On the Noodle Road

by Jen Lin-Liu

  My migraine continued as I boarded my second overnight ferry, and I heard American voices all around me. I’d encountered few Americans along the Silk Road, but once I arrived in Greece, they were everywhere—foreign exchange students on spring break, families with whiny children, older couples on day jaunts from cruise ships. I overheard conversations about Bulgaria and McDonald’s, pickpockets and California. Listening to Americans jabber around me, I felt a sudden pang of loneliness and alienation. But I didn’t envy the backpackers, with their endless itineraries and complaints about the road, and I felt a certain smugness that my trip had a purpose theirs lacked. But, then again, did it? What exactly was I pursuing? Was I still trying to discover where noodles came from, or was I just asserting my independence? And how was I—were we—going to live after my journey was over?

  I didn’t have to ponder these existential questions for long. Once the boat docked in Puglia, the Americans hightailed it for the usual circuit of Rome, Florence, and Venice, and I had the heel of Italy’s boot to myself.

  SU BOREK (TURKISH LASAGNA)

  Serves 6 to 9

  FOR THE DOUGH:

  4 cups all-purpose flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  4 extra-large eggs

  12 sheets phyllo dough

  FOR THE FILLING:

  ½ cup crumbled feta cheese

  1 cup finely grated (or substitute another mild white cheese such as mozzarella or provolone)

  1 egg

  ½ cup finely chopped parsley

  8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted

  Make the dough: Combine the flour and salt, and using eggs, prepare the dough as for Chef Zhang’s Hand-Rolled Noodles/Andrea’s Pasta. Divide the dough in half and, working on a large, floured surface, roll each half into a long rope. Divide each rope into 6 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and flatten it into a disk with your hand. Sprinkle the work surface and the surface of the dough occasionally with a little flour to prevent sticking. Roll each disk into a circle slightly larger than a 9-inch pie pan to the thickness of 2 millimeters. Trim to the exact circumference of the pie pan. Do the same with the phyllo dough.

  Make the filling: Mix together the feta cheese, (or other cheese), egg, and parsley.

  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bring 2 quarts of water to boil in a large stockpot. When the water boils, place a sheet of dough into it. Boil for 1 to 2 minutes, remove the sheet, and plunge it into a large pot of cold water. Then drain the dough carefully in a colander, making sure not to tear it. Repeat until all the dough is boiled and drained.

  Brush a little melted butter in the pie pan and layer 6 sheets of the phyllo dough into it, stopping every 2 or 3 layers to brush it with butter. Place a sheet of boiled dough over the phyllo and brush with a little butter; repeat with two more layers of boiled dough. Spread a third of the borek filling over the third layer of boiled dough. Repeat the layering sequence with the rest of the dough and filling. After the last sheets of boiled dough have been layered atop the last third of the filling, place 6 sheets of phyllo over the boiled dough, again brushing every 2 or 3 layers with butter. Brush the top layer with butter.

  Bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden. Cool for 30 minutes and cut into 9 pieces, tic-tac-toe style (rather than wedges) to serve.

  KARNIYARIK (SPLIT-BELLY EGGPLANT)

  Serves 4

  ½ cup sunflower oil

  4 long Japanese eggplants, stemmed and peeled in alternating stripes

  1 medium onion, grated

  ½ pound ground beef (30 percent fat)

  2 tablespoons tomato paste diluted in ½ cup cold water

  2 tablespoons mild Turkish red pepper paste (available at Middle Eastern grocery stores)

  ½ cup chopped parsley

  1 teaspoon ground paprika

  ½ teaspoon sugar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  4 cloves garlic, minced

  4 slices tomato

  2 small green bell peppers, halved and cored

  1 tablespoon olive oil

  ¾ cup hot water

  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

  Heat half the sunflower oil in a large frying pan on high heat for 2 minutes and add the eggplants. Allow them to cook, turning occasionally, for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the flesh is golden brown all over. Remove from the heat, cool slightly, and make a lengthwise slit in each eggplant, being careful not to cut all the way through and stopping short of both ends. Place them in a single layer, slit side up, in a baking dish.

