It started with the strangest international flight I’d ever been on: a two hour interrogation and full baggage search in Portugal before boarding a military-esque, extreme utilitarian plane, complete with narrow, thread-bare seats without so much as a recline or headrest, no service (no food or drink, screens, pillows or blankets), and more than one heated argument above my head in Hebrew between passengers and crew. Little sleep ensued. Then came a 6am scramble through the airport, crook neck and all (less security on this side, thank goodness), only to dive into an taxi that clearly was a rally car driver in another life (I quickly realised this was the norm – not one car was unscathed). This is Tel Aviv.

Though sleep was now the first thing on my mind, I had priorities: and first was my 9am Delicious Israel tour. Let’s just say my tour guide had a masters on hummus and Israeli nationalism – it was hands down the best food tour I’ve ever done. We began with bowls of creamy hummus topped with liberal olive oil, parsley, ful (a dark, rich fava bean puree) and paprika, scooped up with hot falafel, freshly baked pita and sharp onion wedges (yes you read that right), and my new favourite-  masabacha. Same ingredients as hummus, but deconstructed – all cooked together rather than blitzed – for a lumpy, broken chickpea texture. The next six hours were a blur of food: malabi, a creamy milk pudding topped with pomegranate raspberry syrup and sweet coconut peanut crumble; boureka, crispy and flaky and filled with spinach and cheese; lamb shawarma straight from the spit; market-stall flatbread, spread with tahini sauce, parsley-heavy tabouli, chilli, za’tar and grilled eggplant then folded like an envelope and placed straight into my hot hands. More and more – but I can’t give up all their secrets. Suffice to say I ate, and ate, and ate – and learnt so much more about Tel Aviv and Israeli food, culture and history than I ever would have on my own. 

It’s a sun-drenched, golden-hued city, dry and sand baked. There’s palm trees and the Mediterranean, the odd skyscraper but mainly crumbled bauhaus buildings – one renovated and glowing for every abandoned and windowless version. We walked and ate. Buttery, dense dark chocolate babka, or a white chocolate halva iteration in the morning. Soft and charred whole roast cauliflower served up in a paper bag, smoky grilled eggplant on a bed of creamy tahini sauce with spicy grated tomato for lunch. Market smoothie stands piled high with the biggest pomegranates I’ve ever seen, frequented by both machine-gun toting IDF teens and head-scarfed orthodox women. Restaurants are crowded and lively – expect to do shots with the bartenders – and Israelis eat LATE (we felt like nanna’s rocking up at 730pm). Though the streets are empty on Saturday mornings with Shabbat, the waterfront was packed with joggers and cyclists getting in their weekend exercise pre-coffee – not unlike home. There was no real modern retailing – no mega strip of Zara, Topshop and Nike – but if Tel Aviv was a culture shock, then Jerusalem was that on steroids. 

More about that in another blog post, but below are some of my favourite coffee stops, bakeries, markets, bars and restaurants in Tel Aviv. I loved it. (I have also included a few from Jerusalem down the bottom, but as we only spent a day and half there, I was much less thorough in exploring!)

Cafes & Bakeries

• Nahat Cafe: hands down the best coffee we tried, and a great spot to sit on the sidewalk and people watch. Make sure to order one of their house-made croissants with a pot of salted pistachio butter on the side.
• Dallal Bakery: tucked away in Neve Tzedek, Dallal does a gorgeous, brioche-like babka – one dark chocolate, the other halva- and great coffee. Sit outside in the sun along the marble bar. Also try their poppy-seed tart.
• Lehahim Bakery: you might have already heard of the legendary Bread’s Bakery in NYC – this is the original. It’s a confluence of Israeli, Jewish and Danish sweets: the chocolate babka, rich and buttery with croissant dough, is the best I’ve tried, and we also loved the almond-crusted croissants and dark chocolate rugelach. I’d recommend the larger cafe located in HaHashmonaim St.  
• Cafelix: Cafelix has three or so locations in Tel Aviv, all of which serve up great coffee and sweets. 
• Cafe Levinsky 41: a tiny hold-in-the-wall in Florentine, Levinsky are masters of fermentation: kombucha, kefir and all manner of jars of various fruits, syrups and spices. Order a kombucha and watch as they individually flavour-profile each drink and adorn your glass with herbs and flowers. 
• Little Prince Bookshop and cafe: perfect for free-lance work or brunch, the walls are lined with books and there’s plenty of seating. An impressive food menu too – try their cherry tomato shakshuka. 
• Bucke cafe: one that I was recommended and didn’t quite manage to get to. Go for brunch and order the breakfast tray, filled with dollops of labneh, hummus, eggs, roast vegetables and various salads. 
• Uzi-Eli: a little health food store near Carmel market, this is the place for your smoothies, acai bowls and refreshing juice stops. You can also find them in Jerusalem in the Mahane Yehuda market. 

