Don’t you love Friday lunches? Me and the guys (and girl) at the office desperately do, as, with the working week almost over, we feel like we are owed something for having survived. So we usually indulge with some sort of guilty treat and more than likely finish up by buying some macarons from Lindt; or if we are feeling extra depressed, ice cream may be in order. For some reason, the burden of choice is usually on me, though the team is full of foodies, and I have to struggle to continuously find somewhere new and interesting for the guys to try out. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been dreaming about going to Mamak. To make things worse, I’ve been there several times, only to be met by a long queue of thirty or so hungry zombies with the same culinary affliction I have. I would have waited, but those who I convince to come with me to Mamak always decide that they would rather not wait. They’ve never been there before, so they don’t know what they’re missing, and as such, no amount of pleading would give them sufficient reason to queue up, take a chance and try the food.

Mamak is a Malaysian restaurant on Goulburn Street in Sydney’s Chinatown . They specialise in roti: flat, layered, buttery breads served with simple curry sauce for dipping. The prices are ridiculously cheap, with a basic roti at $5, but the food is awesome. I’ve become really intrigued by Malaysian food because of the many influences it demonstrates, but in particular, I’m very interested in the Arab and Persian influence on Malaysian cuisine. I won’t go to too much detail here, as my Malaysian friends would scream if I told them that laksa was originally Persian.

Not that ayam berempah is Persian or Arab or anything, but still, I want to talk to you about Mamak’s version of this miracle, or, as Google translates it, spicy chicken. This Friday, we got the guys together and left for a very early lunch which helped in beating the queues (but only by a split second). I went all the way with rotis and shared three different types with Priscila, but Erikson went for the ayam berempah, and when that arrived, I started drooling. The smell was intoxicating and the chicken looked unbelievable! Mamak’s ayam berempah is a plate of glorious, crunchy, super-spiced chicken, fried on the bone and served with more whole spices: cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and star anise. With one bite, I knew I had to make this dish.

Without harping on, this is my first attempt, using my memory from what I had yesterday and combining it with the hundred or so recipes I’ve seen online. One tip I want to give you: use chicken marylands (thigh and drumstick) cut into bite sized pieces with the bone attached, because it will retain its moisture and the bone will add extra flavour. Also, make sure the skin is on because it crisps up amazingly well, as the cornstarch, egg and spices stick to it. I served this with coconut rice, just as is. If you feel you need more sauce, though not traditional, a splash of soy does wonders. Or if you have sambal, go for it!

Ayam Berempah – Malay Spicy Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 Kilo chicken marylands cuts into bite sized pieces on the bone
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 cm square of fresh ginger, crushed
• 5 shallots, crushed
• 2 heaped tbsp corn starch
• 5 or so whole star anise
• 10 whole cardamom pods, slightly bruised
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 5 cloves
• 3 tsp cumin seeds, roasted and crushed
• 2 tsp coriander seeds, roasted and crushed
• 2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tsp chilli powder (or as spicy as you like it)
• 1.5 tbsp salt
• 5 tbsp coconut milk
• 1 egg

Method

Mix, marinate then deep or shallow fry.

I have a love hate relationship with Sydney. I often consider the series of events that lead me to live in the city that is possibly the furthest away from Lebanon; a city where I don’t know my neighbours; a city where it seems that all I do is work; a city where you are fighting astronomical odds to have a chance encounter with an old friend. To a visitor, after seeing the Opera House and The Harbour Bridge, one is left to ponder what to do next. There is little excitement about being here. Let’s face it. Sydney can be boring. That’s why many restaurants in the CBD do not operate on weekends. No one wants to be here unless it’s for work. But every once in a while, Sydney throws a day like this at you: sunny, warm, clear and invigorating. Yesterday was one of these days (and today is even better), and on those days, I LOVE Sydney. I took a lunch time stroll to the Royal Botanical Gardens and happy snapped away. This is my first real outing with my new camera and I’ve never taken nature and wildlife photos before. What do you think of my photographic prowess?

Pork. Has there ever been a kind of meat more versatile? Has there ever been a kind of meat that has been the subject of this much godly wrath? No. There hasn’t. Let me start by declaring my love for pork. Pigs are wonderful animals; apart from making great pets, and having loads of character, they are the symbol for nose to tail eating. Every part of the pig can be used in some delicious, mouth-watering way, including, well, a pig’s nose and tail. The meat is delicious, the bones make fantastic stock (and ramen!), the skins makes a cracking crackle, the fat affords itself to unbelievable roast potatoes, the blood makes bloody great black puddings, the offal is stuffed into sausages and terrines, the trotters walk with pride into any soup; and perhaps the greatest ingredient in the world, jamon iberico (Iberian ham) de bellota would not exist without the pig. I love pork. I truly do. But here’s the thing: in reality, I’ve only really started eating pork when I came to Australia. Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone! Here’s why I’ve missed out on 20 years of porky delights.

Consider the map of Lebanon above, surrounded by the azure waters of the Mediterranean. Though feuding nations, the major religions of Lebanon’s two neighbours – Syria and Israel/Palestine (what’s the PC term?) – seem to agree on one thing: No Pork. Lebanon itself is a country that is around half Muslim, so fresh pork is never seen in the supermarket or at the butchers. Back when I was growing up, the only pork products one could get was stock standard ham and mortadella. At least, that’s what my father used to buy. The closest thing to fresh pork that I had tried was a wild boar that our friend and neighbour Mohammad killed on a hunting trip. Mohammad, as the name suggests, wouldn’t eat the wild boar, so he gave it to dad, his best friend. Dad got a Christian butcher to cut the pig up, and we invited the whole family over for a barbeque and a feast. It was awesome; the freshest of charcoaled, moist, full-flavoured free range meat – an experience to remember even 15 years later.

Cooking pork is not something I do too often, as I try to watch the waistline (expand). The tastiest bits of the pork are the fatty meats and the skin. When roasted for 6 hours, this pork shoulder becomes fork tender, flaky and just falls apart. You simply want to gnaw into it, crunching into the crisp crackling, sucking on the fatty under layer and shredding into the meat – but I did one better. When added to the fillings of a shawarma, our awesome roast pork makes a fine substitute for lamb. Lainy even thinks it makes a better shawarma than lamb does. Imagine the soft meat, the glass-like shattering crackle, the fattiness, all mixed in with creamy, lemony tahini, parsley, mint, sumac rubbed onions, pickles and a final punch of chilli. It doesn’t get much better. Try it. You’ll find you can’t stop till you’ve completely pigged out!

Six Hour Roast Pork Shawarma Recipe

I roasted my pork shoulder the Jamie Oliver way. It’s sooo good. Check out his recipe here. It’s worth mentioning that using a bread knife makes scoring the pork skin much more easy, if your butcher doesn’t do it for you. I have a bit of a lazy butcher.