  Clean the frying pan and add the rest of the sunflower oil. Place over medium-high heat, add the onions, and sauté for about 6 to 8 minutes, until the onions are golden. Add the ground beef and sauté for 10 minutes, then cover and cook over low heat for another 5 minutes. Add half the diluted tomato paste and half the Turkish red pepper paste. Then add the parsley, paprika, sugar, and half the salt and black pepper. Stir for 1 minute and remove the pan from the heat.

  Stuff the eggplants with the meat mixture and sprinkle with garlic. Place a tomato slice and bell pepper half atop each eggplant. In a small bowl, whisk the rest of the tomato paste, the rest of the Turkish red pepper paste, the olive oil, the rest of the salt and black pepper, and the hot water. Pour into the baking dish.

  Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

  ROSE BOREK (PHYLLO DOUGH STUFFED WITH LEEKS, CHEESE, AND HONEY)

  Makes 8 boreks

  ½ cup thinly sliced leeks, white parts only, separated into rings

  2 tablespoons sunflower or canola oil

  6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (or ricotta or cottage cheese)

  1 egg

  ½ teaspoon salt, or less if the feta cheese is salty

  8 sheets phyllo dough

  1 egg white

  2 tablespoons toasted sesame or nigella seeds

  IF FRYING:

  Sunflower or canola oil

  IF BAKING:

  1 egg yolk, beaten

  4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

  ½ cup honey

  Place a small frying pan over medium heat, add the leeks and sunflower or canola oil, and sauté for 8 to 10 minutes, until they are very tender. Remove from the heat and place in a medium bowl. Add the feta or other cheese, egg, and salt and mix well.

  Place a sheet of phyllo dough on a flat, dry surface. Using about an eighth of the leek-feta filling, make a line of filling about ½ inch from the near edge of the phyllo dough. Wrap the dough around the filling, rolling the stuffed phyllo into a long, skinny tube, dabbing a little egg white along the inside edge of the phyllo dough to make it seal. Starting from one end of the tube, roll it into a tight coil. Repeat the wrapping and rolling with the rest of the phyllo. Sprinkle with toasted sesame or nigella seeds.

  If frying: Fill a deep frying pan, Dutch oven, or other wide, heavy pot with 1½ inches of sunflower or canola oil and place over high heat for 5 to 6 minutes. Add the pastries, fitting them in snugly but not allowing them to touch; fry them in batches if necessary. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes, until crisp and golden, then turn and fry for 3 to 4 minutes more. Remove from the heat and drain on paper towels.

  If baking: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Brush the tops of the pastries with beaten egg yolk and dot with butter. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until golden.

  Serve immediately, with honey.

  KADINBUDU KOFTE (LADY’S THIGH KOFTE)

  Serves 4

  ½ cup short-grain rice

  2 tablespoons sunflower oil

  1 medium onion, minced

  1 pound ground beef, 30 percent fat

  3 eggs

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  ¼ cup minced parsle
y

  2 tablespoons minced fresh mint

  ½ cup flour

  Vegetable oil, for frying

  Bring a quart of water to boil in a medium pot. Add the rice and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until al dente. Remove the pot from the heat and drain the rice. Place the rice in a large bowl.

  Place the sunflower oil in a large frying pan over high heat and add the onions. Sauté for 4 to 5 minutes, until browned. Add half the beef and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes, breaking the beef into bits with a spatula, until it is fully cooked. Remove from the heat and add to the rice. Add to the meat-rice mixture the uncooked beef and 1 egg, along with the salt, black pepper, parsley, and mint. Knead with your hands (as for dough) for 2 to 3 minutes.

  In a medium bowl, beat 2 of the remaining eggs. Place the flour in another bowl.

  Place a large frying pan over high heat and add vegetable oil to a depth of 1 inch. Heat for 6 to 8 minutes, or until a grain of rice added to the pan sizzles immediately.