Restaurants and Cheap Eats

• North Abraxus: you may have heard of the casual Israeli eatery Miznon, which has been steadily taking over the world (Tel Aviv, Vienna, Paris, Melbourne, NYC) one whole roast cauliflower at a time. This is Eyal Shani’s slightly more upscale version, where you can book a table rather than standing at a bar and there are no pitas in sight. Pile in for the torch whole roast, blackened sweet potato ‘that you eat with your hands’, served with creme fraiche and smoked salt, the “white lines of aubergine lined up on tahini”, and so much more. It’s a new menu every day. Call to book. 
• Miznon, if you haven’t been already, for said whole roast cauliflower and pita (pita on the bone, and the falafel pita, are my favourites). 
• Port Sa’id: this the more lively, bar version of North Abraxus. We went to both. Definitely worth it. Try the arab cabbage cake, slow cooked and melting in butter. It’s opposite a synagogue with outdoor seating sprawling out over the steps, and is the ideal place for a lazy sunny lunch with friends. 
• HaBasta: a little place tucked in off a side street of the Carmel Market with a handwritten daily changing menu. Sit outside on the street with eclectic red checked tableclothes, and book if you can. A bit pricy, but probably worth it if market-to-table, local ingredients, wines and interesting flavour combinations are your thing. 
• Hummus Abu Hassan: the OG hummus joint in Jaffa since 1966. Pro tip: the original spot is tiny and you might have trouble getting in at peak hour if there’s more than two of you, but they’ve opened a bigger place about 1km away where you can sit outside in the shade and be dished up plates of hummus, masabacha, falafel and warm pita. 
• Falafel Hakosem and Falafel Gabai: the best falafel I tried in Tel Aviv. Grab a shakshuka and bowl of chopped tomato cucumber salad to go with it.  
• Sabich: maybe the ultimate Israeli fusion food, some of the best street-side sabich can be found opposite the Carmel Market: think fresh pita piled up with grilled eggplant, hard-hard-boiled egg, golden potato. all freshened up with herbs and greens and dolled up with tahini sauce. Filling, delicious AND cheap. 

Markets

• Carmel market: an absolute must walk through in Tel Aviv, but try to avoid Friday afternoon (and it is closed on Saturdays), when it becomes frantic with everyone loading up on shopping for Shabbat meals. Stop for a freshly squeezed pomegranate juice or smoothie, buy spices like za’atar to take home, and feast on all the colours, smells and sounds around you. This is another place included on the Delicious Israel tour- so much to learn here!
• Levinsky market: more of a street with open front stores than a market as such, this is the place for your dried herbs, fruit, pulses and spices. Stop at Cafe Levinsky for a floral kombucha, snack on some dates and buy a bunch of different halva flavours (my favourite was the pistachio). 

Jerusalem favourites

• Mahane Yehuda Market: even bigger and better than the markets in Tel Aviv. Stop by in the morning to watch the bakeries churn out hundreds of pita, the fishmongers and spice-sellers hawk their wares, and the piles of produce and sweets around every corner. Grab a coffee from the Cafelix Roasters and a smoothie from Uzi-Eli while you people-watch. 
• Machneyuda: be warned – it’s extremely loud, in a club-y kind of way. It’s also one of the most renowned restaurants in Israel, by the same chefs that own the Palomar and the Barbary in London. If you like those, you’ll like this. If you like the sound of modern, innovative Israeli food, you’ll like this. Must book online –  and book on the early side if you’re noise-averse. 
• Azura: a more traditional market restaurant. In Ottolenghi’s words, “it tells the story of Jewish immigrants and how their food has manifested itself since grandma’s time”. That famous eggplant dish stuffed with ground beef and pinenuts from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook? Inspired by the very dish at Azura. 
• Lina Hummus & Falafel (old Jerusalem): if you are doing a day tour of Jerusalem (which I would highly recommend, we loved ours and learnt SO much) then head here for lunch, deep in the Arab quarter. Bowls of creamy hummus topped with chickpeas, pinenuts and herbs, crisp falafel and vibrant Jerusalem chopped salad. 
• Kadosh Cafe Patisserie: second to the market, a great spot for a pastry or breakfast before starting your day exploring the old city. 