Make the tarator by mixing crushed garlic with lemon juice, tahini, salt and water. It needs to be thick but not too thick. Try to balance out the flavours depending on your brand of tahini. Use a Lebanese tahini as we make the best in the world, of course. Get some Lebanese bread, add some onions that are rubbed with sumac (here sumac is optional), chopped parsley, chopped mint (not traditional but I love it with pork), the tarator sauce, the shredded pork, some crackling, pickled chillis and pickled gherkins or cucumbers. Ready, set, destroy!

Very few moments in life are impossible to describe. As emotions that are never before experienced start permeating our being, we stretch and reach for words to explain those torrential feelings, but the vocabulary fails, its limits falling too short, and we are left with a sweeping joy that is only ours to enjoy, only ours to understand. On Sunday the 18th of July, I was granted one of those moments and my heart, full of bliss, grew to unfathomable proportions; my daughter Sara Isabelle was born and went straight into her mother’s arms. All the love I had ability to hold within me multiplied ten-fold, repeatedly. In the fortnight that has passed, my euphoria has changed like burning coals, starting off fiery and unruly then moving on to becoming more focused and concentrated, burning with greater intensity to never extinguish. I’m not sure if there is any greater recipe for happiness than that of becoming a father to this blue-eyed girl.

I’m sure it’s not just myself who feels that life these days is more rushed than it has ever been. With everything available at a whim, we have re-programmed our brains into believing that everything should and can be achieved immediately. We have little sense of patience and are constantly increasing the pace of our day to day lives. My little baby is now 10 days over due, and the doctor is advising us to get her out. He is basing this “over due” date on an average of when most women give birth, but not on the current health of mom and baby. We were being rushed to induce on Wednesday, but the hospital was booked, so he booked us in for Saturday. Does this sound strange to you? What’s the logic behind that? And what was his sense of urgency to artificially bring on labour on Wednesday when he is so easily willing to wait till Saturday? In my opinion, and from what we’ve discussed with the midwives, 14 days from that fictional due date is an acceptable waiting period. This will give little Sara till Tuesday to get her act together and come out. So if both mom and baby are doing well for now, what’s the rush in getting her out immediately?

My friend’s baby was 14 days overdue, and according to him, babies are better over cooked than under cooked. Other things that are sometimes better over cooked are vegetables. These days, I feel we have a tendency to under cook them; rushing them; asking them to come out before they are done. There’s no denying that in stir-fries, under cooked is best, but with Mediterranean cooking, often, over cooked is even better. Take for example these Italian flat beans that I braised in white wine, butter and vegetable stock. It took them around an hour to cook, but once done, they had absorbed all that white wine and the braise was enriched with the creaminess of the butter. The beans pods were delicious, but the real stars were the seeds that became as soft as bone marrow and beautifully carried the flavours of the garlic, onion as well as the braise. Something this delicious would not be achievable in half the time, would it? I wish we could all have some more patience and maybe we can appreciate and accept that certain things take longer to develop.

Flat Beans Braised in White Wine and Butter Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 kilo flat Italian beans with both ends removed
• 4 crushed garlic cloves
• 2 large onions, diced or sliced or quartered
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp butter
• 2 cups white wine
• 2 cups of vegetable stock or water
• salt and pepper to taste

Method

• In a lidded pot that fits all the ingredients fry the garlic and onions gently in olive oil without colouring them
• Add the wine, ramp up the heat and boil for 10 minutes
• Add the stock and the beans along with some salt
• Cover and cook for 45 minutes
• Add the butter
• Cover and cook for a further 15 minutes until the beans are extremely tender
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Eat cold or hot and served with a wedge of lemon

In case you are wondering, yes, these greens in the picture are indeed garden weeds and not micro-herbs; I don’t have easy access to micro-herbs and thought these guys are small enough to do the trick. They look pretty though, do you agree? And another thing, I know this is not a mille-feuille, but let me have this one, please…

I’ve been obsessing about this dessert for around a fortnight now. I came up with the idea in a moment of brilliance (or insanity, call it what you may) and have been dying to make it. For my non-Lebanese readers, a little explanation is needed so that you get a full appreciation of the idea behind the dessert. One of the most, if not the most popular breakfast in Lebanon is a labneh roll. Lebanese bread or saj bread (paper thin bread cooked on an inverted wok, sold in Australia as mountain bread) is slathered with snow-white salted labneh, drizzled with olive oil and rolled up with one or more vegetables and herbs such as mint, cucumbers, tomatoes or olives. Labneh is a cream cheese (yes it is a cheese) made from removing the whey from yoghurt, resulting in a rich, smooth spread. The breakfast roll is salty, savoury and creamy but also light and fresh, a true representative of Mediterranean cuisine with its lavish use of olive oil, dairy, bread and fresh vegetables and herbs.

This superb, yet everyday sort of breakfast was the inspiration for a creamy yet fresh dessert. The labneh is mixed with some whipped cream to give a lighter consistency, and then sweetened with icing sugar. Then, rectangles of saj bread are brushed with butter and crisped up in a pan, with some pressure applied on top to keep them straight. The saj and labneh “mille-feuille” is constructed on a plate drizzled with olive oil butterscotch, then served with a mint leaf tempura; and there you have it: labneh and saj bread with mint and olive oil! An experienced pastry chef could have turned out something a bit more professional looking, but I had to make do with my crooked design skills. And I also wanted to make a tomato jam to go with it but I couldn’t be bothered, so please imagine that it’s there too.  See how the beautifully reddish orange hue of the tomato jam contrasts with the white?

Now unfortunately, I didn’t take note of measurements when I made this as it was just an experiment, but it was not hard to do once the concept was there. I have to admit though, the dessert exceeded all my expectations. The buttery richness of the labneh and cream is complemented by its sweetness and then offset by the yoghurt’s acidity. That’s why it’s important to use Greek style yoghurt labneh (and not that European style stuff). Then, the crispness and delicate saltiness of the saj bread intertwines with that creaminess, and the multiple layers create a textural explosion that is quite out of this world. The olive oil butterscotch added an extra layer of flavour, and the mint tempura is more a visual and textural addition than one of flavour; it’s just a bit of fun really. It may be worth noting that I made my own unsalted labneh using Meredith sheep’s yoghurt, which is more delicious as a labneh than it is as yoghurt. Sheep’s yoghurt has a sensational mouth-feel due to the high fat content and in my opinion makes a far superior labneh than cow’s yoghurt.

