The World That Was - Urartu Date and Walnut Turnovers

Hello and welcome to The World That Was! 

Today, I’m making a recipe from the Caucasus! A date filled-pastry from the Bronze Age Urartu kingdom, a population from the area of modern-day Armenia! This recipe is very similar to the Mersu from Mesopotamian culinary tradition, and could have been a transmission of recipes through the various empires that arose in this region.

In any case, let's take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

1/4 cup water

1 cup cream cheese

1/4 cup butter

2 cups dates

1/4 cup walnuts/hazelnuts

Method

1 - Make the Dough

Into a large bowl, add two cups of flour. Into this, pour your water and cream cheese. Beat this together into a dough. I'm using cream cheese here, but it's unlikely to have been used in ancient Urartu society, but any soft cheese would work. Cream cheese produces the best results!

When your dough is smooth, and no longer really sticking to the sides of your bowl, turn it out onto a lightly-floured work-surface.

2 - Work the Dough

Knead your dough for about 5 - 10 minutes until it's smooth. If it's looking a little dry, add some water to the top, and work it through.

When it's smooth and elastic, go divide your dough into six to eight pieces. Try and roll them around on your work surface underneath a cupped hand to smooth them off, if you want. Leave these under a cloth while you go and work on your filling.

3 - Prepare the Walnuts

To begin making your filling, grind some walnuts into a fairly cohesive mix. I'm leaving larger chunks of walnut in my mix, because I like it, but work yours to a consistency you like! Walnuts would have been a staple in the diets of the societies of the ancient near east, along with hazelnuts and pistachios, so you could use these as a substitute too!

4 - Prepare the Dates

Now go roughly chop some dates - making sure to keep an eye out for pits. Mash these dates into a paste in a mortar and pestle - or a food processor, if you have one.

5 - Make the Filling

When your walnuts and dates have been mashed, go combine them together in a large bowl. Much like mersu, this mix is hard to mix using a spoon, so I'd suggest kneading it like bread until everything comes together. Folding it and pressing the walnuts into the filling will help it come together faster. If it looks a little dry, you can add a little bit of water to the mix to help it along.

5 - Assemble the Turnovers

When the filling is done, take a ball of your dough, and flatten it out between your palms a little, before flattening it out more on a work surface. Place a portion of the filling, place it into the centre of the dough. Drag and fold the edges of your dough over the filling. When the filling is covered, roll the whole thing in your hands to smooth it off, and seal the openings. Do this with your remaining dough squares and date mix, before placing the finished parcels seal-side down onto a baking sheet.

6 - Bake the Turnovers

Place you baking sheet into the centre of an oven that has been preheated to 190C/375F, for about 20-25 minutes - depending on your oven this may take more or less time than mine. Place them on a wire rack to cool for a few minutes, and eat them slightly warm (or at room temperature)

These turnovers are delicious and simple, the mild sourness from the dough really compliments the sweetness of the date filling. Depending on the kind of nut you used when making the filling, you can make this sweeter, or earthier than the mersu.

Bronze Age ovens would have been similar to modern pizza ovens, for lack of a better comparison. However some Mesopotamian societies show that bronze ovens were also used!

This dish shows significant parallels with the mersu I made a while ago, which you can check out by clicking on the relevant link in the top-right of the screen. This suggests that either there was a convergent development of sweet treats, or that the empires of Mesopotamia spread culinary traits to the civilisations of the Caucaus region. Both are possible, but neither have been outright confirmed. What we do know, however, is that this recipe results in a delightful sweet treat from the Bronze Age!