The post Tel Aviv Food Guide appeared first on The Brick Kitchen.

Smashed pumpkin toast with pomegranate, homemade hummus, crispy kale, feta and a perfectly poached egg. Move over, avocado toast!  Jump to Recipe 

This morning was a turning point, heralding winter’s arrival to Melbourne. Cheeks blushed red with that conflicting icy-heat of cold air, fingers tucked inside sleeves to avoid the chill, and eyes watering in the wind – people move faster in winter. A mixture of trying to send blood around to our extremities and an attempt to get to somewhere with heating as fast as possible, maybe.

My stress fracture injury seems to be finally healing, and though I’m not supposed to run for a few more months yet, I have been going for frequent walks. It is challenging to restrain my impatient legs from jogging  – missing that feeling of burning muscles screaming for oxygen, of your heart being half way up to your throat, and the mindlessness of putting one foot in front of the other. You can think a lot more when you walk, maybe because less of your mental capacity is focused on moving forward. At least I have Lemonade to listen to at the moment.

Cooking is a similar sort of concentration. Rather than being consumed by physical exertion, I’m normally figuring out the ingredients and measurements, the next step to take for maximal efficiency. This smashed pumpkin toast with pomegranate & hummus is like that – once the pumpkin is in the oven, you can prepare everything else, ready to get set go once it emerges, wrinkly and fragrant. Make the hummus, water on for eggs, prep the herbs and spices, start the dishes, crisp up the kale and deseed your pomegranate – the latter hopefully without permanently staining your white shirt or chopping board, like me.

It is also made for the cooling weather (although don’t get me wrong – if you’re lucky enough to be in spring, go ahead and make it too!). Pumpkin is roasted and caramelised, tender and crisp at the edges, then mashed and sautéed with garlic, thyme, roasted almonds and the rich tanginess of pomegranate molasses. Chopped mint & parsley inject freshness, dukkah for that earthy spice, and you can serve it up on a bed of smooth homemade hummus with crusty bread.

Crispy kale offers texture, almost disappearing in your mouth with its fragile lightness. Extras take it to the next level: the pop of bright pink pomegranate arils, chunks of creamy feta, and a perfectly poached egg, yolk oozing down to reach the folds of hummus below.

Move over, avocado toast! 

AND it is one of those dishes that could be served for brunch, lunch or dinner, and is very adaptable. Last night I forgot the almonds, so substituted toasted pumpkin & sunflower seeds. If you don’t have dukkah, just use a pinch of a few spices in the cupboard. Not much mint? Try some parsley as well. Add greens if you like – asparagus for those in the spring, or late summer zucchini or broccolini in autumn. The pumpkin smash itself could be served separately as a middle-eastern side dish. Add harissa if you want a bit of extra heat. Endless adjustments.

You’ve probably noticed by now that I LOVE homemade hummus – if you do too, you might also like:
– Ottolenghi’s Lamb Kofta with Corn, Zucchini & Roasted Carrot Salad and Homemade Hummus
– Middle-Eastern Chermoula Lamb Skewers with Tabouli, Hummus and Pita
– Homemade Bagels with Coriander-Lime Hummus, Avocado & Salmon

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Ottolenghi’s Lamb Kofta with Corn, Zucchini & Roasted Carrot Salad and Homemade Hummus – easy, vibrant and summery, with pomegranate molasses and feta.  Jump to Recipe 

I type this from the sun-lit, flower-adorned kitchen table of our new place in Melbourne.

Dining chairs remain on the to-do list, so an assorted collection of our desk chairs surround the table, any TV watching is currently from the floor, a few cardboard boxes linger to attempt to squeeze into the recycling, and the walls are freshly blank – but it is home base. For the year, or maybe longer – my first experience at living in a home that is not also my family’s, the first go at renting a house. Being more adult and no longer spoon-fed by the organised life of college and living in a building occupied by 300 other student – the freedom of having more of your own space than the 3 x 2m brick room filled up by a non-descript bed and desk. Don’t get me wrong, college was an incredible experience that I wouldn’t change – but I was definitely ready to move on. College food is finally in the past (a big bonus!) and one of my favourite belongings, my Kenwood, proudly occupies the new kitchen. It all feels very grown up.