Saj Bread, Labneh, Olive Oil and Mint Mille-feuille Recipe

Now, being an IT guy, and seeing I didn’t really write down the measurements, here’s an “algorithm” as to how to make this dessert:

• Buy or make your own labneh. Make sure it’s low salt. Making labneh is easy: strain Greek style yoghurt through muslin or on layers of paper towel, changing the paper towels when they are fully soaked. The result should be the consistency of cream cheese
• Cut rectangles from saj bread (sold as mountain bread in Australia)
• Brush bread with butter and crisp up in a pan on both sides. Press them down to keep them flat as they crisp up
• Make the olive oil butterscotch by caramelising some sugar and olive oil and then emulsifying them with cream… Easy?
• Whip up some cream until semi-firm peaks form and then mix with the labneh and some icing sugar. Adjust the sugar to taste. Don’t use too much cream or the labneh flavour will be lost. Maybe a 60% labneh, 40% cream.
• Assemble as per the photo: drizzle the butterscotch, layer the mille-feuille with bread and labneh
• Cover a mint leaf with tempura batter and fry until crisp and put on the side

One of the things I love most of all about Lebanese food, and Mediterranean food in general, is the stunning array of options when it comes to vegetarian dishes. What is beautiful about these dishes is that they are whole heartedly vegetarian, and not simply meat containing dishes with the meat taken out. The vegetable itself is the star of the show, and its flavour and texture are celebrated, matched with anything from olive oil to garlic, onions, spices, vinegars or wines in order to create something wonderful in its simplicity while being absolutely delicious.

Recently, I treated myself to a copy of MoVida Rustica, a book on Spanish food that has quickly become one of my favourite books of all times. Written by Frank Camora from Melbourne’s phenomenal MoVida (see my 2009 review of MoVida Next Door here), the book is a treasure trove  of photography, stories and recipes. One of the book’s many vegetable centric recipes is one for preserved red capsicums. Now, I love preserves as much as the next person, but I am also one for instant gratification and am all for the immediate enjoyment of the fruits of my labour. I’m sure the flavour of this dish would improve by making it as a preserve, but it’s also so damn good eaten the moment it cools down. Can it get any better than smoky, sweet capsicums drizzled with olive oil, and spiked with vinegar, with nothing but a touch of sea salt flakes to balance it all out? This dish is so easy that the recipe doesn’t need much explaining. Simply roast some red capsicums in an oven at 200c until they are blackened. Put in a plastic bag and let them steam until they are cool enough to handle. Discard the skins, membranes and seeds and mix the flesh with enough olive oil and malt vinegar (I used balsamic vinegar) and sprinkle some sea salt flakes on top. Enjoy with some bread and a glass of vino.

Learn more about SIFF and the World Chef Showcase here

Last year, the Sydney International Food Festival’s World Chef Showcase was one hell of a treat. Inspiring figures of the world’s culinary scene gathered in our beautiful city and spoke about the one thing that really unites the world: food. I had the opportunity to attend the World Chef Showcase and was mesmerised by what I heard and saw. The event brought in chefs from both Australia and the international scene to present their ideologies, methods and cuisines, and the focus was mainly on Asian food. This year, Joanna Savill has my heart fluttering as the World Chef Showcase 2010 is featuring luminaries from the Middle Eastern food world. Apart from Melbourne’s Greg Malouf and Abla Amad, three (well, 2.5) of my fellow Lebanese compatriots are flying in from Lebanon and England to share their experience with us. I thought I’d give you a bit of background on those who will be coming and it is my hope that anyone who is interested in Levantine food will attend the World Chef Showcase and hear what these wonderful people have to say. And hopefully, Sydney’s Middle Eastern scene would take the opportunity to learn and benefit.

Anissa Helou

Born to a Syrian father and a Lebanese mother (hence the 2.5 Lebanese presenters), Anissa Helou’s eclectic life saw her moving to London at the age of 21 where she became Sotheby’s representative to the Middle East. Later, during a stint in Kuwait, she became an arts adviser to the Kuwaiti ruling family. Anissa’s interest and knowledge in art seemed matched by her passion for food from the Levant.  In 2007, Anissa published her sixth cook book, Savory Baking from the Mediterranean, and has recently opened a cooking school where she shares her knowledge on the culinary traditions of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. She is also a formidable food blogger, and on of her most recent foodie adventures took her to Al Ain, near Abu Dhabi, where she was faced with the possibility of eating camel hump. At SIFF, Anissa will be showing us some tasty desserts.
web: http://www.anissas.com

Kamal Mouzawak

The founder of Souk el Tayeb, Lebanon’s first farmer’s market, Kamal Mouzawak is simultaneously a force for change and a guardian of Lebanese tradition. Lifting the image of a farmer to be viewed as an artisanal producer is not an easy task in a classist society, but Kamal’s vision is doing just that. His passion for Lebanese farmers, Lebanese produce and Lebanese food is evident in the quality and freshness of the food sold weekly in Souk el Tayeb where farmers and producers have the opportunity to sell their fantastic produce to the Lebanese public. His work is also helping heal the wounds that the various factions have inflicted upon the Lebanese people. In his own words “in a country as divided as Lebanon, nothing can bring people together as much as the land and food.”His restaurant, Tawlet Souk el Tayeb (or the table of the Souk) is driven by an innovative concept where every day, a different producer or chef prepares typical food from their region using produce for the souk itself. Kamal is also, naturally, a strong advocate of the Slow Food movement. He will be working with Abla Amad from Melbourne’s famous restaurant Abla’s to prepare some classic Lebanese sweets.
web: http://www.soukeltayeb.com

Joe Barza

A neighbour of mine from the city of Tyre, Joe’s refined and imaginative approach to Lebanese food has marked him as one of the hottest chefs in the region. Joe has represented his country in many international events and his skill and ability have garnered widespread attention, with his food recently showcased in the New York Times (a double mention of Kamal and Joe can be found here). Joe’s food seems to show restrained yet fluent innovation in his interpretation of the region’s food, as his creations look to the future while respecting and understanding tradition. He will be joining Kamal on the second day of the festival where they will be cooking up a storm together.

Learn more about SIFF and the World Chef Showcase here: http://siff.com.au/cmspage.php?intid=127&linkid=125

As I was growing up in Lebanon, there were times when produce was hard to come by. The war created a siege around the country and shops didn’t always have stock. Bakeries would open a few times a month and hundreds of people would line up to get bread. Dad would take my oldest brothers with him to buy bread as there was a quota of 2 or 3 bags per person. We would also receive bags of flour, rice; legumes, oil, powdered milk, sugar, canned beef, etc, as form of national aid, or i’ashet. Power would go out for months on end as the fighting worsened, and even TV was a luxury. Once, my brother Fady and I were watching “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” on tape, and the power went off. The cassette player didn’t work on generator power because it was an old, power hungry machine. And so, six months went by: school finished, summer came, we played, read books, fought and reconciled, and then school started again; and then one day, out of the blue, the power comes back and what’s the first thing Fady and I do? Finish the last 10 minutes of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”, of course.

You can imagine, when there’s hardly any fresh produce, things can get a bit less than imaginative in the kitchen. But imagination was never an issue in the Kassab family. When my siblings and I would ask dad to buy us cornflakes, he’d say, “Cornflakes? Just toast some Lebanese bread and mix it with milk”. Or when we asked for some donuts, he’d say “Donuts? Have mom make you some oowamat (Lebanese yoghurt fritters), or zlebiyeh”. I love dad. Pretty good solutions when his kids were being unrealistic in their demands. And guess what, we proceeded to have our Lebanese bread cornflakes and our oowamat donuts, enjoyed them and life went on.

