Filo Fish Parcels and Plum Charlottes

When we saw some beautiful bream fillets at the fish shop I knew what I wanted to cook.

My brother, knowing I love farmers markets, saw this cookbook and bought it for me.

It is such a simple recipe using fresh ingredients.

The potato is boiled, cooled, sliced and arranged on four oiled filo pastry sheets.

Top with baby spinach and your fillet of fish.

Wrap up into a parcel and bake for 20 minutes.

The pastry was so flakey and the fish moist and delicious.

All it needed was a lemon sauce - next time I will make one!

The plum charlottes are also in the book. The dariole moulds are lined with butter and sugar followed by bread dipped in butter - no not a healthy recipe.

The filling was plum cooked with some cinnamon and once cool mixed with a little ground almonds. Top with a round of bread and bake for 25 minutes.

What a amazing result for a simple dessert. 

Surrounded by a pool of cream it was so crunchy and delicious on the outside,

and the plums that oozed from the inside were perfect.

Pandan and Coconut Macarons and a special Froggy Cake

My dear Aunty turned 80! and she asked if I could bring some cupcakes to her party.

Well plain cupcakes to be more specific but I wanted to add some 'wow'. So I decided to attempt green macarons to match the very special Frog cake I had ordered for her from the wonderful Dea at 3D Cakes.

And what more inspiration do I need.....one of my amazing friends bought the Zumbo recipe book especially for me.

Well my macarons were not perfect, consistency too thick and zero gloss but they were still so pretty.

I was really pleased.

I used pandan paste in the macaron mix and filled them with a coconut white chocolate ganache.

Made pretty much the same as a regular ganache except with coconut cream.

And yes I added extra green food colouring to try and thin out the macaron mix.....

They were so delicious, and beautiful perched atop a vanilla cupcake.

Why a frog cake you may ask? well when I was young my Aunty Joy had a wonderful collection of cute little frogs that I loved and would often contribute to.

So I thought I would once again give her a frog! just an edible one this time.

It went down a treat, everyone loved the froggy cake, and it was delicious (even the icing! - picture those legs getting eaten).

Do check out the 3D cakes website and on facebook (regular giveaways) to check out Dea's incredible creations.

Turkish Walking Tour at Auburn- Gourmet Safaris

Recently my friends and I joined a walking tour in Auburn, a suburb of Sydney well known for its Turkish community. 

The tour was run by Gourmet Safaris (an offshoot of Maeve O'Meara from the televsion show Food Safari),  they offer many tours in Sydney and beyond, I do suggest you take a look! 

Our hosts for the day were these lovely sisters Serap and Serpil who were part of the families who originally travelled from Turkey and settled in Australia.

Turkish Tea

They were amazing ladies who had a real passion for food, had an obvious love for their home country and an undeniable passion for this country they now call their own.

Dried Eggplant

I enjoyed the day so much I wanted to share bits and pieces through some of the photos I took, I hope you like them.

Dried Apricots and Sweet Sucuk

We are so lucky to live in a city where we sometimes only have to travel a few kilometres to become immersed in another culture.

Halva

Simit

The bakeries were full of delicious bread and biscuits, this was the first time I tried Simit and it wasn't long before I was back in Auburn to buy some more.

Sucuk

 Turkish sausage, sucuk, is full of incredible flavour.

Chocolates

I was most excited to visit the Turkish Delight shop and I was not disappointed.

Turkish Delight

yum!!!

Happy Easter.

Turkish supermarket, Gima

I was so excited to visit the supermarket, you felt like you became privy to the secrets of the cuisine and what is actually in all those bottles!

Acuka

 Serap referred to Acuka as 'Turkish vegemite', it is an intense flavoured paste of tomato and capsicum, I loved it.

Apple Tea

Biscuits at a Bakery

Turkish bread cooked in a 'tandoor' style oven

 I loved being let in the kitchen to see the baking of this bread.

I think these may have been preserved walnuts?

Dips!

 For lunch we were presented with a feast, I was most excited about the dips.

I have just shared a few dishes we ate.

Kofte, savoury lamb mince inside a bulgar wheat casing.

Eggplant

Chicken, incredibly moist and full of flavour.

Pistachio Turkish Ice Cream

 The ice cream had an incredible texture, almost chewy? It was so delicious. Apparently the texture comes from dried orchid roots!?

Gallipoli mosque

The tour concluded with an optional visit to the mosque, it was very informative, learning not only of the history of the mosque and its community but also a little about Islam.

  

The interior of the mosque was beautiful

 I returned to Auburn to buy this delicious bottled eggplant, it had the prefect balance of smoky flavour and Serap so kindly showed us how to make a delicious baba ganoush.

Well my baba ganoush was not as prefect as Serap's but hey it still tasted good!

And also to add the lovely Suzy from Gourmet Safaris has shared some of my photos over on the website.

Bisque with Snapper, Prawn and Crab (an MKR recipe)

I must confess I am a cooking show junkie.

This recipe is one from MKR (or My Kitchen Rules). For those of you who don't know, it is a reality cooking show where couples compete against each other for a cash prize.

When one couple, Megan and Andy (aka seafood king), cooked this dish, originally Coral Trout with Prawn and Crab, they scored 57/60!

It looked heavenly and not that difficult, so of course I had to try it. 

We used Snapper as Coral Trout was not available. Neither fish is considered sustainable but actually Snapper is actually the worse of the two :(

My husband filleted his first fish.

The dish begins with a fish stock using the carcass, onion, celery, carrot, fennel, white wine and herbs.

The crab is boiled for a few minutes then all the meat reserved.

Meanwhile the base of the bisque is cooked, onion, garlic, carrot and fennel, followed by the prawn heads and shells.

The fish stock is strained into the prawn stock and cooked for almost 20 minutes before that is also strained.

You then reduce it some more and add cream, seasoning and butter to this amazing sauce.

Before serving I popped in the prawns that had been boiled briefly for a minute and the crab meat.

The fillets are cooked in the frypan, three minutes skin side down, then turn over for one, then rested while the dish assembled. 

I accompanied ours with beans, topped with the prawn and crab, surrounded by the incredible bisque. The fish is placed on topped and garnished with fennel fronds.

Seriously this dish was amazing. 

The entire family went crazy for it.