(In saying that, I do have matte-grey pineapple wall-paper stickers adorning the wall above my bed – so maybe not quite so grown up yet..)

Moving house is strange: trying to find your feet in unfamiliar rooms, and with people who are your friends – but not your siblings or parents. I was lucky to have the best house-mate ever help me out with furniture shopping and IKEA flat-pack assembly, which would have been a major challenge on crutches. Flat-packing isn’t my biggest strength, I quickly discovered. Although reading the instruction manuals wasn’t a challenge, the big arrows pointing to which screw should go where, and which side should face each way, I kept trying to do everything too quickly, assuming I knew it all – and then would come to a grinding halt when I missed essential points in the assembly of my bed, or bedside table – only realising when it didn’t fit together properly, or was extremely asymmetric.

Fortunately, most of my mistakes were reversible – or at least, nothing has collapsed on me yet.

Much of my cooking is going to need to become significantly more budget friendly as well. So far it has gone well: cheap summer roasted tomato pasta with grilled zucchini, a vietnamese ginger chilli chicken with soba noodles, a quick leftovers shakshuka. It is made easier simply by the fact that I am no longer cooking for effectively 8 people as at home – by the time the insane appetite of my three brothers is taken into account, anything becomes expensive. Cooking for three girls is far more managable.

These middle-eastern lamb kofta with corn, zucchini & roasted carrot salad and homemade hummus were on the table last week. The salad relies on seasonal fresh ears of corn and zucchini, pan-fried or grilled, tossed with caramelised, warm roasted carrot and brightened with coriander, feta and a pomegranate molasses dressing. Ottolenghi’s spiced lamb kofta are brilliant – a middle-eastern version of a meatball, sweetly scented with cinnamon and all-spice and given a kick with fresh chilli and herbs. Pinenuts are an optional extra – they taste amazing if they fit your budget, but if not – take them or leave them. Homemade hummus, lemon and garlicy, rounds it all off, and it only takes a few minutes to transform your humble can of chickpeas (or dried, if you are a purist) in your food processor.

Cook’s notes (and budget tips):

• For faster evening assembly, make the kofta mixture the morning of or earlier whenever you have time and store in the fridge uncooked until just before meal-time.
• Hummus can also be made in advance.
• New tip from one of the girls in my house: buying feta for a few is MUCH cheaper (at least in Australia) when bought from the supermarket deli, rather than the prepackaged brands. It might not be quite so fancy, but enough for this meal might only cost $2. For other meals, the same goes with chicken.
• The lamb kofta are more easily cooked on a barbecue flat plate for ease, space and heat – but can be cooked in a pan if necessary. The zucchini can also be grilled on the barbecue rather than a pan.

The post Ottolenghi’s Lamb Kofta with Corn, Zucchini & Roasted Carrot Salad and Homemade Hummus appeared first on The Brick Kitchen.

Green sandwiches on homemade turkish bread stuffed with silky smooth hummus, avocado, cucumber, spring onion, parsley, goat’s cheese and lettuce.  Jump to Recipe 

As I write this, we are driving through the dry, mountainous south-west of Turkey, having departed the coastal town of Fethiye earlier this morning. Pamukkale will be our final destination today – the famous natural white terraced thermal pools set into the hillside. Over-hyped tourist trap or must-see wonder of the world? More updates to come.

But more importantly – the food. So far in the trip, it has been a bit of a mixed bag. Confined to the touristy old quarter of Istanbul, Sultanahmet, and exploring small, rather touristy towns like Goreme, has meant it has been mostly kebabs, kofte (meatballs) and mezze platters (some much better than others). In saying this, the sweets have been amazing – every imaginable flavour of turkish delight and nougat, big juicy dates (with a hundred different varieties), sesame helva, dripping pistachio baklava, and lokma – small doughnuts coated in a honey syrup and dusted with cinnamon that practically explode inside your mouth. However, we have a couple of extra days in Istanbul this weekend to hopefully experience more contemporary, high quality Turkish cuisine, rather than the standard fare on the tourist trail.

