Category: Persiana

04
Apr
2016

Safavid Style Beef Pastries

categories: Books, Dish of The Week, Dishiest Dish, Persiana

Hey, lovely people of retro food world. I feel like I have been totally neglecting you recently but believe me, you are not alone. Top o’ the list of neglect as been myself. There was a night last week when my dinner consisted of 1 cronut and 2…ok…3 glasses of red wine. Oh and tears. Which I figure counts for grains, fruit and salt. That’s three of the food groups isn’t it?

I have been working all the hours and even though it has been crazy busy, I have also been loving it.

The tears were because that night I realised I had not only missed a book club meeting but I had missed the emails advising of the book club meeting so I was basically a no show which I hate. Because that’s just rude.

So, there has not been much cooking done at all. One of the few things I have made was the Safavid Style Beef Pastries from Persiana. My plan was to get home by 7, maybe 7:30 and then make a yoghurt sauce and some salad and the pastries – I had already made the beef mixture – and we would eat, drink and be merry and marvel over the elaborate pastry swirls and curlicues I had formed. Except I didn’t get home til closer to 8:30 and those pastries were thrown together with the love and attention that you would normally give a a not very interesting advertisement for something you have no intention of buying. There was no yoghurt sauce. There was no salad. There were some badly formed pastries on a plate with a blob of ketchup mixed with tabasco sauce (me) and HP sauce (him).

BTW, these should have looked like this:

I felt I had done really badly on this meal. So when I asked a very tentative “So what do you think?” I was pretty much bracing myself for critique that contained all the things I was berating myself for, being all the missing parts of the meal I had planned in my head. And that the pastries looked like they had been made with someone with no opposable thumbs.

“These are great. I really like them”

“What?”

“Are there more? Can I have some more?”

Sabrina Ghayour, this is why I love you.

Speakin’ of which

The Persiana Project

Last time we spoke I had 32 recipes left to cook from Persiana. Somehow, and I don’t even know how I managed to do this, we are now down to 26.

I made the Safavid Beef Pastries, the Cod with Relish, the marinated feta, the feta cigars from the marinated feta and….two other things that I have no recollection of making. Such is the fugue state of my brain. On the other hand, this challenge is going really well. And OMG…the marinated feta and the feta cigars? Delightful, delicious, delovely!

Next on the list to cook is the Chicken and Artichoke salad which I am planning to make tomorrow night. Then again, I was also planning to make it tonight and ended up having a jaffle made with some leftover curry instead. This is actually one of the very best ways to eat leftover curry – and a special little trick – instead of just plain butter on the bread, make a little garlic butter. Leftover heaven!

Inbox Zero

Because I have been so busy my personal inbox is out of control. At last count I had about 2700 unread emails. My challenge for April is to get this under control i.e. no more than one page of unread. I have found in the past, the best way to do this is to pick the latest email, search for all from that sender and work through them in a batch. This is particularly good for anyone who is selling anything as you can do a mass delete and voila that’s 30 emails gone in 10 seconds. But if anyone has any tips on how to control a crazy inbox, please let me know!

Watching

I reinstated our Netflix subscription over Easter so I am finally watching Making A Murderer.

I am also binge watching The Librarians…this is almost like someone make a show EXACTLY for me. It’s set in a library and its about really smart people solving supernatural stuff. Who even knew I had that many buttons that could be hit?

Reading

The Midnight Watch

Loved it, loved it, loved it. Best book I have read thus far this year. And I feel like I have read a lot of good stuff already. Stay tuned. There will be more. Soon.

The Method

I loved this too. How is this for a premise?

“Imagine a helpless, pregnant 16-year-old who’s just been yanked from the serenity of her home and shoved into a dirty van. Kidnapped . . . Alone . . . Terrified.

Now forget her . . .

Picture instead a pregnant, 16-year-old, manipulative prodigy. She is shoved into a dirty van and, from the first moment of her kidnapping, feels a calm desire for two things: to save her unborn son and to exact merciless revenge.

She is methodical – calculating – scientific in her plotting. Leaving nothing to chance, she waits . . . for the perfect moment to strike. The Method is what happens when the victim is just as cold as the captors.”

