Ghapama (Armenian Stuffed Pumpkin)

Ghapama is a dish so beloved by Armenians that it even has its own traditional song, titled “Hey Jan Ghapama,” which translates to, “Hey Sweet Ghapama” or “Hey Dear Ghapama.” The song tells the story of a pumpkin farmer who returns home from toiling in the fields with a single pumpkin, only to find his house invaded by a hundred hungry friends and relatives ready to party. His solution to this conundrum is to turn it into ghapama, which—though it couldn’t actually feed a hundred people—is an excellent way to feed a crowd, especially for a festive occasion. The song has been covered widely, even by Armenian hardcore band System of a Down, but the most famous version is by the singer Harout Pamboukjian, who put out his memorably psychedelic video for it in 1983.

Meant to Impress: When and Why to Make Ghapama

It’s easy to see why ghapama is worth singing about. A honey-butter glazed pumpkin is stuffed with a jeweled rice mixture that’s studded with a medley of dried fruits and nuts, sealed up, then slowly roasted to caramelized perfectionu ntil the pumpkin flesh is silken and buttery, and the rice perfectly plumped and evenly cooked.

Once baked, the stately pumpkin is presented to its adoring crowd and carefully carved into wedges that fan out flat on the platter into a beautiful flower—the pumpkin wedges being the flower petals and the mounded rice stuffing its center cone. 

The presentation is meant to impress and is perfect for a holiday gathering. Armenians traditionally serve it on New Year's Eve or Christmas. While ghapama’s show-stopping presentation might give the impression that it is challenging to make, it’s actually relatively easy to assemble and bake (aside from its lengthy hands-off baking time). A true “low effort, high reward” recipe that’s ideal for serving guests.

Get Those Hands Dirty: How to Select and Clean Your Pumpkin

I recognize that cooking a whole pumpkin is no everyday task, even if the assembly and baking are relatively easy. Maybe the hardest part of making ghapama is finding the right pumpkin to use and cleaning it properly. 

First, when selecting a pumpkin, it needs to be a sugar (also sometimes sold as “pie”) pumpkin with thick walls and flesh that bakes sweet and tender like other edible winter squashes; you don’t want to use a decorative carving pumpkin here. Carving pumpkins are grown for size, not flavor or tenderness once cooked. 

Secondly, size and shape matter. The pumpkin needs to be large enough to hold the stuffing while leaving about one inch of headspace to accommodate the rice plumping up as it finishes cooking inside the pumpkin. For this recipe, the ideal pumpkin size is at least five pounds.

It’s also important that the pumpkin is spherical and wider than it is tall. This ensures that as the flesh softens during cooking, the baked pumpkin will stand up and hold its shape. If the pumpkin is too tall and narrow, it will likely topple over once you try to transfer it to the serving platter.

If you have a hard time finding a pumpkin that fits perfectly into these guidelines, pick one that is slightly on the larger size, which will ensure sufficient room to hold the stuffing. Since you will unseal and carve the pumpkin for presentation, it’s ok if there is a little extra empty space at the top while baking the pumpkin.

How to Guarantee Properly Cooked Rice

The components of the stuffing are fairly straightforward: rice with a medley of dried fruits and nuts combined with ample butter and sautéed onions to bind it together. But it’s important that the cooking treatment of the rice is spot-on so the rice and the pumpkin flesh cook at the same rate in the oven. You don’t want overblown rice with well-cooked pumpkin, or still-raw rice with overcooked pumpkin.

Recipes for ghapama use different strategies for cooking the rice to overcome this challenge. Some merely stuff the pumpkin with dried rice and a small amount of water, letting the rice steam as it bakes. I found this to be unreliable, as it was hard to ensure the rice was evenly cooked by the time the pumpkin was tender. 

