Lamb and Feta Gözleme

Photos by Steve Shanahan
Ceramics by Handmad Emporium http://www.handmad.com

First published Canberra Times 9 November 2011

Compared to other varieties of food you regularly find in street markets, the longest queues of people are often lined up for Turkish Gözleme. This street food specialty is essentially a filled pocket bread, which can be adapted by changing the fillings.

Gözleme is a classic Turkish pastry prepared for breakfast and lunch or as a treat for guests. It is based on a very thin pastry called yufka, which is a basic of Turkish baking. The name derives from the Turkish word göz meaning “eye”.

I first tried Gözleme at the Subiaco Saturday markets in Perth, where the line up of people waiting to buy them snaked right through the centre of the market and out the other side. I was told this is a regular Saturday event and that people come from near and far to feast on these celebrated Gözleme.

Although it’s only 6.00am, the smell of roasting spices coming from the stall makes my stomach growl.  It appears that even at this early hour there is no shortage of willing participants to relish the combination of lamb, cumin, lemon and feta.

If you don’t have the equipment to make your own pizza, these are a great alternative and dead easy to make. They can be cooked on the hotplate of a barbeque and the burnt umami bits found on a barbeque hotplate, only add to their rustic flavour.  They should be cooked until quite crisp and dotted with burnt bits.  You can even cook them in a large frying pan.

I prefer to make my own pastry, as it only takes half an hour, but you can buy Turkish style flatbread and fold it over a couple of times to seal in the filling.  You can also omit the preserved lemon from the filling and sprinkle fresh squeezed lemon over the top of the Gözleme  when cooked.

I serve this with a tomato, garlic and red wine vinegar salsa seasoned with salt and pepper.

Photo by Steve Shanahan
Ceramics by Handmad Emporium

Quantity makes 4 large Gözlemes.

Bread

220g plain yoghurt

2 cups plain flour

a pinch of salt

olive oil

Filling

400g minced lamb

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tbsp tomato paste

a pinch of ground cumin

a pinch of ground cinnamon

1 chopped chilli

2 tbsp preserved lemon, sliced

50g baby spinach leaves

150g feta cheese

6 mint leaves, torn

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Salsa

3 ripe tomatoes, diced

2 mint leave, torn

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

salt and pepper

1 tsp olive oil

Mix the yoghurt and salt together in a large bowl, add the flour until you have a stiff dough. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until all the flour is incorporated. You should have a slightly sticky textured dough and roll into a large ball. Transfer to an oiled bowl and leave, covered for 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the lamb until browned and separated. Turn the heat down to low and add the garlic, cumin, cinnamon, preserved lemon, chilli and tomato paste. Cook for two minutes or until dry. Remove from the heat and drain any accumulated fat.

On a floured surface, divide the dough into four balls. Roll each ball into a 30cm circle. Place a layer of the spinach over half of each circle, then sprinkle with the feta, then add the lamb mince and some torn mint leaves. Season with salt and pepper and fold over the dough to form a pocket.  Seal the edges by pressing down with a fork.

Preheat a barbecue hotplate or large frying pan. Brush each side of the Gözleme  with olive oil and cook each side until dark brown, pressing down while cooking.

For the Salsa, combine all ingredients in a bowl and serve with the Gözleme. 

Photos by Steve Shanahan; Ceramics by Handmad Emporium 

Strawberry mousse with rhubarb compote

First published Canberra Times 2 November2011

A sure sign that summer is on its way is the arrival of the berry sellers at the Capital Region Farmer’s Markets.  Although you can buy strawberries in Canberra all year round from supermarkets, they are generally not from our local area and surrounds.

I prefer the smaller, more compact, sweet strawberries, to the large misshapen and watery ones. Call me suspicious, but it looks as if they’ve been force-fed with growth hormones. The other thing I love is buying them in a brown paper bag, rather than a plastic punnet, because the strawberry smell leaks through the bag.

On my last trip to France, I discovered the name of the amazingly perfumed little berries that are so prolific over there. They are called Gariguettes, and famously hail from the southwest of France. The first taste is a revelation. The beautiful thing about French strawberries is that you will smell them before you see them, so just follow your nose. It’s a complete sensory experience.

In France, strawberries are mostly grown on slopes and hand picked. It takes three years to train a picker to cut the fruit at the right place and at the peak of its ripeness. Interestingly, women do the bulk of the picking. Perhaps, as a female neighbor in Chatenois suggested, it’s because it’s a work of patience and rigor?

The work-day begins at 7:00am with an obligatory café-au-lait and stops for lunch at midday. The berry gathering ends around 4:00pm to get the fruit to the market as quickly as possible.

During my cooking classes in Beaune earlier this year, we made mountains of Gariguette strawberry jam. The strawberries were bought from the berry seller’s market stall earlier that morning, right outside the door. We made jam all day, using the traditional French method. I left there smelling of sweet, sticky, strawberry jam that was still lingered in my clothes and hair well into the night.

The classic French way to eat a bowl of these gorgeous globes is in salade de fraises - just a bowl of these luscious Gariguettes with sugar and a little lemon juice. Nothing else is needed, although, maybe sitting in a little café on the streets of Paris wouldn’t go astray.

One of my all time favourite summer desserts is Strawberry Mousse. It’s an easy family classic from the 1980’s and comes from my sister Sue Barben, who often served it at summertime dinner parties. I’m not sure where she sourced this recipe from, but it’s worked its way into my favourites’ list.

There’s no cooking required here, so it’s a no fuss dessert for summer or Christmas time. Because this recipe is prepared in advance and set in individual ramekins, it’s ready to go when you need it. All you will need is a blender or food processor. The individual mousses will keep covered in the fridge for 4 to 5 days.  One regular punnet of strawberries will make a quantity to serve 4 to 5 people.