This week I am hoping for a bit more time away from work to get my life back under control. I am planning to cook the salad from Persiana as mentioned but also Anthony Bourdain’s Onion Soup Les Halles, and a mixed mushroom strudel.

Your turn now. What are you cooking, reading, watching doing this week? I love to hear from you so let me know. Also., please send clearing email tips.

Oh and if anyone out there is a jam maker? I have an A-Z of Cooking Project just for you – get your 1970’s jam on! Just let me know.

Have a super week!

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17
Mar
2016

REPOST – The Dishiest Dish – Rhubarb, Rose and Passionfruit Sorbet

categories: Book Club, Books, Movies, Passionfruit, Persiana, Rhubarb, Sorbet, Sorbet

We are having a lovely spurt of late summer…OMG, it’s autumn now….warm weather, just perfect for enjoying this delicious rhubarb, rose and passionfruit sorbet.

Let’s talk about it shall we?

It’s fruity, tangy and not too sweet so incredibly refreshing on a hot day.
It is the most glorious shade of pink.
The passionfruit and rose water make it smell like a summer garden.
It has a Rhubarb Almond Shard
And is sprinkled with Rhubarb Crumble Dust
And for the cherry on the top, it’s got…well…a cherry on the top.

I based this recipe on the Rhubarb and Rose Sorbet in Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s River Cottage, Light and Easy which was my selection when we did a stint on Celebrity Chefs for Tasty Reads. I usually find Hugh very engaging, hence choosing the book, however I admit I have struggled with it a bit. I’m all for dairy and wheat free however it just seemed like a bit of a chore, not to mention expense to have to buy new ingredients for just about every dish – this one has buckwheat flour, that one had chestnut flour, the other had chickpea flour. Never even mind the expense. Who has the space?

But I pretty much had everything for the sorbet, except the rhubarb already. I also had a little passionfruit left over from the Valentine’s Day Soufflé so I popped that in as well.

6 Week Challenges

These have been a bit of a disaster. I downloaded an update to my phone weekend before last. And it killed it. #epicfailnexus5 The phone would no longer read the sim card. So after spending the weekend trying every fix available on Google on Monday I got a new sim card, even though I kind of already knew it wasn’t the sim card. On Tuesday the phone went in for a service. Then there was a WEEK of daily calls of “Is it fixed? “Is it fixed? Is it fixed?” Then after seven days they said “Oh, we now know it’s not hardware, it’s software” and they got a “I KNOW IT’S NOT HARDWARE I TOLD YOU IT WASN’T HARDWARE ONE WEEK AGO. YOU HAVE SPENT A WEEK WASTING MY TIME AND YOUR TIME. JUST PUT IT BACK TO WHAT IT WAS BEFORE THE UPDATE” And an hour later it was fixed. Seriously I hate being such a bitch to service people. But really. A week.

A week where, I was without my meditation app and my flexibility app. So they fell by the wayside. I downloaded some mediation podcasts to my ipod. Which promptly broke.

Oh and my car wouldn’t start this morning.

Technology hates me.

On the more positive side, my March resolution of 6 weeks without Candy Crush is going amazingly well!

Silver linings!

I’m starting a new challenge today:

The Persiana Project

As of now, I have 32 dishes left to cook from the very many I marked as “Want To Cook” in Persiana. Sabrina Ghayour’s new book comes out in 50 days. Technically, I can cook them all between now and then. Realistically, it is unlikely however, to raise the stakes, I have made a deal with myself not to by Sirocco until I have cooked the 32. And I REALLY want that new book.

We’re going to be eating a LOT of Middle Eastern Food over the next few weeks. I can’t wait!

Reading

The Shut Eye – Belinda Bauer

Loved it – a great thriller about a missing child and a suspect psychic.

When We Were Invincible – Jonathan Harnisch

I feel really bad about saying that I am not enjoying this because it seems quite ungrateful seeing as I got it for free off Net Galley. But I am half way through and I ‘m really struggling. The plot…what there is of it….revolves around a teenager who suffers from Tourette’s and his life at an elite prep school. I’m finding it all bit too stream of consciousness-y; with not nearly enough context for me to be able to enjoy the story.