  While the oil is heating, shape the rice and beef mixture into palm-sized oval patties. One at a time, dip the patties into the beaten eggs, then dredge them in the flour. Fry the patties in batches, being careful not to crowd the pan, for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until they are crisp and brown on the outside. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately.

  DOLMA (STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES)

  Makes 12 to 15 dolmas

  1 cup short-grain rice

  ½ cup olive oil

  2 medium onions

  2 tablespoons black currants or raisins

  2 tablespoons pine nuts

  3 to 4 scallions, white parts only, chopped

  1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

  1 tablespoon minced fresh dill

  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  1 teaspoon ground cloves

  1 teaspoon ground allspice

  1 tablespoon tomato paste

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  ½ teaspoon sugar

  12 to 15 young grape leaves, fresh or bottled (or substitute fresh cabbage or Swiss chard leaves)

  1 to 2 lemons, thinly sliced

  Place the rice and olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes. Mince half of 1 onion and add it to the pan; sauté 3 to 4 minutes longer, until the onions are soft. Add the currants or raisins, pine nuts, scallions, parsley, and dill and cook for 3 to 4 minutes longer. Add the cinnamon, cloves, and allspice and stir for another minute or two, then add the tomato paste; if the mixture seems dry, add a couple of tablespoons water. Add the salt, black pepper, and sugar, stir for another minute or two, and remove from the heat. (The rice should still be fairly hard.)

  Blanch the grape leaves for 2 to 3 minutes in a pot of boiling water. (If using prepared grape leaves, skip this step.) Remove from heat and drain well.

  Working with one leaf at a time, place a heaping spoonful of filling near one end of the leaf, fold the sides over the filling, and roll into a log-shaped parcel, so that the filling is enclosed on all sides. Repeat with each leaf.

  Thickly slice the remaining 1½ onions and place a layer of the slices in a large stockpot. Add a layer of dolmas and top with a layer of sliced lemons. Continue to layer the onions, dolmas, and lemons until all the dolmas have been placed in the pot. Cover the dolmas with a heavy heatproof dish that fits inside the stockpot. Add water to cover the dolmas, then cover the pot. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat until all of the water has been absorbed and the filling is tender. Remove from heat and let cool. Dolmas are usually served chilled and can be made a day or two ahead.

  MANTI (TURKISH DUMPLINGS)

  Serves 4 to 6

  FOR THE DOUGH:

  4 cups all-purpose flour

  2 cups water

  FOR THE FILLING:

  1 pound ground lamb or beef

  ½ cup minced onions

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  FOR THE SAUCE:

  1 cup yogurt

  3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced

  1 tablespoon minced fresh mint

  1 teaspoon ground dried chilies

  FOR COOKING THE DUMPLINGS:

  1 bunch scallions, white parts only, thinly sliced into rings

  8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  1 tablespoon paprika

  ¼ cup chopped walnuts

  Make the dough: Using the flour and water, follow the instructions for kneading and rolling out the dough in Chef Zhang’s Hand-Rolled Noodles/Andrea’s Pasta.

  Make the filling: In a medium bowl, mix together the ground lamb or beef with the onions, salt, and black pepper.

  Make the sauce: Mix together the yogurt, garlic, mint, and ground chili; store in the refrigerator until serving time.

  Unroll each portion of dough in one long sheet and cut it into 1-inch squares. Place a dot of filling in the center of the wrapper. Bring the opposite corners of the square together and seal the edges, forming a triangle. Bring the opposite edges of the triangle together and pinch them together to form a circle. Repeat with the rest of the dumplings.

  Cook the dumplings: Bring 2 quarts of water to boil in a large stockpot. Add half the scallion rings. Boil the dumplings in batches, about a quarter at a time, for 4 to 5 minutes. Drain and repeat until all the manti are cooked.