Oowamat and zlebiyeh are two forms of fried dough, which in fact, and I admit this now, makes them very similar to donuts. What was good about them is that with the limited amount of items in the cupboard one could still make a decent dessert. Oowamat are made by mixing yoghurt, flour and yeast, waiting for the dough to rise, then deep frying them into beautiful round balls that are then dipped in sugar syrup. They are meant to be light and airy, but with a glassy crisp exterior. The sweetness comes solely from the sugar syrup and melds with the acidity of the dough and creates a tasty harmony. The sourness of the yoghurt makes the dough more like sourdough bread, but luckily, you don’t need three days to make these. It should take around 1 to 3 hours depending on the temperature for the dough to rise. You can make oowamat the traditional way, in small round balls around 3 cm in diameter by piping them straight into the hot oil; or, like me, you can have a bit of fun and make a free form fritter which I find makes for more crunchy “donuts” as it increases the surface area the dough has in contact with the oil. Oh, and by the way, I used agave syrup instead of sugar syrup, but you can use a medium consistency simple sugar syrup that can soak in as well as having a nice stickiness that clings to the outside shell.

Oowamat Recipe/Lebanese Yoghurt Fritters

Ingredients

• 2 cups plain white flour
• 2 cups Greek or Lebanese yoghurt (not that creamy European stuff that has no acidity)
• 1 tsp yeast
• Oil – enough to deep fry
• Agave syrup or simple sugar syrup of medium thickness
• Pine nuts to sprinkle on top

Method

• Mix the flour, yoghurt and yeast together and knead for a minute. The dough should be sticky but needs to be holding together
• Wait for the dough to rise and double in size
• Deep fry the dough in any shape you want and remove when golden red in colour
• Soak in sugar syrup or agave for a minute and devour hot

Join me and three of Sydney’s coolest food bloggers in a scary and thrilling experiment to see if we can stand the heat of a commercial kitchen. As part of the Merivale’s ‘A Feast for the Senses’ events, Linda, Karen, Billy and I will be putting our skills to the test and getting behind the burners to cook up a storm for anyone who dares risk their lives. So, on Wednesday the 28th of July, Bistro CBD’s kitchen will be invaded by some of Australia’s top amateur chefs (wink wink  Masterchef) trying to feed seventy discerning diners a five course meal. We will each be cooking one of the courses, with a fifth course prepared by Simun Dragicevich, Bistro CBD’s head chef. All this and a glass of sparkling are for a measly $60pp. Call now to see if there is any availability. We believe the event has already booked out, but regardless, you might be able to go on a waiting list, so book now or forever hold your peas.

My fellow friends and food bloggers who will be cooking with me are:

Karen from Citrus and Candy – www.citrusandcandy.com
Linda from Eat Show and Tell – www.eatshowandtell.com
Billy from A Table for Two – www.atablefortwo.com.au

See our event and other Merivale winter events by clicking here.

Event Details

Wednesday 28th July, 6.30pm
5 courses including a glass of sparkling, $60pp
Bistro CBD, level 1, 52 King Street, Sydney
Call 9240 3000 to book

The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a trial for me. Lainy is due to have our first baby in under ten days now, and I have stupidly over committed on many a demanding project. Plus, there’s the world cup. Sydney is in an unlucky situation yet again where the matches are held at midnight or after, which means I am partially sleep deprived. I guess that’s good because I will become fully sleep deprived when the baby comes, so maybe I should consider this as practice.

One of the projects I am working on is on a vein similar to my harebrained secret dinner, which means I have been brainstorming concepts for a Lebanese influenced dish that is simultaneously easy to cook for 70 people, tastes phenomenal, and manages not to look like a piece of shish tawook with garlic sauce and tabbouli. In the process, I’ve probably sketched around 10 dishes, imagined 20 more and attempted to cook half of those. It is only when you go through this process that you gain an appreciation for what chefs go through to come up with something original and exciting. One of the dishes I dreamt up is a slow cooked beef shin with green wheat (called freek) and muhammara. Delicious, but ugly as sin. Maybe one day I will figure out how to make that dish look good and The Food Blog will showcase it, but for now, I just want to share the recipe for the muhammara.

I don’t recall eating muhammara as a child. Maybe because my parents are from the South or maybe it’s because I grew up in Jbeil, but muhammara was never on the menu. According to Wikipedia, it’s a Syrian dip, and Wikipedia never lies, right? On my last trip however, Syrian troops had left Lebanon, and maybe Lebanon was again free to celebrate the food traditions of its neighbours, or maybe I was at the right place at the right time… but I ended up in this restaurant up North with friends, and friends of friends, sitting opposite to this very Lebanese guy with a thin moustache who all of a sudden started lecturing me on chicken livers, and saying something about how before chicken liver reaches The Gate (pointing to his mouth) it needs to pass by The Two Customs Officers (pointing to his nostrils). I’d love to tell you the story in person as I can never express the hilarity of the situation in writing. But to move on, the restaurant was serving muhammara with grilled meat skewers and I got a taste for this delicious dip. Capsicums are roasted on an open flame and then blended with walnuts, toasted bread, pomegranate molasses, garlic, sugar and lemon juice. The lot is spiked with chilli and then emulsified with olive oil. In a way, it’s a sort of Middle Eastern pesto, only hotter and more complex in flavour. It’s all together charred, sweet, rich, spicy and sharp, and goes well on its own with bread or with any form of grilled meat or firm fish. I’m sharing Greg Malouf’s recipe from his awesome book Saha. Try it and it will become a staple, but make sure it passes by the customs officers.

Muhammara Recipe – Adapted from Greg Malouf’s Saha

Ingredients

• 3 large red capsicums
• 1 red bullet chilli, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed with 1 teaspoon of salt
• 125 shelled walnuts
• 1/3 cup lightly toasted fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
• juice of ½ lemon-1 lemon (depends on size and taste)
• 1 tablespoon hot water
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

Method

1- Char the capsicums on an open flame, turning until blackened thoroughly
2- Put the capsicums in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. This steams the capsicums and helps them continue cooking and softening
3- When cool enough to handle, remove the charred exterior with your hand. Don’t rinse because that removes the nice smoky flavour. Take the seeds out and put the flesh in a blender or food processor
4- Add all other ingredients except the olive oil
5- Blend into a paste and then add the oil in a thin stream until the paste is thick and creamy
6- Taste and adjust ingredients if you have to
7- Allow to cool before serving

Lebanese bread, also known as Arabic bread, or as the locals pronounce it, kh’GHtfHz, is a remarkable product. It is said that early man was given the recipe for Lebanese bread by divine intervention. When Adam was exiled from paradise, he wandered in the Arabian desert for fourty days. At the end, he reached a green, fertile land where he had free access to an abundance of foods. Berries, nuts, seeds, root vegetables and greens dominated the scenery and food stuffs such as vine leaves were successful as clothing as well as being a perfect wrapping sheet for Eve’s famous dolmades. One night, as he pondered the events leading up to his exile over a plate of hummous, feeling helpless and alone, Adam cried a single tear. His tear fell on an ant that looked up to see what befell it and saw the source of the tear. The ant took pity on Adam, sitting there, all alone, with no cutlery. She pleaded to God and asked that Adam be given some source of cheer and happiness. And out of thin air, a bag of bread appeareth before Adam and he henceforth ate hummous with bread for the rest of his days.