I prefer to parboil the rice instead. I found the simplest way to do this without overcooking the rice was to add it to ample boiling water and cook it until al dente (there should still be a firm core of undercooked rice in the center of each grain). Once par-cooked, the rice only needs a quick rinse to cool it down rapidly and halt further cooking, and also to remove any excess starch so that the grains don't stick together while steaming inside the pumpkin.

Bejewel My Heart: The Key Stuffing Ingredients and Flavor Variations for Ghapama

Recipes for ghapama vary widely from one Armenian cook to another, but there are two main flavor directions for the dish: savory-leaning or sweet-leaning. Savory versions contain minced onions that are cooked in butter until softened, then stirred into the rice. Sweeter versions forgo the onion in favor of warm spices, especially cinnamon. Both are excellent. I’ve written my main recipe as the savory version, but I’ve given guidance for a sweet version in the notes as well. And while not traditional, there’s no reason you couldn’t create your own savory and sweet version by adding the warm spices to the oniony version, as I also mention in the recipe notes.

Whether sweet or savory, ghapama includes a lot of butter. The butter adds needed richness to the otherwise lean pilaf stuffing. A portion of the butter is also combined with honey and used to coat the inside flesh of the pumpkin and the remaining honey-butter mixture is added to the rice stuffing (don’t let it go to waste!). Most recipes I’ve seen in my research call simply for melted butter. In my recipe I chose to brown the butter, for an added layer of nutty complexity.

The mix-ins for the jeweled rice vary widely too. Nuts such as almonds, walnuts, or pine nuts are always included, often in combination. My recipe calls for both slivered almonds and walnuts, which I toast to ensure they are crisp once the rice is baked, but you can adapt the recipe with your preferred combination of nuts. Just make sure to swap equal parts by weight, and to toast the nuts first to ensure their crunchy bite in the final baked dish.

Fruits such as raisins, dates, prunes, dried tart cherries, dried apricots, and crisp (fresh) apples are also included, again in combination. My recipe calls for a colorful array of golden raisins, tart cherries, prunes, and apricots for a welcome sweet-and-sour accent. Again, feel free to use your preferred combination of fruits, provided you keep the total amount about the same. (Dried cranberries, though not traditional to Armenian cooking, would be a great swap for the tart cherries, for example.)

The Grand Reveal: Assembling and Baking Ghapama

Once the filling is all prepared, it's spooned into the cleaned pumpkin, leaving an inch or so of headroom to accommodate the rice expanding as it finishes cooking (another reason to err on the slightly-larger side when selecting your pumpkin). Cover it with its lid, and then place it into a 350˚F oven on a lined baking sheet.

Now here comes perhaps the hardest part to this recipe: Be patient! It can take up to two hours for the pumpkin and the rice to bake through. It’s important to not rush it to ensure the pumpkin is baked long enough for its flesh to render tender and sweet—it should yield easily when pricked with a paring knife. It might even slump a little, a good sign that it is tender through and through. Don't bake it so long that it collapses, but definitely err on the side of well-baked.

Once the ghapama is baked and cooled slightly, transfer it to the center of a serving platter—one large enough to hold the fanned-out pumpkin wedges once cut into. A sharp paring knife is the best tool for cutting the pumpkin into wedges. While it may seem logical to slice into wedges as one would cut a cake, it's better not to cut through to the center of the filling. Instead, use a paring knife to cut only through the pumpkin flesh itself, going all the way from the top to the bottom. This will prevent the wedges from falling onto the platter prematurely, and will also leave the mound of stuffing intact. 

Then you can gently nudge the wedges to encourage them to open onto the platter, arranging them in a fanned-out symmetrical pattern. Finally, gently scrape any of the filling that’s stuck to the inner surfaces of the pumpkin and mound it all on the center of the platter.

Your beautiful bejeweled pumpkin flower is now ready for your guests to enjoy. And while savoring those first few bites, remember these lines from “Hey Jan Ghapama:

“Hey! sweet ghapama

Whoever eats it is satiated

Hey! dear, sweet ghapama

Whoever doesn’t eat it, understands nothing!!”