  While the manti are boiling, melt half the butter in a large frying pan, and add half the salt, half the paprika and half the walnuts. Add half the dumplings, toss, and divide among several pasta bowls. Repeat with the rest of the dumplings.

  Serve immediately, garnishing each plate with some of the remaining scallions and the yogurt sauce.

  12.

  I had no idea eating could be so exhausting.

  I was no stranger to big meals, thanks to the hospitality I’d experienced along the Silk Road. But Italy managed to outdo them all.

  I’d arrived in Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot, known for its ancient connections to Greece and its ear-shaped cavatelli and orecchiette, which intrigued me for their similarity to Chef Zhang’s noodles. My guide was Daniela, an energetic woman in her mid-twenties who sported a short, angular bob and a leather jacket. I’d been lucky to find her. Because of the south’s dismal economy, many people had gone north for jobs, leaving few English speakers behind. But Daniela, a graduate student in foreign literature, had returned home the year before to finish her thesis. I’d found her through a network of distant colleagues and friends, and she’d graciously invited me to dine and cook with her friends and family for the week.

  Just a few hours after my ferry docked in Bari, I drove to the nearby town of Monopoli and sat down to Saturday lunch with Daniela, her fiancé, Sandro (whom she’d known since childhood), and Sandro’s family. Daniela’s future mother-in-law, Maria Antoinette (I wondered if she was as fierce as her name suggested), whipped up a typical family lunch as her adult children, all of whom lived at home, looked on. The meal began with burrata, a heavenly improvement on fresh mozzarella—its center filled with gooey, rich ricotta—and pizza ai carciofi. The pizza was unlike others I’d had: Maria Antoinette baked sautéed artichokes, prosciutto, and pecorino and mozzarella cheese in between two layers of crust. The crust was flaky, feathery, and fragrant with white wine. (Wine was a cooking ingredient I hadn’t seen since China.) Those ear-shaped cavatelli followed, tossed with a quick sauce of cherry tomatoes, garlic, clams, mussels, and quanto basta—a lot of—olive oil. Raw fennel bulbs and carrots cleansed our palates before dessert, a lamb-shaped cake filled with marzipan.

  As soon as lunch was over, Daniela and I set off for dinner, a few blocks away at her grandmother’s home. When we arrived at Nonna’s, she’d just finished pulsing a batch of pasta dough through a food processor. She knea
ded the pasta on a madia, a large wooden tray, before shaping it into cavatelli. The method was strikingly similar to how cat’s ear noodles were made in China: she pressed pieces of dough the size of pencil erasers with her thumbs to stretch them quickly into tight curls. But her preferred shape was orecchiette, which took a little more craft. She pressed slightly larger bits of dough between a butter knife and the madia, carving them into looser curls, like thin pats of butter. She turned them inside out, and stretched them over her thumb to create an indentation. She let the orecchiette dry for a couple of hours to retain their shape, then boiled them quickly. She tossed them into a heavenly sauté of anchovies, onions, toasted bread crumbs, and turnip tops with a nice bitter bite, like broccoli rabe. Each rounded piece of pasta was the perfect vehicle for the heavenly sauce. Just as with the pasta I’d had at lunch, this dish, called orecchiette con le cime di rapa, was a revelation: pasta and sauce were not separate entities but a whole, fused together in a pan with a splash of the pasta water.

  To accompany the pasta, Nonna baked potato focaccia and fried a dozen artichokes in a batter of eggs, freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and white wine. She rolled up thin slices of veal, secured them with toothpicks, and braised them in tomato sauce. Nonna’s zucchini alla poverella, despite the name, was anything but poor: she fried thin slices of sun-dried zucchini before drizzling them with garlic, red wine vinegar, and mint. After we’d devoured everything, out of the oven came pizza di ricotta (I learned that pizza meant any pie-like dish, savory or sweet). At first I resisted the dessert, so full was I from the day’s culinary abundance. But then my dining companions urged me on and I succumbed to the seductions of ricotta, lemon, cinnamon, and shaved chocolate.