Book Review: Levant – New Middle Eastern Flavours

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

A gem of a book, written by the impossibly glamorous Rawia Bishara who is famed for Tanoreen, a middle eastern restaurant in Brooklyn, NY.

The book is absolutely beautifully photographed – it’s one of those where every single page you find yourself thinking “oh, that looks delicious”, “oh, I could make that for x, y, z occasion”, “oh, we should have that for dinner next week”. You get the idea. And then you see a photo of Rawia cooking, perfectly made up, bejewelled and wearing glittery clothing and you think … “yeah, but not like that!”

We made two recipes from the book and both were delicious and, in the case of the beans, her suggested ‘cheat’ worked perfectly well.

First up we made the “autumn fattoush” – although as we weren’t making it in autumn, we found radicchio tricky to come by (or was that just my lack of commitment) and substituted witlof instead, figuring it would have the same leafy texture and bitter flavour profile. Of course, it did mean that our finished dish wasn’t quite as colourful as that in the book but it was still delicious. And, of course, with this kind of salad, the bulk of the effort is in making the pita chips. She suggests cooking them in the oven but the Ottolenghi option of pan frying them will also work well.

Later in the piece, we tried the coriander green beans with toasted almonds. Another very simple dish although the recipe does suggest deep frying the green beans, with the option for roasting them. We went the roasting route and Andy felt we took the beans a bit far (I thought they were fine). As we now have an air fryer, it would be interesting to cook the beans in that and see how they turn out. It would be essential to use fresh green beans for this – yes, I know that topping & tailing them is more work than grabbing a bag of frozen, but you really want the crunch that you only properly get with a fresh bean.

Some recipes in the book do have a very hefty list of ingredients (although, quite often, if you have a well-stocked spice drawer you’ll be fine) but there is something for everyone in this book – from quick, simple side-dishes to more elaborate, heavily spiced mains. Not every recipe is illustrated, so you will have to use your imagination now and then, but you should definitely not let that put you off.

Sylvia Colloca’s Focaccia Pugliese

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Focaccia Pugliese

On Wednesday we went to lunch with some friends who asked us to bring bread. We had an early start anyway, so I knocked up a batch of milk rolls. I was thinking that at least some would come home with me but apparently that was not to be the case … Fortunately, on Wednesday night, we watched SBS Snacks (otherwise known by its more boring name, SBS Food) and saw Colloca put together a focaccia pugliese. I was actually going to make a different bread, but Andy liked the look of this AND we had some potatoes hanging about in the cupboard.

Yes, potatoes. Focaccia Pugliese (as in, ‘focaccia from Puglia’ or ‘Puglian focaccia’ – from the region of Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot) is distinguished from other focaccias by the inclusion of mashed potato in the dough. If you’ve done some bread making, you’ll know that including potato is a good way of adding moisture into the bread, and while the dough is softer, the crumb is slightly tighter. The topping is (apparently) traditionally tomatoes and oregano, which is what I stuck with – however, we discussed this and felt that sundried tomatoes & some red onion (and maybe some olives) would also work admirably. To be honest – just whack what you want on top unless you’re serving to bread purists or Italian food purists.

The mashed potato step does add time to the process so actually what I’d recommend is that next time you’re making mash, boil up loads of potato and separate out 300g of mash before you add your butter/cream/milk to the remainder. Or, in my case, boil up potatoes specifically, separate out your 300g of mash and then make the remainder into lunch for the starving child roving the house …

Pro tips … don’t be shy with the salt (either in the dough or on top) and definitely don’t be shy with the oregano. Also – I used my standard bread flour (I actually had 00 flour but read that part of the recipe too late and also wasn’t sure I had 500g). And, as the potato does mean a tighter crumb don’t be expecting a focaccia full of big airy holes!

Colloca’s original focaccia pugliese recipe is over on SBS.

