Easter Flaounes

Earlier this year, a Greek Australian woman described to me these strange Greek Cypriot Easter pies that she would make with her friend each Easter in Darwin. She described a cheese filling with yeast, mastic and another ingredient I had never heard of: Mahlep.
My partner is Greek Cypriot/Australian and he heard never heard of these pies, so I was intrigued to find out more about them.
And then  Flaounes found me during our weekly vigil of  Thursday night food shows on SBS.  And just in time for Easter, and with enough time to have a friend source the mysterious Mahlepi from Melbourne
This is pretty much the recipe I used: (Cypriot Easter Bread), although I changed the cheeses  (big sigh for Alice Springs) and the percentages, and only made a half batch.  I also found the size of flaounes they suggested was too big for me.  The recipe below is adapted from the SBS one.

Ingredients

Filling
 2 packets of haloumi (about 250gms)
250gm good cheddar cheese
1 tsp dried yeast 1/2 cup semolina 1/2 cup flour 4 eggs
 mint, leaves picked and chopped 1 tsp baking powder 1/3 cup sultanas, or to taste

Pastry
 500gm plain flour 5 g mastic, crushed 
10 g mahlep (a friend bought seeds in Smith Street in Melbourne, and we crushed them)
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast  
70 g soft unsalted butter
 pinch of salt  
2 cups milk

Glaze  
1 bottle of sesame seeds 
  dash of white vinegar 2 egg yolks.

Follow the method on the SBS website, halving amounts for smaller flaounes.

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Quinoa Pancakes...

 

As part of my new 5:2 diet, I've been introducing some new carbs into our diet, and last week I was left with an abundance of quinoa, and it wasn't a fasting day.

Quinoa (keenwa) is a South American, a grain, a "pseudo-cereal', apparently.  It tastes good.

So, I experimented and made these wonderful pancakes. Now, I'm guessing the quantities, and will measure them next time.

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked white quinoa

2 eggs

1/3 cup flour (or gluten free flour)

1 tbsp melted butter

1/3 cup milk

Method

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Melt butter in pancake pan on medium heat, and pour around a 1/3 cup of mixture.
3. Flip over pancake.

Serve with maple syrup and yoghurt.

Lime Pickle Pursuits Volume #3

.The next stages for the "Amazing pickle" went something like this:













Then this...............





And then they were bottled, and 'no' I don't reckon they're mild at all.

In the meantime, the Kurma Dasa version is looking more and more like mush each day.

And I still have more limes than I can use.. so wait for the next instalment of my lime preservation pursuits.

In the meantime, I am about 3 weeks off the final test tasting for these two recipes.

Kalo Prama, Greek Cypriot Lemon Semolina Cake

I get wonderfully inspired by good cooking shows, and one a few weeks ago on SBS Food Safari about Australian Cypriot food got me cooking a whole, whole lot of new dishes including Flaounes for Easter,  lamb Kleftiko in our pizza oven and this beautiful lemon semolina cake called Kalo Prama.

I used the recipe on the SBS website, and my only advice is to use a larger tin than they suggest and do not use too much mastic as it is very strong.  I also used lime juice rather than lemons because we have soooo many limes.

The only food I have not been able to make but which I would love to is Loukaniko, Cypriot pork sausages.. the only thing holding me back is the fact that I would have to buy $100+ of caul that I would never use in a lifetime.

Lime Pickle Pursuits, Kurma's Version, Volume #2

For Kurma's version, you again slice your lime into 8.  Then you make a mixture with chilli (cayenne pepper), ground black mustard seed and tumeric.

 

Layer the limes in a bottle and sprinkle with the spice mixture.

 

Then make a mixture of 1 cup brown sugar, to 1/2 cup lime juice and boil for 2 minutes.  When lukewarm pour into bottle.

Put out in sun... every day it seems for 5-6 weeks... stay posted!

Lime Pickle Pursuits, Volume #1

We have too many limes... I never thought I'd live anywhere where we had too many limes.  And so what to do with too many limes.  In keeping with the current preoccupation in our household for Indian food, I have opted for lime pickles.  I am currently trialling two versions... one from the wonderful Kurma Dasa and the other I located on line.  Not sure why I chose this one, (Amazing Lime Pickle) might have been the large quantities of garlic and the images.

For the "Amazing Lime Pickle" recipe you slice your limes into 8 pieces, then put them with obscene quantities of chilli, garlic and salt.  Steam them for 15 minutes and then place them out in the sun for 2 days.
It fills my heart with joy when recipes ask for this... there's not much we have in abundance in Central Australia, but sunshine is one.

  At the moment, I've done 1.5 days.

Traditional Guacomole

Derived from the Latin American Timelife cookbook you can't go past this traditional guacomole recipe:

Ingredients

2 ripe avocado

1 lime

1 bunch coriander 

1 ripe tomato, skinned, seeded and chopped

1/2 Spanish onion

Chilli (optional)

Salt & Pepper