Ummmm….let me think of some positives….

It’s very likely a very real description of being in the head of someone who is mentally ill.
It’s short.
I love the cover.

Watching

I watched the movie Compliance and it totally ooked me out. Seriously, watching it made me feel dirty. Several times I wanted to turn it off because it was painful to watch. Having said that I would actually recommend it. But be warned it is TOUGH going. It will also make you question every person who ever calls you on the phone. Not a bad thing really seeing as it is based on true.

Then I watched The Breakfast Club. Damn, I love that movie! And it made everything all right with the world again. And I spent about three days walking around singing “Hey, hey, hey, hey….”

I’m still not trusting anyone who calls me who is not on my speed dial though.

Cooking

I haven’t been cooking much as I have been working all the hours! I have been living on toast or things from the freezer. Hopefully things will slow down soon because next week I have marked out to cook:

Margaret Fulton’s Quail in Vine Leaves with Muscat Grapes
Sabrina Ghayour’s Safavid style beef pastries
Laurie Colwin’s Broccoli Salad

Ok, here’s the recipe for the Sorbet:

Rhubarb, Rose and Passionfruit Sorbet

Print Recipe

A lovely light, refreshing sorbet, not too sweet with a glorious pink colour.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

750g rhubarb
75ml orange juice
75g passionfruit pulp
100g caster sugar
up to 50g icing sugar
up to 2 tsp rose water
100g passionfruit pulp

Rhubarb Crumble Dust & Almond Shard

18 Rhubarb Crumble boiled lollies (or any fruit flavoured boiled lollies)
100g flaked almonds
Oil

To Serve

Ice Cream Cones
Maraschino Cherries

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Instructions

Trim the rhubarb and cut into 3-4cm lengths. Place in a large saucepan with the caster sugar and the orange juice.
Bring to a simmer and cook gently until the rhubarb is completely soft. Puree in the pan until smooth.
When cool, stir in the passionfruit.
Taste and add the icing sugar as required.
Stir in the rosewater. Start at about 1/4 teaspoon and add it gradually until you get your desired level of rosiness.
Chill until cold and churn in an ice cream maker until soft set, then transfer to a freezer container and freeze until cold. Alternatively, pour the mixture into a freezer container and freeze for an hour. Then remove from the freezer and break up the frozen sides, pushing them into the softer centre. Return to the freezer and repeat every hour until the mixture is soft-set.
Then let it freeze solid.

Rhubarb Crumble Dust

Place the boiled lollies in your blender and grind into a powder.
Remove a third of the mixture to sprinkle over the top of your sorbet as your dust.

Almond Shard

Heat your oven to 180C
Line a baking tray with baking paper and lightly grease. I used coconut oil.
Sprinkle the paper with the almonds, then with the remaining crushed lolly powder.
Place in the oven until the lollies melt.
Remove from the oven and all to cool.
Break into shards

To Serve

Place two scoops of sorbet into an ice cream cone.
Sprinkle a teaspoon over the Rhubarb Crumble Dust over the icecream, stab with an Almond Shard and top with a cherry.
Enjoy!

Have a great week! And let me know what you’ve been cooking, reading, watching!

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07
Feb
2016

REPOST -Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout & Orange Salad

categories: Books, Fish, Holidays, Orange, Persiana, Salad

Hello Friends!

Today we are celebrating Lunar New Year, and the Year of the Monkey with a delicious belly stuffed rainbow trout. Lunar New Year, often called Chinese New Year is celebrated all over Asia, and all over the world via the Asian diaspora. It is a time for families to get to together, for the exchanging of gifts and of course food.

I read this article in Serious Eats recently and as soon as I read that whole fish was a common item at Lunar New Year dinners I knew exactly what I wanted to cook. I have been waiting for an occasion to make Sabrina Ghayour’s Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout for AGES and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. Fish is considered lucky for New Year, particularly at the Reunion (New Year’s Eve) Feast because the word for carp sounds like the words for good luck and gift.

