs, I mean, those were more of that Armenian Katah type. She would roll out the dough and spread some butter on it and then add the filling of sugar and flour and then roll the dough and made it like a cylinder and then cut it into smaller pieces and then she would spread some egg yolks on top of those pieces and bake them in the oven. It needed much effort than the one that my grandmother used to prepare, however, both of them were delicious and, of course, different, so that I can’t really compare them with each other, because they tasted differently from each other.

Round Armenian Katah

There used to be these round Katahs in some supermarkets and my friends used to buy them and they loved them, however, I didn’t really liked them, because they were kind of dry and didn’t really have much of the filling, which I liked, so that I didn’t really want to buy them or eat them. Besides, they were pretty large in size. It was something like the round Armenian Katah, but it was not really that, if you want to know the truth.

Then, after some time, I saw somewhere something that was like that Katah, though it was kind of different. I wanted to taste it and so that I bought one of them. It tasted really good and it had plenty of filling and I was really glad about my choice of buying it and after that, I would go to that market and buy that Katah and eat it, because it was really good. I guess, it was something like that round Armenian Katah.

So, now I want to tell you about the preparation of that round Armenian Katah. I looked it up in Internet and I looked at every website, I guess, and finally, I decided to take one of them and prepare this Katah with that recipe and I was wondering whether it would be good, or not. Because there are some things people do differently and the Katahs come out in different tastes, if you want to know the truth.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• ¾ cup white granulated sugar
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tbs unsalted butter at room temperature
• Vanilla

For the dough:

• 7 grams of active dry yeast
• 2 tsp white granulated sugar
• 1 and 1/3 cups of warm water
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbs melted unsalted butter
• 3 and a half cups all purpose flour

Preparation

Well, having a delicious filling is all that matters! So don’t do anything stupid!

You should combine the sugar, flour, butter and vanilla together so that the mixture gets sticky and stuff like that. If it’s sticky, then the consistency is good for your round Armenian Katah.

Well, some people use to cook the flour and sugar mixture on a frying pan for some time and then add some butter to it and then put all that on the dough. However, I think, that it’s an extra thing and one don’t really need to do that and just combining all those ingredients together is enough. That way, the filling gets juicier, I mean, it’s not very dry and it’s just great and stuff like that, so that I prefer combining those things together and then putting them into a dough piece.

What’s about the dough, well, I must say, that the dough is not something that comes out puffy and stuff like that, because this dough is kind of a pizza dough and it becomes kind of crispy and things like that, however, it’s good in it’s own way, I really liked that dough on this Armenian Katah, however, if you want the dough to be soft and puffy and stuff like that, you should do it in another way, I mean, you can add some heavy cream to the dough and eggs and it will become soft and everything, however, you should change the amounts of ingredients, then, of course. I will just say how I did my Katahs, though. What’s more, you can even not bother about preparing the dough and you can buy the pastry somewhere in the supermarkets, or here in Tbilisi you can buy that pastry in any Tone or bakery or wherever they prepare Shoti and bread, in general. It will cost you something about 50 Tetris or 80 Tetis, I guess, it all depends on where exactly you are buying that pastry. Or you can buy it in Nikora supermarkets, they have pastries for Khachapuri and Lobiani and stuff like that, and you can even prepare some great croissants with them, if you want to know the truth. However, I haven’t bought them and tried them, so I don’t really know much about them.

So, when you prepare the dough, make sure to take that warm water and spread some sugar in it and then sprinkle the yeast and let it be like that for about 5 minutes or so. Then, you should take half of the flour and put it in a bowl adding salt and unsalted butter to it. then you can add the yeast mixture and mix everything together, and then you can add the remaining flour and mix them well. After that, you should set the dough aside, preferably in some warm place, so that it will double in size in about two hours or so, and then you can start preparing those Katahs. To be honest, this dough takes some time, though it doesn’t need much ingredients, and, besides, when you are not in a hurry and have a plenty of time, I prefer preparing this dough and waiting for it to double in size. I just don’t really like preparing that other dough for Armenian Katah. It needs sour-cream or yoghurt or Matsoni and eggs and I don’t really like preparing it somehow.

Anyways, after two hours, when the dough has been doubled in size, you can start preparing Katahs. Usually you don’t need to make huge Katahs, so you can just take small ball-sized doughs and roll them out a little bit, add some filling to them and form a sack shape and stick them together. Then you can roll that ball a little and decorate it with some dough pieces, or just leave them like that. And, of course, you should stick fork into the dough in some places, it’s just how they do that. That way, the air inside the Katah comes out. And on the top, you should spread some egg yolk, so that it will get golden colour when it’s ready.

You should then preheat the oven on 180 degrees Celsius, get those Katahs on an oiled pan or on parchment paper on the pan and put that pan into the oven. You should bake those Katahs for about 20-30 minutes, until they are golden in colour and not very crisp. You should check them from time to time and you will get when to turn the oven off and when they are ready.

My Armenian Katahs came out pretty good, and I just loved them. However, you should regulate the sugar, I mean, it all depends on how sweet you want your Katahs to be. At first, my Katahs were very sweet for me and then, the second time, I just reduced the sugar in my filling, so beware of that! If the sugar is too much for you, you can take less amount of sugar, it’s that simple, of course.

I will tell you, that you can add absolutely anything in the filling. I mean, they use to add some raisins into the filling and it comes out pretty delicious, too. You can add some cocoa powder or cinnamon or both of them and the Katahs will become much more delicious, though their taste will be very different, than those Katahs, of course, however, people who love cocoa will love that thing with cocoa powder added in the filling, trust me on that.

Well, that was my Armenian Katah recipe, I hope that you will find it really easy and delicious and that you will prepare those Katahs pretty often, because it really doesn’t need much ingredients and it’s really delicious and when you want to treat your guests with something simple, but delicious, you can always prepare those Katahs and they will love it, I guess.

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