Cherry compote, churches and cool caves
It gets hot in Abu Dhabi in summer, really hot. So, like most people here, we try to find opportunities to escape. And with a 4-day break for Eid coming up, we booked a trip to Armenia. A new country for both of us, which doesn’t happen very often. From Abu Dhabi it is only a short 3.5 hour flight away, and before we knew it we were in Yerevan, the capital. The visa process is quick and easy, and we were soon outside, grabbing a taxi to our apartment.
We didn’t spend much time in our apartment though, and immediately started exploring the area. It was a short walk from the apartment to the Republic Square, the heart of the city. We loved all of it. Walking around a city made for walking, perfect temperatures (day and night), fantastic food, great restaurants, friendly people, amazing wines (just like its neighbour Georgia), markets, yummy cheeses, and fruit, especially the fruit and what they do with it.
every night the fountain in the main square in Yerevan becomes a ‘dancing’ fountain with a sound and light show
Jude enjoying her first Armenian meal, absolutely delicious
ghapama with lavash – another fantastic meal for Jude in Yerevan
You can buy fresh fruit of course (delicious and not expensive), but they also dry it and mix it up with all sorts of random ingredients and it is simply divine. All of it. We sampled many different balls and stuffed things in the market and bought some to take home.
an amazing array of dried fruits in the Central Market in Yerevan, we tried some and bought loads
another purchase in the Central Market in Yerevan
lavash bread in Armenia is huge, and delicious when fresh
all sorts of cheeses were for sale in Yerevan, we tried plenty, these were very long!
They also make compote with their fruit, and all restaurants seem to have their own, homemade, fresh compote. Often different flavours. And if you are thinking about a jam-like substance when you hear the word compote, that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about juices, with some of the fruit it was made from still in the bottom of the jar. That’s how they roll in Armenia. And we should all watch and learn. It is like a little heaven for your taste buds.
Our favourite one was the cherry compote, but we also learned about a new fruit – kornel. The compote made with kornels was delicious too. Most of the homemade compote didn’t have any added sugar. It is simply the ripe fruit and water, which has been brought to a boil. That’s it, super simple and super delicious. It certainly reminded us of all the lemonade options in the restaurants in Hungary.
lunch on the road, this is a jug of kornel compote and a lot of other amazing dishes
We are most certainly going to make some at home and learnt you can even use frozen fruit if you don’t have fresh cherries at hand.
Cherry compote recipe
At it’s simplest this is roughly what you need to make a litre of delicious juice:
- 400-500gr cherries
- 1 litre of water
Bring the water to the boil, add the cherries and bring back to a boil. Turn off the heat and let it cool off in the pan. Transfer to a large jug and refrigerate, in Armenia they leave (some) fruit in the jug when they serve it.
Enjoy!
delicious cherry compote
Some recipes seem to call for sugar, others for lemon juice. You can of course also use a different fruit (common ones used are plums, peaches, apricot, and berries, some people also add pears or apples), combine different types of fruit, add things like ginger or mint, cinnamon, almond or vanilla extract, and even serve it hot. We were also told you can make it with dried fruit, but this wasn’t the preferred option.
We also managed to rent a little car to zoom around the beautiful countryside. We wanted to see some of the quintessential churches, but also found Roman temples and baths, a thirteenth century caravanserai, wineries where we sampled and bought delicious wines, quaint villages, mountain passes and scenic roads to drive on, a stunning lake and interesting rock formations and caves. We went for little walks, did some ad hoc bird watching (found 4 new birds!), snacked on kilos of cherries, tasted different types of wines (our favourite was areni), had a quick skinny dip in a refreshingly cold river, sampled many delicious local dishes, and had a nice picnic. It was a fantastic city (and countryside) break and we can highly recommend a visit to Armenia, you will absolutely love it.
Jude in the gardens of the temple of Garni, a pagan temple dedicated to the Armenian sun god Mihr from the first century
we have a refreshing skinny dip in a small creek in the gorge at the bottom of the temple of Garni
a typical Armenian church with Mt Ararat in the distance
Jude outside Orbelian’s caravanseria, built along the Selim Mountain Pass in 1332, by prince Chesar Orbelian
interior of the Orbelian caravanserai
Hayravank Monastery, a medieval Armenian monastic complex located on the northwestern shore of Lake Sevan in Armenia
Areni winery, we did some tasting and of course had to buy some
we visited the Areni cave complex where they have found the oldest winery in the world, the earliest known shoe, a 5000 year old straw skirt and the oldest humanoid brain
we spotted a European Caucasian glass lizard and stopped to ensure it crossed the road safely