The Honey Thief (33 page)

Aash

Aash
is for anytime; at weddings, certainly, but even for breakfast if you choose. Okay, maybe not for breakfast because the noodles must be freshly made and who wants to make noodles early in the morning? In Afghanistan, breakfast is a quick meal, and then you work. You eat some
naan
, you drink some tea, maybe some honey on your
naan
. But I didn’t want to talk about breakfasts, I wanted to talk about
aash
, which is our pasta. We learned about it from the Chinese, who may have taught it to our ancestors in Mongolia, although it is difficult to teach something to a man who is holding an axe above your neck. One way or another, noodles came to Afghanistan. A good thing. Who can live a life without
aash
? Who would wish to?

This is what you will need:

Plain flour
, enough to twice fill the small bowl in which you serve pistachios.

About half a cup of
daul nakhud
(
yellow split peas
) from the market.

One-and-a-half cups of
red kidney beans
from the market.

One big bunch of
fresh spinach
.

Olive oil
. You will need quite a bit. Half a cup for the meat and a little extra for the noodles. (Not sesame for
aash
!)

One big
brown onion
.

Almost a kilogram of
beef
or
lamb
ground up with a mincing device or finely minced with a sharp knife.

A generous pinch of
turmeric
and a pinch of
cinnamon
.

Ground black pepper
.

Salt
.

Four big
tomatoes
, cooked and reduced to a puree.

One-and-a-half cups of good
fresh yoghurt
.

One very hot
chilli pepper
, chopped very finely.

A pinch of
dried mint
.

Your biggest spoon full of
ground coriander
.

First make the noodles with the plain flour and salt and water. What could be simpler? Add water and a pinch of salt to the flour, which you will have sifted into a bowl. Make two (or even three) balls out of the dough, and please don’t roll and knead the dough too much or you will end up with something good for making house bricks but not good for eating. Wrap the three balls of dough in cloth, just a fraction damp, and leave them alone for maybe half an hour. Read a book, a good one, not a book about vampires or serial killers or anything like that. A peaceful book.

Now roll out the dough nice and thin on a surface dusted with flour. Then take your knife with a sharp point and slice the dough into strips – and that’s your noodles. Thin strips, of course – I’m sure you know how wide a noodle should be. Spread out a broad cloth and lay the noodles on it. Dust the noodle strips with flour, not too much. Now leave the noodles on the cloth and give your mind to the
daul nakhud
. Wash the yellow split peas to get rid of any debris – bits of grit, that sort of thing. Then put the peas in a saucepan with enough water to cover them and then some extra. Boil the water, turning the heat down once the bubbles begin. It will take maybe thirty-five or forty minutes to soften the peas.

Now, the kidney beans. These you should have left soaking for two hours in enough water to barely cover them. I should have mentioned this earlier. My apologies. Okay, the flavour of the kidney beans will have seeped into the water in those two hours that I failed to mention. Add the beans and their soaking water to the yellow peas and let them all simmer together for a few minutes.

Now fill a big pot with water. Maybe not fill the pot to the top; it depends on how big the pot is. Let’s say about seven or eight or nine cups of water. Now bring the water to the boil. Add salt to the water, enough to make a small mound on the palm of your hand – not too small, not too big. And some olive oil, enough to fill one of your medium-sized spoons. Lower the noodles into the boiling water, not too many at once, and keep stirring. Let the noodles boil for five minutes, then add the spinach, chopped very finely, like leaves of grass. Let the spinach and the pasta cook together for another five minutes.

So now the noodles are cooked and the spinach has given some of its flavour to them. Take the pot off the flame and drain the water away in a
chalow saffi.
Back in the pot go the noodles and the spinach, together with the yellow peas and the red beans and the water in which they have cooked. Now throw the whole mess about in the pot, and with a wooden spoon blend it all together. Keep it all warm, but only warm; don’t let it burn.

Now to the frying pan and the meat. Heat olive oil in the frying pan – quite a lot of oil, don’t be a miser. But don’t go crazy with the oil, either. How much? Let’s say half a cup of olive oil. Fry the chopped-up brown onion in the oil, but don’t burn it, by any means. Now add the minced beef or lamb – whatever you have settled for. Don’t let the meat form into clumps. Use a knife or a cleaver in a continual stabbing motion to break up the minced meat. You want small fragments of mince; the smaller the better. Add salt and ground black pepper, still using the knife or cleaver to break the meat into fragments. Add all of the spices once the meat is browned, blending them in. Now add the tomatoes, which will look like a paste, blending it all together. Finally add two cups of tepid water; maybe two-and-a-half cups, blend it all once more. Put a cover over the frying pan and let the meat sauce simmer for ten minutes, then remove the lid and turn off the heat.

Now the
chakah
– the yoghurt sauce. This is simple. Add the yoghurt, the dried mint broken into fragments, the chilli pepper, and maybe two spoonfuls of ground coriander – small spoons, like teaspoons. Toss the noodles and
chakah
ingredients until they are nicely mixed.