Vegetable Khorovats: Eggplant, Pepper and Tomato from the Armenian Grill
I ordered the best eggplant of my life as a side dish. On the menu it sat among the things you add to the meat so the plate doesn't look bare.
Vegetable khorovats (Armenian: խորոված բանջարեղեն) is eggplant, pepper and tomato threaded whole onto a skewer and grilled over charcoal exactly like the meat, then stripped of their charred skin - the side dish no barbecue in Armenian cuisine ends without. And every so often the reason you'll remember the meal at all.
One Verb for Chops and Eggplant, and Who Else Grills the Same Way
Armenian has no separate word for grilling meat and another one for grilling vegetables: khorovel means to cook over fire, and it makes no difference what's on the skewer. The second half of the name is the more interesting part. According to the etymologist Hrachia Acharian, the word banjar, vegetable, is native Armenian, and Turkish and Georgian borrowed it from their neighbors rather than the other way round - in a cuisine where most of the words arrived from Persian and Turkish, that is a rare case of export. The technique itself is not Armenian, though. Grilled vegetables alongside meat are at home across the Caucasus, in Anatolia and in Iran. In Azerbaijan they call it manqal salatı, after the grill rather than after the vegetables; Turkish cuisine has köz patlıcan, eggplant "from the embers"; and in Iranian cuisine a tomato goes on the skewer next to the kabab so automatically that without it the kebab isn't complete.
Why Vegetable Khorovats Has No Date
The Armenian Wikipedia says of khorovats that grilling vegetables along with the meat "became a custom over time", and nobody has anything more to add. Tomatoes and peppers reached the Caucasus from the Americas, which makes this trio younger than most of what passes for tradition in Armenia. It probably happened the simple way: where the coals are burning and the meat can't keep up, you grill whatever else is lying around.
What the Skin Does Before You Throw It Away, and Where They'll Grill a Skewer for You
The star of this dish is the part you don't eat. The skin on the eggplant and on the pepper chars black over the coals and shields the flesh the whole time: inside, it steams in its own juice and soaks up smoke without ever touching the fire. Then it peels off, goes in the bin, and that's that. A tomato needs a few minutes, an eggplant takes longer and falls apart as you peel it, which is fine. Anyone who has ever canned tomatoes at home knows the move: scald them and the skin slips off by itself, only here the coals did the work instead of hot water. The rest comes down to a single choice - the peeled vegetables either arrive warm and whole, or they're roughly chopped, mixed with onion, cilantro and a splash of vinegar, and then it's called khorovats banjareghen aghtsan, grilled vegetable salad. Restaurants bring it out whole and leave the choice to the diner; at home the salad usually wins.
It goes on at the same moment and on the same mangal as the meat, because the coals only burn once, and it comes to the table together with lavash, a bunch of fresh herbs and the meat khorovats it's there to keep company with. It doesn't need the meat, though: in Armenia grilled vegetables with lavash are eaten as a meal in their own right, and if you order them in a restaurant without the meat, nobody bats an eyelid. If you want to try the Armenian grill without a restaurant and without a fire of your own, the bigger supermarkets in Yerevan have a shelf of ready-made skewers, vegetable and meat alike, and the staff will grill them on the spot while you pick up the rest of your shopping. Along with voloran, the eggplant rolls, it is the second Armenian dish in which eggplant doesn't play a supporting part.
A Plate with Butter at Lavash Restaurant
I tasted vegetable khorovats in Yerevan, at Lavash Restaurant (see Where to Eat in Yerevan), where they brought it out whole, peeled and with a little butter, and left it up to me what to do with it. I tasted each piece on its own first, the way I always do. The eggplant was gently smoky and it was the best grilled eggplant I have ever eaten. As a side dish it cost 2,000 AMD (4.80 EUR) a portion. The Armenians at the next table took the same plate and mixed themselves a salad on the spot, forks and all. The meat from that evening has an article of its own on this site. The side dish earned one too.
