Topik

Topik is a dish of the Armenian community of Istanbul, part of the Bolahay (Istanbul-Armenian) cooking that shaped much of the city's classic meze repertoire. Because it contains no meat or dairy, it became a traditional dish for the long Lenten fasts of the Armenian Apostolic calendar, when such food was required. It is closely tied to Istanbul rather than to inland Anatolia, and survives today mainly through Armenian households, a handful of city meyhanes and specialist delicatessens.

Cold and dense, the chickpea-potato shell smooth and faintly nutty from tahini, giving way to a soft, sweet-savoury centre where currants and cinnamon meet the deep sweetness of long-cooked onion and the resin of pine nuts. The olive oil and lemon poured over each slice cut the richness; the final dusting of cinnamon is what stays on the palate. It eats more like a savoury confection than a salad.

Mashed chickpeas alone make a crumbly, fragile shell, so boiled potato is worked in: its gelatinised starch binds the paste into a pliable, sliceable dough that holds a shape without cracking. The filling depends on cooking the onions down slowly until their sugars concentrate, balancing the tahini's bitterness and the currants' sweetness. The whole parcel must be chilled for several hours so the starch firms and the flavours marry; cut warm, it would slump and taste flat.