Arda’s Choreg Recipe

Arda has never been to Armenia, but has Armenian origins from Turkey on both her mother and father’s side. Her grandparents moved to Jerusalem, where her parents met. She was born in Bethlehem but they moved to Kuwait and then to Lebanon, Zimbabwe and Jordan, where Arda met her husband. During lent, Arda gives up on the sweet foods she likes in order to be closer to God. For Easter Sunday, she makes choreg, a traditional Armenian Easter sweet bun, which they eat after mass. Arda also likes making these pastries as a celebration of her Armenian heritage.

Crumble the fresh yeast with 1/2 tablespoon of sugar into the warm milk. Leave to prove for 15-20 minutes to froth up. In another bowl, sift the flour, gum arabic and mahleb. With an electric or hand mixer, mix the eggs and sugar until thick and fluffy. Add the egg mixture to the flour by hand. Slowly pour the yeast and milk mixture into the flour and egg mixture until blended. Change the whisk to dough hook and add the cooled butter or margarine. Cover with cling film and a blanket or sit in a warm place and rest the dough for 4 hours. Roll the dough into small shapes (plaited or spiral) and rest for 1 hour until risen. Brush with egg or egg & milk. Decorate with sesame or black kalonji seeds. Bake at 170 °C for 10 minutes.

This recipe is part of the project Spiritual Flavours, a collaborative arts project with members of different faith communities in the area of Ealing and Hanwell, who contribute recipes that they relate to their spirituality and religious practices. These communities include a synagogue, a Sri Lankan Hindu Temple, a mosque, a Sikh Gurdwara, an Anglican church, a multicultural Roman Catholic church and an ethnically diverse Pentecostal church. The project pays attention to affective relationships with food, as a vehicle to explore ideas about inheritance, tradition and belief. The shared recipes are the basis of a ‘multi-faith’ cookery photo book and a short film available to view on the Spiritual Flavours website. The project is part of Making Suburban Faith, a research project funded by the AHRC as a part of its Connected Communities programme.

All images are reproduced courtesy of the artist.