Making NoodlesAn essential ingredient in Persian Noodle Soup, I had to figure out how to make the noodles if I was going to make the soup! The modern recipes I found for Persian Noodle Soup frequently state you should use Iranian noodles purchased from an Iranian food store or to substitute spaghetti. Spaghetti, while a readily available noodle is a relatively new arrival on the pasta scene as it requires a pasta extruder to make and such technology was not available before the 19th century1. |
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| A lady rolling noodles in the Khamsa of Nizami folio 157 verso, dated 1539 (from Welch) |
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While modern pasta is always made from Hard Wheat (Wheat with a high gluten content) “Medieval milling technology was unable to grind hard wheat flour fine enough for bread baking2” Clifford A. Wright goes on in his article “The History of Macaroni” to make a compelling argument for the first use of hard wheat (durum wheat) and therefore pasta making to be an Arabian invention3. Wright also cites a 14th century dictionary the “Mukhtar al-qamus” as defining itriya (The fresh noodles, as opposed to the dried reshte) as a “pastalike thread made from flour and almost certainly made from hard wheat.4” |
| A man rolling noodles in a minature from the Louvre. |
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Reportedly the word “Rishta” comes from the Persian for “Thread” which leads the mind instantly to think of a long narrow noodle. There are several ways to make a long thin noodle; the dough could be rolled out flat and ‘ribbons’ cut with a knife (either flat or by rolling the dough and cutting the roll,) the dough could be rolled into ‘snakes’ with the flat of the palm against a flat surface (likely the simplest solution, however more labor intensive), or the noodles could be pulled like Chinese pulled noodles. Right, by far the best depiction I’ve found thus far, a man rolls out dough into long ‘snakes’; is he making noodles to throw into the boiling pot behind? (Freer-Sackler, dated 1540) A second man (this time from a 16th century work in the Louvre) pictured above also rolls out snakes on a board. Finally the image I started this page with; a beautiful lady rolling out very thin snakes that trail off of her board into a bowl. Note the three white shapes in a bowl behind her as well; are these already rolled noodles waiting to go into the cook pot (not pictured, tended to by the lady to her right)? |
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| A man rolling noodles in a Freer Sackler Gallery minature. |
To make my noodles I used a 100% Hard wheat flour. As it was also whole wheat flour I needed to sift it to separate out the husks (the alternative would be to have lumpy noodles). I used a piece of loose-woven linen to sift the flour through. Mixed the flour with water and kneaded for about 20 minutes; then let it sit in the bowl with a moist towel over it for another 15 minutes before rolling out the noodles. I found through trial and error that more water was better for rolling as the dough tended to dry out as I rolled it. I needed to frequently moisten my hands to keep the surface of the noodles slick. I found it very difficult to keep a long, continuous thin thread and imagine that this is simply something that needs a lot of practice to master. I like to think my noodles are therefore a recreation of a lazy or young housewife’s noodles; a girl who’s not yet mastered the art! In the humid august air at a camping event I found the noodles rolled easier (or maybe I was more practiced?) and tried adding a little bit of oil to the mixture for more roll-ability.
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| Me, drying some freshly rolled noodles. | Rolling one big long noodle out on my kitchen table |
1From the Food Timeline website: http://www.foodtimeline.org
2Clifford A. Wright, "The History of Macaroni" page 2
3Ibid, page 4
4Ibid, page 5