These Classic Armenian Dumplings Would Make My Grandma Proud

Some recipes find you, others you have to seek. This recipe is the result of my quest to learn the art of topik, a classic Armenian Lenten dish of chickpea and potato dumplings filled with onions, currants, and warm spices. I grew up hearing about them from my father, who says my grandmother made them often, and I was enticed by his description that cast them as both delicious, if somewhat unusual. Topik somehow manage to be both sweet and deeply savory at the same time, with a rich, velvety texture reminiscent of paté. Served chilled or at room temperature, the dumplings are often enjoyed as an appetizer or a meatless entrée. 

After a more recent conversation with my father about them, I resolved to learn how to make them: I went on a deep dive into their diverse forms and preparations, and immersed myself in recipes online and in my stack of Armenian cookbooks. I also paid special attention to the recipes in spiral-bound church cookbooks; they are an invaluable resource for researching Armenian recipes, since they almost always contain a handful of different versions of each dish. 

I found that most topik recipes include potatoes and chickpeas in the dough, usually in more or less equal amounts. Some recipes—my grandmother’s included—use another starch like bulgur, semolina, or farina in place of potatoes. Others may include chickpeas, potatoes, and a milled grain. The chickpeas are usually, though not always, skinned before mashing, a somewhat tedious process that results in a smoother-textured dumpling. 

Tahini is often used to flavor both the dough and filling, though peanut butter—an ingredient that isn’t classically Armenian—makes a surprising appearance from time to time in recipes published in the United States, either in place of the tahini or in addition to it. (My guess is that when many Armenians first came to the States in the first half of the 20th century, they reached for peanut butter in place of tahini, which was likely hard to come by at the time.) Walnuts are the usual nut of choice for the filling, though pine nuts are used occasionally.

Most topik have another unusual feature: The dumplings are made by wrapping a small amount of filling inside a mound of dough and then enclosing the ball inside a cheesecloth bag tied with twine. The dumplings are then poached in boiling water until they absorb moisture and plump up; this two-stage hydration method lets you shape and stuff the dumpling with a dough that’s relatively dry, but once cooked, the topik become incredibly moist and tender. The cheesecloth bag both helps to form and retain the dumpling’s shape and makes it easy to remove the delicate spheres from the bath without damaging them.

Through plenty of research and trial and error, I came up with a topik recipe that I think would make my grandmother proud.

Keys for Making Great Topik

Many cookbook recipes call for peeling chickpeas, a tedious task that involves pinching chickpeas one by one to slip their skins off, something I have neither time nor patience to do. Chickpea skins, however, are mostly cellulose, a fibrous material that does not break down even after lengthy blending in a food processor. Leaving them on gave the dough a grainy texture, and I preferred the velvety-smooth texture of topik without them. 

Fortunately, you don’t have to peel chickpeas one-by-one. There’s a far easier method: Simmering already-cooked chickpeas in water and a little baking soda for ten minutes or so. (I use chickpeas I’ve cooked from scratch, but you can also use canned chickpeas.) The mild alkalinity helps denature the cellulose so that the skins slip off easily when you swish the chickpeas under cool water. The buoyant skins float freely, and to separate them, you just pour off the water. It takes about three or four changes of water to get most of them removed. You then let the chickpeas drain in a colander to remove any excess moisture before blitzing them to a smooth paste in a food processor.

A fair number of topik recipes have you blitz the potatoes to a paste in a food processor as well, but I really, really—and I cannot stress this enough—do not recommend this. The sharp blades burst the potato’s cells wide open, releasing starch and water. This not only gives the topik dough an unpleasant stickiness, but it also makes it too wet to handle. The better approach is to pass the spuds through a ricer or to mash them with a potato masher. (Incidentally, if you have a ricer, you can use it to mash the chickpeas to a fine paste too, eliminating the need to dirty your food processor.)

Making the topik dough is as simple as combining the mashed chickpeas and potatoes in a bowl, adding a little salt, some tahini, and gently folding it all together. The tahini gives the dough a rich nuttiness, but it also has a functional purpose: Its starches absorb some of the excess moisture in the dough, firming it up so that it is easy to shape. You don’t want to use too much here, as the dough will become dry and crumbly. In my testing, I found that a quarter cup was the perfect amount when combined with eight ounces of potatoes and two cups of cooked chickpeas.

The onions in the filling for topik should be soft and sweet, but not wet. A few of the recipes I found instruct readers to caramelize them slowly, but most call for simply cooking them with a little water until tender and fully softened. To remove excess water, many simmer the onions with salt and water, then use a colander to strain out any remaining liquid. I found this step wholly unnecessary. Instead, I gently simmer the alliums with a small amount of water, dried currants, olive oil, garlic, and salt for ten minutes or so, which softens them and draws out much of their internal moisture.

I then remove the lid and crank the heat, which drives off any remaining moisture and softens the onions further. The oil helps prevent the onions from scorching—they’ll start to sizzle once the water has evaporated—and helps extract flavors from the allspice, cinnamon, and pepper, which I add towards the end. Once the filling is cooked, I stir in some chopped walnuts and tahini, then let it cool down.

As I mentioned above, the cheesecloth helps the topik retain their shape and makes it easier to remove the tender dumplings from the cooking water without damaging them. As intricate as wrapping dough with cheesecloth might look, assembling topik is pretty quick and easy as long as you have your cheesecloth and twine cut and ready to go. You form the dough into balls, then make a deep depression into the center of each ball, scoop a few tablespoons of filling into it, and gently close the dough up and around the filling. You then press the topik into a smooth, round patty, set it onto one of the cheesecloth squares, and tie it up into a bundle with a piece of twine. You don’t need to stress too much about getting the topik perfectly shaped, provided you keep the filing contained, since the poaching step will smooth out any rough edges.

Once they are all assembled, you drop them into a pot of simmering water and let them poach for about ten minutes. They’ll plump up a little once they are done, and though they are very soft at this point, the cheesecloth bag helps keep them contained. You let them drain on a rack and cool to room temperature for a half hour or so, then set them in the fridge to chill. As the starches in the dough cools, the dumplings will firm up.

At this point, all that remains is removing the topik from the fridge and allowing them to come up to room temperature, untying the bundles, and serving the topik with a generous drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, and a handful of chopped walnuts. (You can serve the topik straight from the fridge, but they are best when allowed to come to room temperature first, since the flavor is more pronounced and their texture more tender.)

Though my topik differ greatly from my grandmother’s—the ones my dad grew up eating—he’s a fan, and I’m guessing you’ll be, too.

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