Now I know some of you might be a bit freaked out by cooking / serving a whole fish. And believe me, I used to be right there with you. If you do not like the idea of a whole fish, you could certainly pan fry or bake fillets of rainbow trout and serve with the stuffing mixture. However, in Chinese symbolism a whole fish represents togetherness and abundance.

But first, let’s talk Chinese Astrology. We are about to enter the Year of The Monkey. Famous people born in Monkey years include Leonardo Da Vinci, Elizabeth Taylor, George Lucas, Charles Dickens, and Lord Byron. Gillian Anderson is also a Monkey. Dragging that list down a notch or two from the great and the good, other monkeys are Miley Cyrus and me!

What can you expect in the Year of The Monkey?

It is a year to act, to innovate and to take your destiny into your own hands. However, the recklessness of the monkey also cautions us to think before we act so do not be too hasty in making decisions. Setting clear goals is important this year. The monkey is also a sociable creature so this is a good year to nurture and expand your relationships with those around you.

Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout

I guess I should have made something a bit more Asian to celebrate however Sabrina Ghayour’s recipe for belly stuffed rainbow trout is delicious at any time of the year! Incidentally a rainbow trout is the only fish I have ever actually caught for myself.

The fussiest eater in the world is a keen fisherman (yet curiously cannot eat anything he catches; he just throws them back). A few years ago we rented a holiday house in the mountains and one afternoon set out to go berry picking. Well the berry farm was closed but the trout farm was open. He went to the most difficult area and started catching fish left, right and centre. I was content to read my book but, seeing how easy it looked said that I would have a go. Well. We slowly moved from the most difficult to the next most difficult to the next most difficult, ending up in what was basically a wading pool. The four year olds (who were the only other people using this pond) and I eventually caught our fish. Then I cried because I felt bad about killing something. But my rationale was “If I’m going to kill something then I ‘m damn well going to eat it” so we stopped on the way home and bought some almonds and I made us a lovely Trout Almandine for dinner.

He refused to eat it. Which resulted in a blazing row where the phrase “I killed a fish for you. How can you not eat it?” and variations there of were thrown around the room. Miraculously his piece of trout stayed in the pan and not over his head!

Lesson learned. This time, we bought a trout.

The stuffing is a very tasty and gorgeously colourful mix of spring onions, pine nuts, garlic, chilli, coriander and preserved lemons.

Sabrina’s recipe from the wonderful book Persiana is below:

My notes on this recipe were that even though I halved the stuffing ingredients because I was only cooking one trout I still had a lot of it left over.

This is not really an issue as it is totally delicious and I had the following ideas for the remainder:

Scatter over cooked vegetables
Add a little olive oil and toss through pasta, maybe with some crispy breadcrumbs
Serve on flatbread crisps with a dob of hummus as an appetizer
Stir through rice for a pilaf effect
Sprinkle onto mushrooms and grill.

Or you could just do what I did and just eat it by the spoonful while waiting for the fish to cook!

Orange & Arugula Salad

To serve with my Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout, I made a very simple orange, black olive and rocket (arugula) salad. Citrus fruits are a symbol of prosperity, good luck and abundance and lettuce symbolises spring. So, despite not having Asian flavours my salad has come celebratory significance.

It’s almost too easy to call a recipe but here we go:

Orange, Olive and Arugula Salad

Print Recipe

A delicious, fresh and simple salad that is a perfect accompaniment to seafood.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

100g rocket / arugula
1 orange
handful of black olives
1 tbsp orange juice
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
S&P

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Instructions

Place the rocket in a salad bowl.
Segment the orange removing all peel and pith. Do this over a bowl so you catch the juice – this can be used for the dressing
Toss in a handful of black olives

For The Dressing

Mix the orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning to taste.
When ready to serve pour over the salad

Notes

You can fancy up this salad with any //all of the following

Chopped toasted walnuts or pistachios
Toasted pinenuts
Pomegranate seeds
Thinly sliced fennel
Thinly sliced red onion
A smattering of feta
Some tarragon leaves

Some other lucky foods to serve at Lunar New Year include:

Spring rolls represent gold bars
Celery for wisdom
Plums for mental acuity
Dumplings for wealth
Long Noodles for a long life.