This story is passed down through an oral tradition by the Bedouin tribes of Lebanon, where the direct descendants of Adam still eat hummous with Lebanese bread to this day. But, do you, dear reader, know how to eat with Lebanese bread? Well, let me tell you how, and hopefully allow you to experience some insight on how the Middle East eats Lebanese bread. This article is part of a series I intend to write about the various forms of eating with Lebanese bread. I wish to begin with the following enigmatic form: The Scoop.

The Scoop

The most common and basic way to eat with Lebanese bread, “The Scoop” is also possibly one of the most obscure and least understood by westerners in terms of structure and uses. If you are eating mezze, seeking assistance from a spoon to put a dollop of baba ghannouj on a piece of Lebanese bread is far too tedious as well as being a sure way of making yourself known as a foreigner. Master “The Scoop” and you are sure to win the heart of the villagers, almost securing yourself a beautiful bride; or if you are a young lady, you will almost certainly earn the right to hand feed the tribe leader’s son. To perfect the art of “The Scoop” you must understand its construction. The idea is to create an edge on one side to “cut” through the dip you are trying to eat, whilst creating fortified edges to ensure the integrity of the structure, much as you would with an underground military tunnel. The following are the steps to follow to achieve perfection, and though they seem tedious, they might save your life if you are ever mistaken for an infidel or a spy, taken hostage and forced to eat with your captors, so make sure you practice before your next visit:

1. A uniform slice of Lebanese bread is held securely between the thumb and index of your left hand, with enough bread protruding on the three sides of your thumb.

2. Then with your right hand, you fold the middle flap over your thumb’s fingernail. Your right thumb should keep this flap secure and under observation

3. Fold the left flap over the middle flap and secure both with your right hand’s index finger. The edge of the left flap should be at a slight angle

4. Fold the right flap over the middle flap in such a way that the two meet at the edge and create a point that allows you to hold the scoop. Be careful not to reverse steps 3 and 4 as you might offend your host. The left flap is always folded first

5. Assuming you’ve survived step 4 and your host is content, use “The Scoop” to literally scoop your dip of choice. Enjoy, without smiling too much.

moghrabieh with black pudding, star anise poached chicken and a gewürztraminer reduction

A recent article I’ve read in the New York Times discussed the phenomenon of upholding tradition when it comes to Lebanese food. With the exception of a minority, Lebanese chefs, whether those in Lebanon or who are part of the Lebanese diaspora, focus on producing high quality, authentic Lebanese food. Restaurants seem to set themselves apart not by innovation but rather by the quality of the beloved staples of the cuisine. There is nothing to criticise about a nation who takes pride in its national cuisine, and where traditional food is held in high esteem, but it would be refreshing to see some imagination and flair in the Lebanese food scene. The omnipresent purist approach may be the result of many contributing factors, the greatest of which, to my eyes, seems to be a lack of education in the global food scene. I’ll give you an example, but please don’t judge us too harshly. On a recent trip to Lebanon, a childhood friend was opening a sushi restaurant. When I was told about this, I was quite impressed, and I asked how much it cost to hire a Japanese sushi master in Lebanon. I imagined it wouldn’t be cheap as I knew that it would probably take a Japanese sushi apprentice decades before they are considered a true sushi chef. My friend replied by saying that to hire Japanese staff was expensive and that the staff were actually Korean. Apparently, Koreans were hired because they were cheaper and, wait for it, “because they looked right”. This wasn’t a racist comment. Don’t get me wrong, we are a racist bunch, but this comment was simply an indication of the low level of knowledge the Lebanese posses when it comes to Asian cuisine.

Perhaps one of the greatest influences global gastronomy has experienced is the effect of Asian food, especially at the fine dining end of the market. Chinese and Japanese cuisines have greatly changed not only food aesthetics, but have introduced new ingredients and techniques that have crept into Western cuisines. You can clearly see the effect of Asian food on modern Australian, Spanish, American and French cuisines. Unfortunately, the Lebanese posses little insight into foreign food cultures. During the war years, Asia seemed too far, and though at our doorstep, Europe seemed even further. So Lebanese gastronomy stayed in a quasi-freezer state, and our sense of imagination became dull. Though the Lebanese enthusiasm for global cuisine has started to take over the country, there is still a long way to go, and I feel that without a big effort on behalf of the chefs to educate themselves, Lebanese fine dining will never be world class. Hummous will be hummous and waiters will always stack up dirty plates right there on the table.

Following this rant, I feel like giving out a recipe for a modern Lebanese creation of mine. I cooked this dish in my first ever secret dinner, and the photo was taken in low light, so apologies on the poor quality of the photo. This is a play on a well-loved dish called moghrabieh, but with a few different ingredients and techniques. Moghrabieh refers to dry, round pellets of pasta that got to Lebanon from North Africa. There’s a North African couscous called berkouke which is the size of a chickpea. Berkouke is better suited for travel than small grain couscous as it is less prone to spoiling, and it is highly probable that it was introduced to the Lebanese by North African pilgrims on their way to Mecca. My version of this dish gently poaches chicken in a stock flavoured with star anise. The stock is then reduced with gewürztraminer, a wine that I feel has the perfect flavour profile in that it is fragrant, slightly sweet, and low acid. The reduction is then monté au beurre, and flavoured with caraway, the traditional spice used for moghrabieh. I’ve used some black pudding to replace lamb, and it works beautifully. The boiled pasta is then mixed with chickpeas, caramelised confit onions, pan-fried black pudding and the chicken, and finished off with a glazing of the stock/wine reduction. It is sensational, if I may say so myself. If this dish ends up on restaurant menus, email me and let me know. I will be a very happy man.