The most unique dining experience by far, however, was a couple of days ago in Konya. As the most conservative city in Turkey, it was the first time that Mum and I really had to cover up (no knees, elbows, or anything in between), and the majority of women on the streets were garbed in the hijab (headscarf) with a long overcoat to hide their female shape. Remember, this is also in 35° weather. The difference in culture was confronting: coming from my perspective of being brought up never questioning that I have exactly the same rights and opportunities as my brothers, that I have freedom of expression and freedom of choice, the obvious inequality of men and women in strict Muslim society is difficult to understand. Before this I had only read about it, and never walked down the street to see cafes filled with with a ratio of 90:10 men to women, and young men wandering around wearing and doing whatever they wanted while grim-faced women covered from head to toe hustled children inside.

Religion is at the forefront of everybody’s lives: both in what you see and what your hear, with the call to prayer echoing around the city five times a day to remind us of the greatness of God. It also meant that more than 90% of Konya’s inhabitants were fasting for Ramadan, and it was almost impossible to find a restaurant that would serve you before 830pm, or sunset. Walking through the streets to dinner, hundreds of people sat outside, tables piled high with food – and none was touched before the signal from the mosque speakers rang out that it was time to break fast – the iftar meal. The restaurant where we ate, just 200m from Turkey’s most holy site – the tomb of the Islamic scholar and poet Rumi, was transformed for Ramadan: a huge leafy outdoor area filled with white table-clothed seating, candles and strung up white lights. The hundreds of people needing to be fed at exactly the same time required a set menu – luckily our waiter spoke enough English to explain it to us, as we really had no idea what we were in for.

The table was already set with condiments: not limited to salt and pepper, in Turkey this means plates of olives and dates, a rose water syrup, smears of tahini, a clay pot of thick yogurt for each person and a disc-like, dry bread that is a specialty of Konya. Traditionally, three dates are eaten first to break the fast, but many around us, deprived of nicotine from the day, got straight into the cigarettes. Soup came first – a bowl of tomato-like soup with lots of green okra, while other starters were a spiced mince wrapped in warmed grape leaves, like a Turkish rice paper roll, and layered spinach and feta gozleme. The main was a lamb kebab – tender roasted lamb served atop bread with the typical salad we have had all around Turkey – a tomato-cucumber mix with parsley and green chilli, flavoured with a light pomegranate dressing. Of the specialty drink, a heady spiced pomegranate juice with strong notes of nutmeg and cinnamon, I could only manage a sip. By this time some of the tables were emptying around us, with everyone hastening home to get some sleep before the 4am wakeup to eat again before sunrise. Was dessert coming? One waiter said no – but unsure if he understood our question, we asked another – and YES! The boys grinned. Some of the best dessert of the trip arrived: a thick brown caramelized sesame halva paste, shaped into a flower, and a honey-drenched layered pastry. Now 10pm, we wandered home past the lit-up mosque, where hundred of people knelt on mats to pray, bought dates at a small shop near the hotel, and stumbled into bed with full stomachs. The amount of food was perfect for those who hadn’t let anything pass their lips for 15 hours, but was colossal for those of us who had eaten all day!

Anyway – to the recipe. This is my favourite version of Turkish pide – soft and full of big air-pockets, it is perfect eaten plain with olive oil, with a smear of homemade hummus and a sprinkle of dukkah, with this Middle-Eastern lamb salad, or in these sandwiches. Here in Turkey, pide is often made very thinly, covered in mince, cheese or vegetables, and cooked in a wood-fired oven, but this version, adapted from Little & Friday, is as good as it gets at home. No kneading is required – just a few turns every half-hour, and 3 hours after you first tipped the flour into the bowl, you have warm, fluffy bread that can be paired with just about any meal.

The hummus is my favourite version yet – and the quickest way I have found to make the smooth, creamy dip without the fuss of cooking dried chickpeas or having to peel them, because sometimes you just need hummus now. The three key facets of it are the initial blitz of the tahini to smoothen it out and blend it with the other ingredients, being patient and processing the chickpeas for a couple more minutes to make it extra smooth, and using iced water to lighten up the emulsion – giving you a creamy, fluffy end product. Of course, if you have a few extra minutes, feel free to peel the chickpeas – your hummus will be silky smooth. I could eat it by the spoonful.

The sandwich is elevated astronomically by its components: a thick smear of creamy hummus, slices of smooth avocado, the crunch of cucumber, parsley leaves, spring onion and goats cheese as sparks of flavour, salt and pepper to lift it all up, lettuce for a bit of substance and texture, and, if you so choose, a bit of hot smoked salmon just because it is SO good.

