When Iran meets Italy

Recently a friend invited me over for a Persian spaghetti dinner but what he made was like no American spaghetti I’ve ever had. The preparation took a while but I would say it was entirely worth the wait. When I arrived he had ground beef and onions sauteing in a pan which smelled wonderful. Once the meat was browned, tomato paste and water were left to simmer. To be honest, I was quite impressed to see a man make a spaghetti sauce from scratch, his mother must have taught him well. I thought about bringing a can of storebought spaghetti sauce from my pantry just in case we needed more. I was glad I didn’t because there was nothing storebought about this meal, and would have been basically an insult to the culture.

Then, he threw into the sauce diced mushrooms and carrots. The real magic happened when the spices were added! Turmeric, black pepper, salt, and curry powder. These spices are rather exotic compared to my mother’s spaghetti that consists of garlic, basil, and parsley as the main seasonings. The fragrance filling the air made me feel as if I was actually in Iran experiencing this moment.

The dish started to come together when he added thinly sliced potatoes to a pot with oil where the bottoms started to fry. As if the spices didn’t activate my senses, now fried potatoes were added to the aroma! This is the part that completely threw me off, he added a layer of cooked spaghetti pasta to the pot of potatoes. Then, alternated between layers of meat sauce and pasta until the pot was full. After cooking for a while the dish was complete. My first bite was full of so much flavor! The sliced fried potatoes perfectly complemented the pasta. I was expecting the curry powder to overpower the taste but it didn’t and it blended well with the turmeric leaving a comforting impression. Lastly, my friend offered ketchup to put on the spaghetti. My first thought was this ketchup is going to destroy all the hard work put into this dish, but it actually enhanced the flavor and I’m not typically a ketchup person. This was a truly authentic experience and I highly recommend others to try this dish.

I was curious to see how others prepared Persian spaghetti so I watched a YouTube cooking channel by Aashpazi.com. The Ashapazi recipe was fairly similar with the exception of minor ingredients and presentation style. As well as reviewing other recipes, I have concluded that the fried potato crust (tahdig) is the heart of this meal and is what makes it so unique. Check out the pictures from my Persian spaghetti and the food channel to see how they compare!