Moghrabieh Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 small whole chicken
• 3 chicken carcasses
• 2 chopped carrots
• 1 chopped celery stick
• 1 chopped onion
• 10 baby onions
• 1 cup chickpeas, soaked overnight
• 1 black pudding
• 1.5 cup dry moghrabieh pasta
• 1 bottle of gewürztraminer wine
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 4 star anise pods
• 2 teaspoons caraway
• Salt, to taste

Method

1. Begin by peeling the onions. Then you can confit them by slowly cooking them in oil on low heat and then caramelising them in a pan, or deep frying them until deeply caramelised.
2. Boil the chickpeas until done, but not too soft.
3. Put the chicken, the carcasses, the star anise, the carrots, the chopped onions and the celery in a big pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and simmer until the chicken is done, skimming any froth. Leave the chicken in until it is cool enough to handle. This will infuse the flesh with the flavour of the star anise.
4. Take the chicken out and then strain the stock in muslin to remove any impurities. Discard the carcasses and the veggies. In a sauce pan, add the bottle of gewürztraminer to the stock and reduce until there is around 1/2 cup of liquid left. It should be nice and thick. I don’t thicken my sauces with flour and prefer to reduce my sauces. Add the butter off the heat, and swirl your saucepan to incorporate the butter. The liquid becomes thicker and glossier. Add the caraway, taste and add salt if necessary. Make sure you don’t add any salt until now as the saltiness intensifies as stock is reduced. Always add salt at the end when reducing a liquid.
5. While the stock is reducing, boil your pasta in plenty of salted water and when cooked, put the chickpeas in there to heat them up. Drain thoroughly and keep dry and warm.
6. Pan-fry discs of black pudding until nicely coloured. Cut the chicken into nice pieces.
7. Ensure all your ingredients are hot. Mix the pasta and chickpeas with some stock reduction. Top with the chicken, black pudding and confit onions and drizzle with some more stock reduction. Sahtein.

Hot bread. Rarely does a food so simple entice us so intensely. The aroma calls and senses heighten. Minds swoon and mouths water. Golden brown. Crisp. Sweet. Soft. Savoury. The promise of that first bite entrances as thoughts collapse into a singular primal urge. Stomachs rumble. Our intelligence is suspended. An instance passes. The bread, devoured.

After my sense evoking bit of prose above (thank you, thank you), I’d like to dedicate this blog entry to the gloriously humble subject of Lebanese bread. For thousands of years, the art and craft of Lebanese flat bread making was shrouded in mystery. But when scientists discovered the Middle-East late in the 18th century, they were dumbfounded to see the locals filling a flat round disc with spreads and meats and using it to hold and consume their food. After close inspection, it was found that the disc was indeed, bread. This bread, however, was quite different to European bread in that it would not fit into a toaster. In fact, if this bread were to be sliced, it would loose all food holding ability and become totally useless. So, for years, science lost all interest in flat bread, and its practice remained restricted to the ritualistic baking sessions of the local tribes. But slowly, as with all things good, the potential of flat bread became apparent, and the western world took to it like ducks to water. This was a natural progression, as there is only so much filling you can put between two slices of toast.

In Australia, flat bread is called Lebanese bread (which is how I will refer to it from here on). Of course, in Lebanon, we simply call it “bread”, much the same as how the Chinese refer to Chinese food as “food”. To disambiguate, we sometimes refer to Lebanese bread as kumaj bread. Kumaj apparently, is a Turkish word for bread that is cooked on charcoal. This sets it apart from out other two popular breads: marquq or saj bread (large, circular and paper thin bread cooked on a convex grill), or tannour bread (cooked in a tandour-like oven). My generation’s encounter with Lebanese bread came after the industrialisation of the bread making process and as such, we’ve never had anything but mass produced Lebanese bread. It is not clear to me which came first. Whether the machines we bought encouraged the creation of this type of bread or whether we lost the traditional bread making process to the machines. The latter seems more probable. In any case, replicating the Lebanese bread making process at home is quite simple and extremely satisfying, as the result is bread with more substance and integrity than that of store bought bread. Seeing the disc puffing up and separating is a visual treat and I urge you to experience it, if only for that.

Lebanese Bread Recipe

adapted from http://www.elook.org/recipes/entree/39624.html

Makes around 8 loaves/discs

Ingredients

• 1 packet dried baker’s yeast
• 1/3 cup water to mix with the yeast, warm but not hot
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 cups plain, white flour
• 1 cup water, warm but not hot
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Activate the yeast by mixing it with the 1/3rd cup of water and the 2 tablespoons of sugar
2. Wait for 10 minutes until the mixture becomes frothy. If it doesn’t become frothy, your yeast has died/expired and you need to buy a fresh packet
3. Meanwhile, sift the 3 cups of flour along with the teaspoon of salt into a bowl
4. Create a well in the middle and add the cup of water and the yeast mixture
5. Mix well and then knead with oomph for 10 minutes
6. Make a ball and with a knife, slice a cross on the surface to loosen the surface tension
7. Cover with a damp, clean cloth and place it in a warm, draft free area. Wait until it doubles in size (depending on the temperature this could be anywhere from 1 to 3 hours)
8. Knock back the dough and divide into 8 balls
9. Place on a lightly floured surface and flatten with a rolling pin until it is around 0.4 to 0.5 cm thick and put aside for 10 to 15 minutes to rise a bit more. The shape should be circular
10. Heat the oven to maximum
11. (Optional) Brush the top of the discs with a bit of milk if you want it to colour deeply.
12. Bake each individual disc one at a time for 5 to 8 minutes until the top has nicely coloured (cooking time depends on the heat of the oven and thickness of the bread)
13. Remove and eat immediately, or when cool store in a plastic bag in order for it to soften

And the Lord spoke to Moses.

No, not really. These are these Ten Commandments of Food Blogging, from the The Gospel Gastronomique by St Fouad the Bewildered. The following are my own personal feelings and opinions on the dos and don’ts of food blogging. Do you share my opinions or are you against them? I’m not claiming to be perfect here, but I think a set of guidlines could be useful. Let me know your thoughts.

1 – I am the Lord your blog; you shall have no other interests before me
The first teaching of the Gospel is perhaps one of the most important. The core message is, however, quite simple. Your blog should be about your most favourite topic. Do not write a blog about something you have little interest in, as your lack of knowledge and enthusiasm will be apparent.

2- You shall not make yourself an idol
Here, the Lord tells us to keep it real. Do not try to be omniscient or omnipotent, and do not think that you’re a deity. Thou art human, and your blog should celebrate your experiences as a human being. So share your successes as well as your failures, and do not take yourself or your blog too seriously.

3- You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your blog
This commandment relates to the subject of comments. Do not comment on someone else’s blog just to get a link back to your blog and don’t write idiotic comments. Your comments should be constructive and honest. Do not say “Oh that looks so good, I want to eat it” or “Oh, I’m salivating” as these comments seem like a copy and paste job, and they leave the blogger with an empty, hollow feeling. Give thoughtful remarks and ask questions, and expect the same in return. Show the blogger that you have read what they’ve written and give their content its due respect.

4- Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
Every once in a while, take a break from blogging. Go to an expensive restaurant and leave your camera at home. Experience the food like the good chef intended you to. It’s nice to have a meal without a 5 minute photo session delaying each course.