I’ve given this recipe a re-vamp and added a rhubarb vino cotto compote with just a hint of cracked pepper, to serve with the mousse. This does need cooking, but, like the mousse, can also be prepared in advance. Any left over compote goes beautifully with Greek yoghurt, honey and roasted almonds for brekky.

If you don’t feel like cooking the compote, serve the mousse with a dollop of honey-sweetened mascarpone or yoghurt.

1 punnet ripe strawberries

½ cup castor sugar

1 ¼ cups fresh cream

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/3 cup boiling water

2 tspn powdered gelatin

2 egg whites

1 vanilla bean, scraped or ¼ tspn vanilla paste

Strawberry mousse

Wash and hull the strawberries. Place the strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, vanilla paste and cream into a blender or food processor.

Place the boiling water into a small bowl, add the gelatine, stirring until dissolved.

Add the gelatine to the blender, and mix on medium speed until combined. This should only take a few seconds.

Whisk the egg whites in a separate and clean bowl until peaks form. Fold the strawberry mixture gently into the whites until combined.

Pour into 4 to 5 ramkeins and chill until set. This should take a 3 hours or so.

Rhubarb compote

6 stalks of rhubarb, washed and chopped (no leaves)

3 tbsp icing sugar

2 tbsp of vino cotto, (you could use 1 ½  tbsp balsamic vinegar instead, just increase the sugar content)

¼ cup boiling water

cracked black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C. Prepare a baking tray lined with baking paper. Spread the rhubarb in one layer on the tray and dust with 2 tbsp of icing sugar. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the rhubarb from the oven and place in a small saucepan. Add the remaining icing sugar, boiling water and vino cotto (or balsamic vinegar and extra sugar) and a good pinch of cracked black pepper. Taste for sweetness, you may need to add a little more sugar.

Heat on medium heat, uncovered for a few minutes until the mixture turns syrupy.

The flavour balance should be piquant, but slightly sweet. Serve the compote on top of the strawberry mousse.

Photos by Steve Shanahan

Tomato and orange soup

First published Canberra Times 26 October 2011. 

With our body-aching recent house move over, and the days getting longer and warmer, I settle down to prepare and mulch my new vegetable patch, in readiness for planting.

I usually plant a crop of tomatoes each year, because store bought ones just don’t compare. As the season approaches I look forward to bottling my own tomatoes to provide the base for many of our summer meals.

Is it me, or are the tomatoes that we buy now missing the sweet intensity compared to those when we were kids? Mum would send us up the road with a list to Mr Gorring, who sold his freshly grown produce direct from his market garden. He was a hunched and wizened man, baked as golden-brown as a roast potato, acquired from his time in the sun tending his garden. He spoke with a strong German accent and I never saw him dressed in anything other than shorts and sandals and an aged, brown leather apron.

We would stand in front of his old table with a set of suspended scales hanging above and recite our order to him from our list. With nothing but a curt nod he walked off slowly to pick the vegetables straight from the garden. He came back to the table to weigh each variety of vegetable meticulously, and charged us for every ounce. Mum would always warn us to watch for him putting his hand on the scales.

Although Mr Gorring never made small talk, and made it clear he didn’t appreciate our over enthusiastic dog, he had the very best and freshest of vegetables on offer.

As we walk home barefoot, with the string bag stretched tightly around our newspaper wrapped vegetables, the herbal, tomato-leafy aroma wafts from our parcel of freshly picked produce. Today that same smell still triggers this odd fragment of memory each time I pick my own home grown.  

To manage my annual yield of tomatoes, I preserve the excess in bottles.  This is an easy method that is packed with flavour. Wipe the tomatoes, slice out the cores, and pack them whole, including the skins, into sterilised jars. I use medium sized preserving jars with the rubber seal and wire clip. Add a few thyme sprigs, some bay leaves and a couple of slices of onion.  Ensuring the rubber seals are on properly, clip the lids shut and put the jars on a round cake rack that fits in the bottom of a deep pan. Add enough water to cover them well and weigh them down with something heavy if they float. A rock will work. Simmer the jars for about 1½ hours until the tomatoes lose their shape and collapse. The jars will only be half full when the tomatoes are ready. Leave the jars in the water to cool. The lids will have formed a tight seal and the tomatoes will keep for about 12 months.

I like to make this soup with my harvested home bottled tomatoes, although you can use tinned, peeled tomatoes or fresh ones. The complimentary orange and tomato flavours in this soup make a great summer lunch that can be eaten hot or cold.

Serves 4

1 kg fresh tomatoes, cored and peeled or 500ml of above bottled or store bought canned tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, sliced

2 garlic cloves, chopped

3 bay leaves

3 stems thyme

1 tspn sugar

half a bunch of basil

1 tbsp of orange zest and juice of 2 oranges

1 baguette

½ cup grated gruyere cheese

salt and freshly ground pepper

olive oil for brushing bread

Roughly chop the tomatoes. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onions until tender but not golden for 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic and continue cooking until soft, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and any juice, with just enough water to cover. Add the bay leaves, thyme, sugar, salt and pepper and cover the pan with the lid. Bring the soup to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until the tomatoes are very tender, about half an hour.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 175C and slice the baguette into slices and put them on a tray.  Brush each one with olive oil on both sides. Bake them until dry and lightly golden for about 10 minutes, then top with the grated cheese and return to cook until browned. Remove from the oven.

Strip the basil leaves from the stems and add them to the simmering soup. Shred the leaves and set aside. When the soup is cooked, remove the herbs and basil stems and puree the soup in a food processor. Return the soup to the pan and bring to the boil. Stir in the shredded basil, orange zest and juice. Taste for salt and pepper.

Serve soup in large bowls and add a round or two of cheese-topped baguette to each one.

Photos Steve Shanahan