World Cooking Archives - Page 18 of 30 - Retro Food For Modern Times

16
Apr
2019

The Ultimate Shawarma….Man!

categories: Chicken & Poultry, Podcasts, Turkey, World Cooking

For my modern take on Turkish food, there was only one choice. It was always going to be shawarma. And my first thought was that I could give some props to my girl Sabrina Ghayour. I own all of her cookbooks and Persiana remains one of my favourite books to cook from. Sabrina’s recipe for ultimate chicken shawarma comes from her book Feasts and it is totally delicious!!!!

But, as I was cooking the shawarma, I reallised I had another connection (that does not involve late night stops at the Hollywood Palace) and that connection is my new favourite podcast, or actually set of pods. I ‘m sure I have spoken about my love of the true crime pod before and some time ago I started listening to Small Town Murder. I virtually inhaled every episode so I was able to catch up on the back catalogue of then 80 something episodes pretty quickly. I’m listening to Episode 114 as I write.

But what do you do when you run out of pod and don’t want to wait a whole week to hear more from the funniest guys in podcasting? Well, in my case, despite barely knowing one sport from another, you start listening to their other pod Crime In Sports. And let me tell you, you don’t have to know anything about sport to enjoy it.

Both of these pods are amazing, the hosts, James Pietrogiallo and Jimmie Whisman are hilarious!!! And the stories!!!! Who knew????

For a good start to the level of crazy Crime in Sports reaches, why not give Episode 58 a try?

#058 – If He Could Kill The World… – The Terribleness Of Viacheslav Datsik

This tale contains neo-Nazi’s, naked snow wrestling, armed robbery, unrestrained testicle pummelling, bare handed escapes from Russian mental asylums and the self-nicknamed Red Tarzan. Believe me, amongst all the, what James and Jimmie would call nudnickery, there is not much time for too much sport.

Another favourite of mine comes from my own country…

#058 – Such is Annihilation – The Chaoticness of Ben Cousins

Aka…you hid your meth where?

What has all this to do with Shawarma you ask? Well, there are some recurring characters in Crime in Sports, a few special guests that pop in for a fleeting moment in each episode and one of those is the Shawarma man. Spawned in Episode 32, (Dave Meggatt), the Shawarma man invariably refuses to serve some hapless and very confused sporting criminal some lovely lamb shawarma. I wonder what he would think about Sabrina’s chicken version!

Just quickly back to Sabrina, her shawarma contains normal pickles. I made some pickled turnips for mine. Normally when you see these they are a gorgeous hot pink. This normally comes from beet juice. I think beets are the food of the devil so I added some radishes to my turnips which turned my pickles a much paler but still rather pretty pink.

That’s me done!

Read and cook Sabrina, listen to Small Town Murder and Crime in Sports and tell me what you think!

Also, please let me know your favourite cookbooks and I’m always up for a good pod recommendation.

For now?

Sign says closed!

22
Mar
2019

Shish Kebabs

categories: 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Turkey, World Cooking

So as luck would have it, the week I wanted to write about the Turkish meal of Shish kebabs, there has been a diplomatic incident between Australia and Turkey. But this blog is not afraid to tackle contentious issues. Actually, no, scratch that, this blog doesn’t want to have anything to do with this debacle. To be frank, both sides of this spat are terrifying and we here at RFFMT are ~~cowards~~ peace lovers who just want to eat some meat on a stick.

Or, to be etymologically exact roasted meat (kebap) on a sword (sis).

Or to be even more precise, delicious roasted meat on a sword.

The recipe for these Shish Kebabs came to you direct from 1972 via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery. As usual, the introduction to each chapter comes with a gorgeous drawing of representing the food of the region:

Each chapter also has an overview of the food of the region. Some “facts” I learned about the food of Turkey:

The Turks have more than forty ways of cooking eggplant

People in Istanbul, choose their drinking water with as much care as people in France choose wine.

Peaches and apples are ordered by name for those from different areas have a different flavour and fragrance

A formal dinner can start with as many as thirty or forty appetisers

The shish kebabs are simple to make, look really pretty with all the colours of the vegetables and taste delicious!

A little drizzle of pomegranate molasses over the top sets these off to perfection.

These shish kebabs are also a tasty lunch treat!

Have a great week. And be kind to each other!

15
Mar
2019

Use By: Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet

categories: Apricots, France, Fruit, Sorbet

There were so many things I could have named this post. But hey, I made an Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet. So when I couldn’t decide between witty or explanatory I decided to go with plain old pragmatism. Who knew ice cream was so complicated?

BEING MORE FRENCH

Towards the end of last year, one of my work buddies and I were talking about New Year’s Resolutions. He said he never made the traditional resos of saving money, losing weight or getting fit. Instead, he chooses something that explores a different way of being / thinking / creating. So, it could be a year of reading the financial papers or a year of being vegetarian or a year of being celibate or totally slutty or otherwise exploring a part of your personality that you feel needs expressing or you just want to have fun with.

“You know, like a year of being more French”

My reaction?

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

This is the beauty of something like this – it can mean whatever you want it to be. For me…in no particular order:

Dress More French

Such as totally indulging my love of a striped t shirt.

Eat / Drink more French food (and wine)

Fromage anyone?

Watch More French movies / French tv shows

Including one of my favourite films ever The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

And just to balance out all that sweeetness, some gritty French police drama.

Be more Cultured

Last week I saw The Clock by Christian Marclay and loved every minute of it.
This weekend I’m planning on attending a local art show.

Self Care

French women take fabulous care of their skin and have amazing beauty regimes.

I plan on getting me a piece of that. My first foray into this realm was to buy some French eye drops that were RAVED about in a beauty blog. They have made absolutely no discernible difference so that was money down le toilet but I will try a new product each month.

