Spaghet-tea
Iranian pasta, Spaghetti pop up recap, nostalgia, and some tea
Today’s newsletter is part of the pop-up recap series. Where we discuss past pop ups and their menus in detail.
This is spaghet-tea part one. Part two will be a Turkey Poblano Makaroni recipe, dropping on October 11th ;)
This past December, I had an idea for a candle-lit Iranian spaghetti dinner, inspired partly by the classic Iranian spaghetti, aka Makaroni /mah-kah-row-knee/. It was perfect. I would create pasta sauces inspired by classic Iranian dishes and include Makaroni on the menu to introduce it to those unfamiliar with it and bring this comfort food to those who miss it.
After a few weeks of plotting, executive planning, reaching out to restaurants and chef friends, I had it. I came up with a menu I was so proud of. I would host a spaghetti dinner at a lovely local cafe restaurant, Sister. My friend chef Carlo offered to make fresh pasta for the night. My sweetie pie friend, Kimia (DJ Alchemy), would DJ at the event. I visited the restaurant, ecstatic to cook in their massive open kitchen. Everything was perfect for our magical pasta night.
The menu was a fully Iranian-Italian-inspired list of yums. To complement the pasta, I made whipped ricotta dip, Zaytoun Parvardeh (pomegranate-walnut marinated olives), cilantro compound butter to go with fresh crusty bread, and finally, cardamom olive oil cake, with tea for dessert. Carlo also worked with the bartender at Sister and they came up with a beautiful pomegranate negroni to go with our special menu.
The pasta part of the menu, the star of the show, featured three kinds of spaghetti: Classic Makaroni, Gheime Bademjoon (lentil black lime tomato sauce, w/ fried eggplants), and Mirza Ghasemi (roasted eggplant tomato sauce).
Making Makaroni involves cooking down a meat sauce spiced with turmeric and seasonings (or what my Sicilian friend calls “basically a Persian bolognese”) and layering the meat sauce with spaghetti in a pot. Then the pot goes on the stove to dam (bake/steam) on low heat. And crispy at the bottom, of course, we will have a pasta or potato tahdig—not-so-arguably everyone’s favorite part.
My brain gave birth to this idea when I asked my Iranian friends about their moms’ cooking rotation when they were growing up. Funnily but not surprisingly, Makaroni was the dish all Iranian moms seemed to agree on. It was almost always on the rotation. For so many friends, this was their favorite childhood dish. The thing they looked forward to when coming home from school. What they would request for their birthdays or special occasions. It is a simple and delicious spaghetti dish that is associated with fond memories and comfort for so many. Bringing the community together over such a comforting dish was a no-brainer. After all, this is the reason I started doing pop-ups in the first place: to connect people to themselves, their ancestors, their culture, and their community. To bring comfort and familiar flavors to those who are as homesick as I am. To give our heritage foods the love and attention they deserve.
Let’s talk about the other two saucy pastas. One dish had Gheime sauce and fried eggplants. Gheime is a split-pea, tomato, black-lime stew usually made with cubed or diced lamb and topped with fried potato sticks, enjoyed with rice and yogurt. The word “Gheime” is a verb that means to dice something or chop it into small pieces. Gheime bademjoon, eggplant gheime, is a variety of the dish made with the addition of fried eggplants.
(Here’s my favorite Gheime video that may soothe your brain:)
I tossed the pasta in a split-pea tomato black lime sauce inspired by the classic stew and then plated it with a crown of Japanese eggplant slices. Sadly, due to the chaos that you will shortly read about, I have no photos of the dishes from that night, except for this one from a diner.
Finally, the third pasta was inspired by the northern Iranian Mirza ghasemi; a flavorful dish made by roasting eggplants on an open flame, to achieve maximum smokiness. Then, the roasted eggplants are cooked down with a lot of garlic (a hallmark of northern Iranian cuisine) and tomatoes. At the end, eggs are scrambled into the cooked down eggplant-tomato mix. Mirza ghasemi is such a simple dish that uses very few ingredients and creates an incredible depth of flavor. The inspired pasta was tossed in a smoky, garlicky eggplant tomato sauce and topped with a fried sunny-side-up egg and chopped parsley.
The day of the event came. Friends who were going to help me with the event showed up one by one. My love picked up giant bags of fresh loaves of bread. Fresh pasta was ready for us. I had cooked down all the pasta sauces and had tasted and perfected them to make everything go more smoothly. We began to work on getting our stations ready in the kitchen, and the rest of the team went around the restaurant to set the tables, light the candles, and ensure everything was good to go before we opened the doors for diners.
Everything was in perfect shape, but somehow, it all unraveled into a night of chaos and drama.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Dill Naamé دل نامه to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.