5-Honour your father and mother
Here, your father and mother symbolise your heritage and past experiences. Share your culture and your knowledge because they make you who you are, and who you are is what your blog should be representing. A blog is after all, your online diary and it’s where your story is told.

6- You shall not murder – the English language
Seriously, you don’t need to be Shakespeare to write a blog, but spell checking and proof reading are the least you can do to ensure your writing has no or little errors. It is so much nicer for a reader to be presented with a well written piece of text. Remember, writing is not the same as putting your thoughts on a blog. Thoughts are usually badly composed and chaotic, but a piece of writing should be balanced and well considered. Luckily, writing a blog is meant to be conversational and down to earth, so keep it simple. But remember, your blog is a medium for you to learn and better yourself, and improving your grammar and vocabulary can be easily achieved with the right level of attention.

7- You shall not commit adultery
The Seventh Commandment holds many truths, and should be kept at the forefront of our thoughts whenever we perform any blog related actions. Do not prostitute your blog. The integrity of your blog is of the utmost importance, so do not use your blog to get priority seating, free meals or to gain access to unrelated events. Using your blog to get free stuff means that you will inevitably owe something to someone, and that jeopardises the credibility of your writing. People look to bloggers to get an honest point of view, and plugging advertorials on your site to get a $7 burger is not worth the loss of your credibility (neither is a $1000 burger). On the flipside to seeking out freebies, it is ok to accept freebies you did not intentionally and purposely seek. We spend considerable effort writing and maintaining a blog and to get a small reward every once in a while is quite satisfying. But always, always disclose the fact that you did not pay for something you are reviewing. And under no circumstance should you feel obliged to give a glowing review to a mediocre restaurant or product. Simply do not write about something if it’s bad.

8- You shall not steal
This one may cause intense burning in hell if not heeded. Do not steal reviewing ideas from other bloggers. Do not steal content from other bloggers. Do not steal recipes from other bloggers. Do not steal photos from other bloggers. If you have benefited from reading another blogger and your blog entry is the result of an inspiration they have given you, give them the credit they deserve and attribute your work as inspired by them.

9- You shall not bear false witness
The Ninth is one of those open for interpretation, and scholars are in dispute as to the exact meaning. I personally think that it relates to leaving a comment on someone else’s blog where you dishonestly say something nice when deep down you know that the blog entry you just read is wasted time that you will never get back. Be honest instead of just being plain nice. If my recipe is shit and you know it, tell me and maybe I can improve it, or just don’t tell me at all.

10- You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife
Last but not least, the Tenth Commandment is there to remind you to be content with what you have. Do not look at other bloggers and covet their number of visitors, the amount of comments they receive or the freebies they get. Be happy for them and do your personal best for your blog, always focusing on the content. After all, unless I’m wrong, you started blogging to fill in a void. You started blogging because it was a means of self expression. You wanted to say something you cared about. It was never about the numbers, it was always about you. Don’t turn your blog into a full time job. Chances are, you already have another full time job and that’s why you started blogging. Right?

“What the hell is fish sauce?” he wondered as he read a recipe for Thai green curry with chicken. Fouad had only arrived from Lebanon a year before and all these strange ingredients in his shopping list seemed too foreign and dubious. His suspicions with food in Australia began when the chicken shop in Kingswood asked him if he wanted chicken salt with his chips. “What the hell is chicken salt?” was the beginning of a sequence of self-directed questions that mostly referred to unknown food stuffs, and the general structure of these questions became “What the hell is [fill in blank]?”. But on that day, the blank not only got filled with fish sauce, but with galangal, shrimp paste, kaffir lime leaf and Thai basil. None of these ingredients had ever been heard of or encountered in their raw form, and the first time Fouad had ever experienced them was three months prior when his new Australian girlfriend (now eight month pregnant wife with very cute belly) ordered a Thai takeaway. That included a green curry with chicken, curry puffs and chicken skewers with satay sauce, a condiment that Fouad thought was the bees knees and one that could possibly make him a fortune if he bottled it and sold it to his fellow citizens back in Lebanon.

And so, in an effort to impress his girlfriend, Fouad set out to the Woolworths at Penrith (pronounced Penrif), and sought the ingredients for a Thai Green Curry. Not surprisingly, half were not found, and as Fouad cracked open that bottle of fish sauce and took a good sniff, the pungent odor emitted from within turned his stomach. Quickly, a decision was made to halve the amount recommended by the recipe. Needless to say, the result was a disaster, a cheap copy, a doppelganger unworthy of association with the original. And so, in an effort to understand what went wrong, Fouad decided to educate himself in the art of Thai green curry.

The story above is, yes, you guessed it, Book 1 of  “The Adventures of Fouad and Thai Green Curry”. Luckily, eight years since then, I have been able to somewhat understand the various roles of the ingredients that go into a Thai green curry and now, I can safely say that I make a damn fine green curry. Fish sauce is no longer a stomach churning mystery, but rather an aromatic liquid used to add salt and complexity to a dish. Kaffir lime leaves have become one of my favourite ingredients and I use them fresh from my little tree growing on the balcony. They are awesome. My recipe for a Thai green curry is inspired by David Thompson’s bible, Thai Food. I can’t explain how important this book is. If you don’t have it and you like Thai food, you must go out and buy it, right now. Well, maybe after you finish reading this post.

The characteristics of a green curry are quite specific. First, it is a thin curry, which means you add thin coconut milk or chicken stock to the coconut cream. Second, it is green, which means green chillies are used. Third, the sauce need to be cracked, or seperated. That happens when the coconut cream is heated until most of the water evaporates and the coconut cream splits into oil and milk solids. Last, this is a hot and salty curry, not a sweet one, so sugar should not be used, though it is not uncommon to see it used. Confused? Don’t be. Avoid sugar.

Mr Thompson suggests that firm, slightly bitter vegetables work best with this curry. These include bamboo shoots, banana blossom or apple and pea eggplants. The issue I have with these types of recipes is that they ask for small amounts of ingredients that you wouldn’t usually keep at home. That said, they are nowadays easily available in Australia and making the curry from scratch is such a great experience. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Notes:

• For this recipe I couldn’t find galangal at the shops so I used fresh ginger
• I use Megachef fish sauce which is my favourite. You can find it in most supermarkets
• I was not able to find green bullet chillies so I used long green chillies for color and flavour and red bullet chillies for heat
• I didn’t have white peppercorns so I used powdered white pepper instead

David Thompson’s Thai Green Curry with Chicken Recipe (Ripped off then adapted)

Ingredients

Curry Paste

• 3 tablespoons green bird’s eye chillies
• large pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon chopped galangal
• 2 tablespoons chopped lemongrass
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped kaffir lime zest
• 1 tablespoon scraped and chopped coriander root
• 1 teaspoon chopped red tumeric
• 3 tablespoons chopped red shallot
• 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon shrimp paste (I use the one preserved in oil as I find it less pungent)
• 10 white peppercorns, ground
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, roasted and ground
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds, roasted and ground

