Lazy pasta with spiced mince meat, mandarin sauce and garlicky sage sumac oil
Cooking the med on sumac, 7 spice, mandarines and pasta!
MIDDLE EASTERN PASTA TO MEDITERRANEAN PASTA
When i first tasted shish barak in my life it was a complete suprise and i loved it. The pasta dough stuffed with meat with warm spices in a warm yoghurt sauce was just a revelation. And can you imagine this pasta meets dumpling dish traces back to the 14th century. Unbelievable how recipes stay with us for centuries, and we don’t realise it! Most probably the pasta/dumpling dish is coming from ancient Persia and different -stan countries (kazach- uzbekistan and so on) and ended up a classic in the middle east. The stuffing is minced meat, onion spices and pine nuts and mostly the pasta is served in a warm yoghurt sauce flavoured with garlic and dried mint. So good and so comforting. And yes so similar to tortellini in shape. Only those are served in a broth, brodo.
But there I go: only one step away from Italian pasta. With some Sicilian flavours my other love. All of this blending perfectly together (looking at their past it is just common sense) Conclusion: today i’m talking and cooking a hell of a festive pasta, actually maybe a great pasta for Christmas.
I‘m pairing the Middle Eastern 7 spice mixture with the minced meat like you do for shish barak. And i’m planning to make the pasta thin, and stuff it modestly so it will be light. And i will be lazy and not fold it too much. Instead i will just make retangulars and fold them once, like dumplings.
As usual i like to make my own 7 spice mix freshly ground….The one from De Bijbel van de Libanese keuken that i’m sharing here:
7 SPICE BAHARAT
It is the most versatile spice mix for meat in the Levante kitchen, and surely each family has it’s own blend. Surprise: there should be 7 kind of spices;-) I like mine to have aniseed for some warm flavours.
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp piment
1/2 pinch of ground clove
½ tsp of ground coriander
pinch of nutmeg
½ tsp of black pepper
1/2 tsp of aniseed
1 Grind all spices in a pestle and mortar. If you want to double you will have some to use for a longer time. Though it’s also nice to grind it fresh. You can see it here below on the right side! it’s the best with minced meat, meatballs, but also with chicken and in rice dishes.
Next to all sumac, it’s the 7 spice!
THE SPRINKLING WONDER OF SUMAC
The great thing with sumac is that you can sprinkle your desired sourness over a dish. Normally sour comes as a penetrating liquid in the form of lemon juice or vinegar. I do like that too. But with sumac you can just add dry hints of floral tartness. Even at the end, as a flavour enchancer. Really a special ingredient.
Since i discovered plenty of sumacco bushes in Sicily next to the road i decided to play around with it a bit more. It’s mediterranean after all. They grow like torches, then the berries come of and are ground (preferably only the outside) into powder. They don’t do that in Sicily though. No clue why not! But they do in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan and so on.
Sumac + egg = classic! No eggs without it for people in the whole Levante region. The best!
And: it’s really a wonderful ingredient to play around with. I think you should have a go at this pasta with only butter, garlic and lots of sumac. I used a whole wheat home made pasta, fettuccine style, but any other dry pasta will do. I promise you, it is so good.
Pasta with sumac, butter, garlic
dried or fresh pasta of your choice
50-75 g of salty butter
2 cloves of garlic
sumac
1 Boil the pasta in salty water until al dente. Reserve some of the cooking liquid.
2 Melt the butter, grate the garlic and let it simmer a bit. You don’t want the butter to noisette in this case.
3 Add the pasta with just 2-3 spoons of cooking water and stir around, add 1 spoon of sumac too and maybe some extra salt. Toss and serve!
SWEET AND SOUR
I’m drifting off. Back to our so called Christmas pasta. I want a nice sweet and sour sauce of mandarin to dress the pasta. One of the citrus fruits that are so abundant in Sicily. To pair with the spicy stuffing.
I remember once i was visiting a Sicilian Ciaculli late harvest mandarin grove in the north of the island and the weather was really terrible as it was still winter. Rain, dark and gloomy and i was standing with wet feet between the trees. The mandarines were hanging there as golden balls, shining almost. It was a kind of magical, they replaced the sun, which had made them grow. Inspired by that I’ll cook the fruit wholly before i use it for the sauce. It will have a nice sweet and tart bitter hint.
The recipe is for my paid posse, who make my work possible. Hope to see you there and to inspire you with Cooking the Med!
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