Other ideas not fully thought out yet

Have an attitude
Start a revolution
Sexy Frugality

Mais, bien sûr

Cook More French

Which brings us back to doh oh oh oh.

The topic for our latest Tasty Reads Book Club was a “non book” book. So you could cook recipes off the interwebs or the tv or, in my case a food magazine. I bought this mag when I was on holiday last year and had not cooked anything from it.

So, when some friends gave me a big bag of apricots of varying degrees of ripeness, I decided to

Be more French, and
To use this produce before it went bad (Year of Less Waste)

By cooking the Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet from the mag.

Here’s the recipe.

In English.

Print

Apricot, Lemon and Basil Sorbet

Print Recipe

A delightfully refreshing fruity sorbet

Ingredients

Scale

500g apricots
12 basil leaves
juice of 1 lemon
3 eggs
200ml of cream
150g sugar
1 tbsp honey

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Infuse 6 basil leaves in cream for at least 2 hours.
Then put the apricots, the rest of the basil, lemon juice and a little water into a pot and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes.
Taste and add the honey (a little more or less may be required depending on the sweetness of the apricots.
Cook for another five minutes.
Let cool.
Separate the eggs.
In a large bowl, beat the yolks and the sugar until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture turns pale. Then stir in the apricot mixture.
In a separate bowl, beat the whites to soft peaks.
In a third bowl, beat the cream to soft peaks.
Add the cream to the apricot mix and blend through.
Gently fold in the egg whites.
Pour into a container. Freeze for 24 hours

Au revoir mes amis and have a lovely weekend!

26
Jan
2019

Lamington Layer Cake

categories: Australasia, Cake

The Lamington is a classic Australian Cake. New Zealand may try to claim the pavlova but there is no doubt about the origin of this delicious cake! It’s ours New Zealand and you can’t have it! Normally lamingtons are made in individual serving sizes but I made mine as one large Lamington Layer Cake meant to share. Because that’s what cake is for right?

On the downlow? Cake is also about eating it all yourself and not giving any of that sweet deliciousness to anyone else….

So what is a Lamington?

For a plain Lamington, you cut sponge cake into squares, dip the squares in chocolate icing then coat the squares in dessicated coconut.

Simple. Delicious.

My version sandwiches layers of sponge with strawberry jam and cream for a fancier version. My mum gave me a jar of the most delicious strawberry jam and I wanted to use it in the Lamington Layer Cake because when I was growing up, our local bakery always had raspberry jam in their lamingtons. So, me, you can’t have a lammy without jam!

Why Lamington?

The Lamington is named after Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie (otherwise known as the 2nd Baron Lamington). He was the Governor of Queensland from 1896-1901.

One day, some totally unexpected guests dropped by Government House. And horror of horrors! All they had in the house to serve said guests was some stale sponge cake.

For a start…what kind of arsehole turns up at anyone’s house unannounced? If you turn up at my house unannounced, you’d be lucky to get stale cake. I’d pretend I wasn’t home until you went back from whence you came. Or maybe give you some Beetle Pie to teach you a lesson!

You turn up at the Governor’s unannounced?

Luckily for history, Governor Lamington had a French chef, Armand Galland, in residence who was less misanthropic than I am. Galland dipped the stale cake in chocolate and rolled it in coconut. The guests LOVED it and asked for the recipe. 😍😍😍

Lady Lamington was very impressed and asked Galland to make the cakes for all future official events. Over time these little cakes came to be called lamingtons. The first recipe for them was published in 1900 and people have been baking and rolling and dipping ever since! In 2009, the lamington was officially declared a Queensland icon in 2009.

Lord Lamington? Not a fan, describing them as “those bloody poofy woolly biscuits”. By all accounts though, he was a total dick who once killed a koala by shooting it out of a tree (whilst on a walk with ecologists to talk about conservation) so who cares what his opinion on anything was.

If you would like to join those guests in getting a recipe for Lamington Layer cake, look no further than the link below But don’t forget the jam!

Lamington Layer Cake – The Recipe

(From womensweeklyfood.com.au)

Happy Australia Day for those who celebrate it! Enjoy the long weekend if you’re in Australia and try to keep out of the heat! Everyone else, have a wonderful week!

21
Jan
2019

Lebanese Lamb Pizza

categories: Lamb, Lebanon, Modern Times, Pizza

My modern take on Lebanese food consists of what is probably my favourite fast food – pizza! The name for these pizzas in Lebanese is “lahembajin” which means “meat on dough”. Hmmm… what was I saying just last week about the wonderful poetic names for food in the Middle East? Never mind the pragmatic name though, this Lebanese Lamb pizza is delicious!

This Lebanese Lamb Pizza has some differences to the traditional Italian pizza.

First, the base is either pita or, to be more authentic Lebanese flatbread. There is also no cheese although you can top it with a dollop of labne just before serving.

The meat to base ratio is much higher than your typical Italian pizza, making the Lebanese Lamb Pizza more like a Meatzza!

The topping is minced lamb cooked with pomegranate molasses, onions and spices like cinnamon and allspice. Once cooked, the pizza is topped with toasted pine nuts, labne, herbs, chilli and another hit of pomegranate molasses. My recipe was a slight variation in the one below from the book Arabesque by Greg and Lucy Malouf.

My variations to their Lebanese Lamb were:

To use pita bread as my pizza base
I topped my pizza with labne (made by straining a dollop of yoghurt for about an hour)
I garnished my pizza with fresh coriander and chilli and another drizzle of pomegranate molasses

Now, please excuse me, I have more eating to do!

Have a wonderful week!

Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: World Cooking