Middle Eastern – Craig Cooks

Feta and Lamb Gozleme

July 18, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Tonight I made gozleme for the first time, and it turned out really well. I hunted my cookbooks and online for recipes, and they were all varied. Some had yeast and some didn’t. Some were flour and oil. Some included yoghurt. In the end I based it on this recipe from Gourmet Traveller.

I made half the dough recipe for the two of us.

100g wholemeal flour
200g plain flour
130ml water
75ml plain yoghurt
1 tbsp vegetable oil

I mixed these in the bread machine for 10 minutes.

Read the recipe to see how to roll it out. I think I added too much oil in the rolling process, as it was a little greasy.

Once rolled and folded, the dough rested for about half an hour and that was fine, as it absorbed the oil more and softened.

For the filling I combined
shredded silverbeet leaves (raw)
spring onions
finely chopped roast lamb
minced garlic
home-made feta
mozarella
2 tsp Turkish spice mix from Herbie’s Spices
juice of 1/4 lemon
black pepper and sea salt

Assemble and cook as in the recipe.

It’s a bit of work to roll out the dough. I was really happy with the finished thickness and texture.

Dukkah-crusted Garfish

July 13, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

I’ve been remiss in not posting lately. Here’s a recent plate of dukkah-crusted garfish with carrot puree, baksed cauliflower, charred capsicum, parsley and yoghurt.

I’ve previously made this with garfish fillets, but this time cooked whole garfish.

The dukkah crumb recipe comes from Greg and Lucy Malouf’s fabulous book “Malouf“.

50 hazelnuts
8 tbsp sesame seeds
4 tbsp coriander seeds
3 tbsp cumin seeds

Toast each of these separately in a dry pan, then crush together.

Dip the fish in plain flour, then egg and then the dukkah. Deep fry for 4 minutes.

Roast Cauliflower and Chickpeas

January 1, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Here’s a pretty tasty vegetarian dish that helped to used some Christmas leftovers. Happy with my plating for once.

Cauliflower
Cut into florets. Toss with sea salt and olive oil. Bake in baking paper at 200C for 20-25 mins until it starts to change colour.

Chickpea stew
Used canned chickpeas, or as I did, soak them overnight and then boil them until they have softened but still have some crunch. Meanwhile make a stew with tinned tomatoes, diced onion, garlic, carrot, 1 tsp toasted cumin seeds, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp smoked paprika, small handful of coriander leaves, salt and pepper. Add cooked chickpeas and simmer to reduce to a thick stew.

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Lebanese Charcoal Chicken

October 25, 2018 by admin Leave a Comment

Yesterday I got out the battery-operated rotisserie for the summer. The chicken was dusted with Herbie’s Lebanese Baharat spice mix, which is has wonderful Middle Eastern flavours. The chicken was stuffed with half a lemon, 2 garlic cloves and a knob of butter. I put more butter under the breast skin.

I cooked it for about 90 minutes and checked the temperature with a probe along the way. During the cook I drizzled it with fresh lemon juice.

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