Curry Ingredients

• 2 cups coconut cream
• 250 grams sliced chicken thigh fillets
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 cups thin coconut milk or chicken stock
• Handful green beans, tipped and cut in half
• Handful Thai basil leaves
• Kaffir lime leaves and 2 long red chillies (cut on a diagonal) for garnish

Method

1. To make the curry paste, in a mortar and pestle grind the ingredients for the paste in order from hardest to softest, ensuring each ingredient is fully pulverised before adding the other
2. Crack the coconut cream in a sauce pan as described above
3. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of the paste (depending on how hot your chillies are) and fry over a medium heat, continuously stirring to prevent the paste from burning
4. Add the chicken and continue to cook until the paste is fragrant
5. Add the fish sauce and the coconut milk or chicken stock
6. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and add beans and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes until the chicken is cooked
7. Garnish with kaffir lime leaves, Thai basil and chillies
8. Serve with rice

Life is moving fast, and its pace has been difficult to keep up with. Early July is when my little baby girl is due to arrive, and instead of the lead up being a peaceful time for me and the Lainz, a spanner gets thrown into the works and life shifts into another direction, quite unexpectedly. Six weeks ago, we were given notice to vacate the premises. The landlord needed to move into the house so we were kicked out. Thus, the frantic search to rent somewhere affordable and decent around Sydney began.

It’s hard to explain the amount of crap there is out there. Dim, filthy, mold-ridden houses smelling of damp dot the Sydney rental landscape, their grease infested kitchens rendered into foul spaces covered with a melange of rancid oils and age-old dust, the two making a venomous alliance that is more evil than the sum of its unholy parts. Obviously, what used to be in our price range last year is no longer there. So as the search continued, our CBD proximity perimeter expanded to allow for the over inflated rental prices, and we saw ourselves moving out of lovely, pristine Earlwood and into the strange suburb of Flemington (or Homebush West).

My first impressions of Flemington gave me conflicting emotions. Though the area brought the promise of the new and exciting, it lacked the familiarity I share with Earlwood’s mainly Cypriot/Greek population, where the Mediterranean waters seemed to have brought me and my ex-neighbours together in a celebration of all the history we share. But Flemington has none of that familiarity. Apart from some Indian stores, Flemington possesses a strong Asian identity, with Chinese and Vietnamese seemingly the most prominent. I love Asian food, and I am fascinated with and intrigued by Asian culture, but I do not pretend to posses an ounce of insight into Asian life. Walking down the main street in Flemington makes me feel like I am in one of Lili’s recent Vietnam blogposts, with shops that have more incomprehensible signage than I’ve ever seen in a western country. I hear languages I have no hope of understanding. Words are noises to me with none even remotely of Latin origin. I am an alien in a planet where your average citizen has never bought a bottle of olive oil, where cheese making has not yet been invented, where milk comes from the soybean cow and forks are abandoned for two wooden sticks that require a dexterity of a far more evolved being. Here, red ducks and hunks of pork hang in shopfronts and a single store proudly announces “we sell coffee”. Strange looking produce is on display and every recognisable vegetable sits next to five obscure others. Beside the packets of wrinkled bean curd are jars of unidentifiable and threatening looking dried organic items that apparently help restore a man’s fire. Wheat is also unheard of. Rice is king, with bags upon bags of rice noodles sitting where my spaghetti would have claimed its proud spot. And the bread. Crisp, brown sourdough fresh from the oven toasted and smothered with lashings of good butter and organic jam. Not here, for neither butter nor sourdough are likely to be part of the daily diet. There’s just the $1.50 loaf of bread from the local Vietnamese bakery, and it’s hardly a product of an artisan, yet still the shop does a roaring trade. Monosodium Glutamate is as fundamental a seasoning as salt is, and homes unabashedly spike the flavours of their dishes with a sprinkle or two of the stuff. Butchers and fish mongers are open seven days a week because, well, people need to work. Flemington is rough and loud. She’s a tough cookie and a haggler. You know there’s no nonsense here when her graffiti tattoos scream at you. There’s no room for Strathfield’s mansions. Flemington’s a suburb with jagged edges and where, as I was unloading my furniture, I got asked if I wanted to buy a cheap home entertainment system, TWICE, by two different yet equally suspicious looking truck drivers. I have momentary doubts whether I want my baby to experience her first year on Earth here, but these doubts quickly dissipate. Three days into living here and I love it. I can’t wait to dig into all Flemington has to offer.

For the past four weeks, I have been doing a weekly food segment with SBS Radio’s Arabic program, discussing food and its relationship with Middle Eastern culture, the origin of various dishes, food that has gone extinct, ingredients, techniques and produce. This Friday, the topic will be on the various methods of preserving food, from drying to curing (sugar, spice or salt), smoking, distilling, brining, pickling, etc… In the interview I mention that the reason we have a all this variety of beautiful foodstuffs – think jamon, sardines, couscous, confit, jams – stems from our need to preserve food for the less abundant winter months. It’s difficult for us to imagine that all these unbelievable dishes have been conceived for the basic reason of survival. Take for example a nice piece of cheddar cheese and compare its lifespan to that of a bottle of milk and you’ll know what I’m talking about. The fact that cheese tastes amazing is secondary to the fact that the milk’s use by date has been considerably pushed back.

Today, I had a litre of milk in my fridge that was due to expire in 3 days. Turning it into ricotta added a further 10 days to my investment, and I have to say, I enjoy eating ricotta much more than I enjoy drinking milk. Ricotta is possibly the easiest cheese to make. It takes 5 minutes of preparation, 20 minutes of draining, and bingo, it’s ready to devour. You need no specialist equipment apart from butter muslin or a cheese cloth and no difficult to find ingredients like rennet. To separate the milk solids from the whey you use citric acid which is available at most supermarkets. Some recipes use vinegar but I find I get better results with citric acid. The remaining ingredients are milk and salt, and if you want to indulge, some double cream. This is a high yield cheese, which produces around 200 grams from 1 litre of milk and 3 tbsp of cream. Apart from being easy to make, home made ricotta is better and creamier than any ricotta you have ever tasted. I had mine with bananas, walnuts and honey. Absolutely divine!

Best Ricotta Recipe – makes around 200 g

Ingredients

• 1 litre pasteurised full cream milk
• 1/2 tsp citric acid dissolved in 1/4 cup water
• 3 tbsp cream (optional, but recommended)
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

1. Mix milk all the ingredients in a saucepan
2. Heat the on the stove, stirring often to prevent scalding, until the milk solids seperate from the whey
3. Once the solids separate, stop stirring and take off the heat and leave alone for 10 minutes
4. Strain in cheese cloth or butter muslin for 20 to 30 minutes depending on how dry you like it
5. The ricotta is ready to eat immediately