Focaccia Pugliese

Ingredients

  • 500g flour (recipe calls for 00, I used Laucke’s Wallaby)
  • 7g dried yeast
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 150mL warm milk (warm in microwave)
  • 100mL tepid water
  • 300g mashed potatoes – cooled (this is potatoes, mashed, not potatoes mashed & then loaded with cream/butter/milk … for best results use a potato ricer)
  • salt, cherry tomatoes, extra olive oil and dried oregano

Directions

  1. Put all ingredient (bar cherry toms, extra oil & oregano) in a bowl and mix together well before turning out on a bench and kneading. The dough didn’t behave super well, so I gave it a brief knead, before putting back in the bowl for a 10 minute rest and then kneading again. A little rest always seems to improve things.
  2. Once dough is smooth, return to bowl, cover and let rise for maybe 2 hours or until roughly doubled in size.
  3. Pre-heat oven to 180C fan. Line a baking tray with edges (mine is about 20cm x 40cm) with baking paper.
  4. Oil your hands and then tip the dough from the bowl onto the baking tray, stretching the dough out to roughly 1cm thickness all round.
  5. Use your fingers to create the distinctive focaccia divots in the dough, sprinkle with the oregano (generously!), arrange the halved cherry toms & then drizzle with a little extra oil.
  6. Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden and puffed. (If you’re into these things, internal bread temperature you’re looking at 90+C – on this occasion mine was about 95C).

Review: Morphett Arms Hotel

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Chicken parmi

# we paid for this meal

Date of Visit: Tuesday 20 September 2022

With the smallest member of the Eating Adelaide team away for a school trip, Andy and I got overly excited about the prospect of a week of eating out and generally whoopying it up. Due to other commitments, Monday night was a quiet night in and then due to sickness, so was the rest of the week … so our Tuesday night visit to the Morphett Arms Hotel was it!

We went through what seemed like a million dinner options before making our decision – as it was a wet and gloomy night we wanted something close by, we thought we should eat something the child doesn’t like (which left us with one option – pizza), we decided we didn’t want anything too fancy (because of all those ‘later in the week’ plans that didn’t come to fruition) and I, of course, wanted to try somewhere new. We also wanted a relatively early dinner which turned out to be a god-send as it forced us to make a decision.

Thus – the Morphett Arms. Now, we’d actually visited the Morphett Arms some time ago (2011, apparently) – and that visit had also been fraught with excitement (I’d thought I’d booked a different pub altogether) and WOW have things changed in the ten+ years since that visit. The hotel has had a refurb and has the sparkling look that, well, let’s face it, all suburban pubs have. Because it had changed so much, we wandered in to the lounge and had to be directed to the dining room (there is now also a fancy courtyard area) – it’s the absolute opposite of how it was 10 years ago.

No booking this time around but we were early and a table for two wasn’t a problem. Clearly, the staff were dealing with some exciting last minute changes for a large booking, with a lot of discussion on the phone about a table for a cake followed by a lot of reconfiguration of the seating in the dining room (as an aside – please, people – don’t do this – if you’ve got a large booking the venue wants to do the right thing by you and ensure you have a good time, while looking after other patrons – get everything lined up well in advance!). This means I’m not going to comment too much on service because it wouldn’t be fair to say anything negative. I will say the staff were all lovely, helpful and also very cheery!

Now – the crazy crazy toppings of 2011 have disappeared by the wayside (which is a shame – maybe consider bringing back a ‘crazy topping of the week’ or something!) so I went for a chicken parmi ($24+3 – slightly cheaper in the front bar) & Andy a beef schnitzel with gravy. Half schnitties are not an option here.

As you an see from the photo, the schnitzel was not on the chips (plus points!) and there was a nice, fresh salad (too much dressing, but I always think that). At first I worried that it could have done with a minute or two more under the grill, but it was very tasty – the schnitzel was thick and juicy, the crumb was crispy and the topping to meat ratio was good. The beef schnitzel with gravy was also received well.

While the wine list wasn’t overly exciting, the table talkers suggested some Eden Hall wines (I chose the Cabernet Franc – proof table-talkers work!), which were definitely a point of difference.

Instagram also promised ‘Spicy September’ but these dishes were only available in the Lounge Bar. Maybe this is where the option for the creative schnitzel topping comes in !

All in all – recommended, but make sure you go in the right door for the dining room!

Morphett Arms Hotel, 138 Morphett Road, Glengowrie, SA, 5044, ph: (08) 8295 8371.