My work is celebrating tomorrow with a yum-cha lunch. Bring on the dumplings!

Lunar New Festivals will continue until 22 February so you have plenty of time to join in the celebrations.

Just for fun, I took some fortune cookies to a family dinner and we all chose one to pick our fortune for lunar new year. This was mine:

If you are celebrating Lunar New Year, or even if you are not, you are all my garden of roses and I wish you all a year of joy and abundance!

Have a wonderful week. I’m off to eat my weight in dumplings!

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10
Feb
2015

Duck Duck Curry

categories: Curry, Duck, Persiana, Spice Peddler, Vanilla

January may be over but I had to post one last quirky but delicious recipe. And this is a beauty. You wouldn’t think to look at it that this duck curry is one of my Spice Peddler “Oh no, let’s go crazy” recipes. But it is. So please join me on a Hop, Step and a Jump around the world as we take a look at this yummy duck curry.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

The Hop – Reunion Island

So guess what makes this duck curry so kooky?

Well, it’s got duck….duh!!! And sweet potatoes. So nothing odd there. It’s got some sun-dried tomatoes which I have never used in a curry before but a tomato is a tomato right? But you know what else it’s got? Wait for it…..vanilla beans!

Who puts vanilla beans in a curry?

Well apparently the people of the island of Reunion do.

And you know what?

It works!!!!

The Step – Tahiti

So from the Indian Ocean, we’re going to fasten our seatbelts and stow our tray tables because we’re now off to another tiny island but this time in the French Polynesian part of the Pacific Ocean.

Simon, Tahiti….

I guess the original recipe would use Madagascan vanilla beans but the Tahitian Vanilla beans which I got from the team at the Spice Peddlers has a rich fruity, floral, slightly aniseedy flavour which I think combined really well with the vegetables and the ginger in the curry.

Vanilla Duck Curry - Vegetables — Vanilla Duck Curry – Vegetables

The vanilla flavour here is not overpowering, it is an undertone. Unless you were told there was vanilla in it you would know there was something there but probably not automatically guess it was vanilla. . As the people of Reunion and Tahiti may say, it just adds that certain “je ne sais quoi” to what would otherwise be a pretty standard curry.

The Jump – Iran

I served this with one of the recipes from Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour – the Chelo or Persian Basmati Rice. I was a bit disappointed by this as one of my favourite things from Vietnamese cooking is when you have claypot rice and you get those lovely chewy almost burnt bits of rice. I really wanted my chelo to turn out like that. Sadly that was not to be.

Mine looked like this:

You can see what it should have looked like here.

Still, I think I’m taking the failure pretty well….

Have a great week!

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Duck and Vanilla Curry

Print Recipe

A delicious, slightly spicy duck curry with an unexpected ingredient

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1/2 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped out and reserved, bean cut into pieces about 1 cm long
2 teaspoons mild curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 duck breasts
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 medium onion, chopped (4 cups)
2 medium tomatoes, chopped (1 cup)
1 sweet potato peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
2 to 3 sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp ginger, grated
1 whole clove
To garnish (optional)
Chopped peanuts
Chopped coriander

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Instructions

Combine the vanilla seeds, curry powder and salt in a small bowl.
Score the duck breasts on the skin side (ie run the knife over the duck skin to create a cross hatch pattern. Do not go through the skin to the actual meat.
Rub the spice mixture on the duck breasts both skin and meat side.
Lay the duck breasts, skin side down, in a dry heavy-based large frying pan and gradually turn up the heat. Fry for five to 10 minutes, until most of the fat has rendered and the skin is golden brown.
Turn the duck breasts over and lightly brown the other side for a couple of minutes, or until they feel slightly springy when pressed.
Remove the duck from the pan.
Add the butter and allow it to melt.
Add the onion; cook for 5 minutes, until it has softened, then add the garlic and ginger. Add the tomato, sweet potato, sun-dried tomatoes and the clove; cook uncovered until sweet potato is just tender then add the duck back to the pan and allow to warm through.
Discard the clove and the pieces of vanilla bean before serving.
Garnish with chopped peanuts and coriander.