The post Homemade Turkish Pide Sandwiches with Hummus appeared first on The Brick Kitchen.

Middle-Eastern Harissa Lamb Salad with roast cauliflower, warm baby carrots,  fennel, broad beans, herbs, coriander yoghurt and harissa. Jump to Recipe 

A crazy two weeks of cooking has just occurred in the Brick household.

This Rhubarb Caramel Pistachio cake, these Greek Chicken Souvlaki and Cypriot Grain Salad, both sesame and cinnamon raisin bagels, blueberry and lemon scones, pork meatball banh mi, pear and chocolate crumble, harissa chicken with bulghar wheat and hummus, a rhubarb, raspberry and almond tart, cinnamon-date-walnut brioche scrolls… the list goes on. And on.

Mum is getting increasingly concerned about our waistlines.

The other relevant news to this post (which I am hugely excited about), is that we are leaving for a two-week family holiday to Turkey tomorrow! Besides the 24-hours spent crammed into economy plane seating each way (why is NZ so far away from everything?!), I cannot wait to explore Istanbul (fun fact, Istanbul is the 5th largest city in the world – I had no idea!), hot-air balloon over Cappadocia, spend a day sailing off the Turquoise coast, see the thermal pools of Pamukkale, wander the ruins of the ancient city of Troy, visit Gallipoli in the 100th year anniversary of World War I, and eat. Make that lots of eating. Turkish food today is rooted in the culture of the Ottoman empire, which was founded in 1299 and only collapsed in the aftermath of World War I, and placed a large importance on food in daily life. Because of factors like Turkey’s geographic location, the migration of its people from far East Asia, and the vast spread of the Ottoman Empire and its control of the spice trade, Turkish cuisine is a fusion of many, including Asian, Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean, North African and Western European, while the food in each region also has particular defining characteristics and dishes. Culinary lore even identifies Turkish food as amongst the three greatest cuisines in the world – the others are French and Chinese.

You can be sure that in the next few weeks there will be many recipes on here inspired by these upcoming food experiences! I will also be adding a ‘Travel’ tab to the top menu, which will serve as a photo-diary of our time in Turkey with recommendations of what to see and where to eat – and as a record for me to look back on in future. If anyone has any tips on travelling with a DSLR camera, please let me know – it is the first time I have travelled with it and want to look after it well!

I had to experiment with a bit of Turkish-slash-Middle-Eastern food before I left (of course!), and so made this Middle Eastern Harissa Lamb Salad, adapted from the amazing Engine Room cookbook. Tender, slow cooked lamb shanks are paired with crispy-edged roasted cauliflower florets and warm baby carrots, slivers of fennel, broad beans, the sharp flavours of coriander and mint, a cool coriander yoghurt base, a pomegranate molasses dressing, salty pieces of feta, and drizzles of spicy, fragrant harissa. It sounds like a lot, but trust me – it works. I could eat it all day. For many, many days.

It does take a wee bit of work, but it is worth it, I promise. Make the harissa paste ahead (or buy a reeeaally good quality one from a specialty food store or market), cook the lamb shanks earlier in the day, prep the dressing and coriander yogurt – and then all you need to do is put it all together before you eat. If you want to seriously wow people – this is your meal.

The harissa that I used is an adaptation of a recipe of Al Brown’s, which is a relatively mild and very fragrant paste. There are certainly many other recipes out there with a lot more chili, but I like this one as the heat doesn’t overwhelm the other flavours. The recipe below makes a lot more than you need for this salad, but it makes a perfect marinade for chicken or lamb, can be served as a dip, on toast, in sandwiches, with hummus, in yogurt, with pasta, as a salad dressing – you name it!

I also served it with freshly baked turkish pide – a leavened flat-bread (similar to the Italian focaccia) that works perfectly to mop up all of the flavours in the salad. The recipe will be going up next week with my favourite creamy hummus recipe (and hopefully a few photos of Turkey!).

Anyway, do give this recipe a go. For a dinner party, for friends, for your family, or just yourself – the melding of tender lamb, soft spices, mellow yogurt, the pop of pomegranate, fresh herbs, warm roasted vegetables and crusty Turkish bread is very (very) hard to beat. Dad even thought this might just be the best meal I have ever made (and there have been a lot!).

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