Home-made Pasta

Something a bit strange happened last week: I looked out of the window and saw a book next to my car on the sidewalk! Went down to look at it! It was a cookbook! Put it back on the ground and went back in! The doorbell rang nearly an hour ago! Went down. It was one of the neighbours with the book! Asked me if it was mine. Without mentioning that I had already looked at it, when she handed it to me, said no, which was not a lie. I asked her why she did not keep it and the answer was that she did not had the sort of utensil that the book recipes need. I went: Maybe I should cook something and invite you over. These recipes can be made without that instrument.

Shirazi Salad is made of small chucks of cucumber, tomato and red onion. After adding salt, black pepper and Puneh (or Pooneh, an incredibly beautiful herb), you add vinegar, give it a good mix and leave it in the fridge with the lid for at least 2 hours to chill and have the flavours absorbed by the vegetables. Hojam being from Fars province made excellent Shirazi Salads

I then decided to make some Pasta and Shirazi Salad and invite her but everything went wrong! My plan was to make pasta from scratch. Nothing wrong with that but the recipe that I was following was for White Flour! So when I started mixing the ingredients to make that damn dough, it wouldn't come together! I had to add 3 more tablespoons of oil, one more egg and a cup of water extra! But that was not it. Kneading that damn dough really took it out of me! I kept kneading for 10 freaking minutes until it came together. I was really tired! You need to leave the dough to rest for a few minutes (I think 20 or so) before you can move to the next stem which is cutting it. Fine. The only problem is I have no pasta maker! So I thought I use a cookie cutter! and cut the rest thin. Doesn't seem to be a bad plan. Does it? It didn't appear alright! Why? Because my cookie cutters are in the shape of heart! I did a good number and left them on a cutting board to dry. Then try to roll the rest and make Spaghetti out of them. Bad idea! The dough wouldn't roll! So I had to cut them to small pieces and leave them to dry as well! So far nothing had gone well but look at the meat part: I had made pasta with small chucks of beef, instead of ground beef, mixed with other ingredients and of course Tomato Sauce and had come out good. It's a little chunky! I had the same idea this time. So bought thin slices of beef and cut them smaller. They cook fast and there's no fat. This time, it tasted like they had not been cooked thoroughly! It was chunkier than what I expected! I mixed the meat sauce and pasta, anyway and left it to cook. I still don't know how I was going to serve to someone who was coming to my place for the firs time and had been told that she could be served anything but pasta! The salad had come out good though. So the next day I decided to knock on her door to see when she would have liked to come. No one was home! I sighed because I knew that I had the chance to make something better later. I tried the food the next day myself. It was not bad. I know now that if I add the things that I have added, cut it thin, instead of using that ridiculous cookie cutter and use proper meat, the result will be good. The only problem, unlike what you might have thought already, isn't the pasta maker machine. It would be, as I wrote above, kneading the dough! 

(Photo, top: The pasta sheet after I cut a few pieces using the funny cookie cutter!)