Lahmacun

Now you may ask what is Lahmacun, well it is a pizza dough spread with lamb or beef mince that has had herbs and spices added to it.

It originated in the Middle East.

You then eat it like a pizza and traditionally roll it around pickles or a salad similar to a greek salad.

This is the way that we eat it.

Now I have made this before, after reading several recipes the consensus was to cook the mince first then place it onto the raw dough.

DON'T what every you do follow that path what you are left with is hard little nuggets of mince, think gravel.

The only saving grace was that I had served a salad with it so we could try and moisten the meat with the juice from the salad.

I still shudder at the thought of it.UGH !

This recipe is enough for 6 nearly dinner plate size lahmacun's. You could easily double it if you are feeding more people.

Dough
1 tsp (sachet) dried yeast, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 cup warm water + extra 1/2 cup warm water, 2 1/2 cups plain flour

In a small bowl mix together 1/2 cup warm water and the sugar, sprinkle the yeast on top. Leave 15 minutes for the yeast to foam and bubble. I place a tea towel over the top to create warmth.

This is the yeast after 15 minutes, see how it is puffed up.










In a large bowl place the flour and yeast mixture, using you hands (the best kitchen tool ) start to mix together then add enough of the remaining water to form a sticky dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface and kneaded for 3 - 5 minutes or until the dough comes together into a nice ball.

Oil a bowl added the dough ball spray oil on top then cover with cling wrap.

Se how I drape the cling wrap down the sides of the bowl, making sure it is adhered to the bowl.

This is to create a little greenhouse that will help warm the dough causing it to rise.

Leave the dough for 1 - 2 hours.

This is my dough after an hour and half.

The only reason I left the dough for so long was because Mr CLI was late home from  work.







When risen dump the dough onto a floured surface , kneaded for about 1 minute the cut into 6 equal sized balls. Leave while mixing meat together.

Meat Topping
500 gms minced lamb or beef ( my preference is lamb), 1/2 bunch each parsley and mint, finely chopped, 1 medium tomato finely chopped, 1/4 red capsicum finely chopped, 1 tsp each ground cumin, sweet paprika & sumac, 1 tbsp butter, 1/2 onion and 2 cloves garlic whizzed together in a food processor

Preheat the oven 220.c

Melt the butter add the onion/garlic mix, saute until most of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture is soft. Leave to cool.

In a large bowl mix together all topping ingredients. Once again your hand is the best tool as you can mix and squeeze the mince so it forms almost a paste, this is so it can be easily spread across the dough.





Roll out the balls of dough quite thin approx 2 - 3 mm. Place onto oiled trays, spread the mince mixture over, leaving about 1.5 cm edge. Now I just used my fingers again and flattened the mince, you have to be careful because the dough is so thin.

Oil the edges of the dough so that they will crisp and brown. I use an oil spray.

Bake 12 - 15 minutes. Once the topping is cooked and the edges have browned, if the base is still a little soft I slide it onto the oven rack and leave for 2 - 3 minutes to crisp up the bottom.

Now you don't want the bottom to hard because you won't be able to fold it around the salad.




Once cooked remove from the oven and cut into 4 pieces. Serve with salad if you are using it. Also a squeeze of lemon is nice on the lahmacun.

Salad
approx 3 iceburg lettuce leaves.1 medium tomato, 1/2 red capsicum , 100 grams feta, all cut into 1 cm dice 1 dessertspoon olive oil and 1 tsp champagne vinegar

Place all ingredients into a bowl and toss.

Irish Stew

Now my question yesterday "what to do with 6 lamb chops" these had been defrosted on Sunday because Mr CLI had decided that's what he wanted for tea, but when we got to tea he changed his mind. So they were left in the fridge.

Yesterday morning I told him as he was leaving for work that is what we would be having for tea, his reply "ahhh mmmm" now that is Mr CLI for "I don't want to eat that".

So I put my thinking cap on, what could I do with the chops that was easy but still tasty. Mmmmmm.

As the weather had changed and it was much cooler something cooked in the oven seemed appropriate. Light bulb moment Irish Stew, it is warming, filling and hopefully MR CLI approved.

Did it get the Mr CLI tick of approval, it most certainly did.

A sign of the times instead of recipe books, the ipad in action.










Irish Stew
6 large lamb chops = 1.5 kgs , I used BBQ chops, remove the edge fat and cut in half lengthwise, 1/4 cup plain flour. salt and pepper, 1/2 onion chopped,  2 tbsps tomato paste, 2 beef stock cubes, 1 tbsp chopped parsley, 2 tbsps cold water + 3 cups boiling water, 1 kg potatoes peeled and sliced into 1/4" slices. 2 small or 2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into rounds.

For serving 1 tbsp chopped fresh mint

Preheat oven 180.c

In a plastic bag place flour and season with salt & pepper. Place the chops in and shake, to give them a light coating.

You could even place flour on a large plate the dredge each chop. KEEP LEFTOVER FLOUR, you will need this to add to the sauce.

Layer 1/3 potato. 1/3 carrot, 1/3 onion 1/2 the chops, repeat once more, for final layer place the potatoes last. Season with salt and pepper on each layer.

Sprinkle with parsley.

 In a large jug whisk together leftover flour, cold water and tomato paste. Add stock cubes and boiling water. whisk together, then pour over stew.

Place on lid and cook for 2 - 3 hours, depending on your oven. For the last half hour remove lid this will crisp up top layer of potatoes and reduce the sauce.

Serve sprinkled with some chopped mint.

Marinated Lamb Wraps

This is one of those meals of many parts, but each part is easy and can be altered to suit your tastes.

It has 4 basic components the boned leg of lamb, the hummus dip, salad and wraps.

Now you can vary the herbs used in the lamb marinade. I just used what was growing in the garden. You could make the flavour stronger by using rosemary and garlic or use fresh mint and parsley the choice is yours.

The wraps that you choose are up to your individual taste, I had mountain bread which is quite thin for this type of meal but I managed the other wraps were Yiros wraps.

These are the yiros wraps, they are like the ones used for souvlakis at fish and chips shops. When warmed they are very soft.

Mountain bread

Lamb Wraps

1 boned leg of lamb, then one I used was 1.8 kg

Marinade : 2 tbsps olive oil, juice and grated rind 1 lemon, 2 sprigs thyme, 3 sprigs oregano

I used a processor attachment to my bamix to process everything to a smooth paste. You could also use a mortar and pestle or a knife to chop the herbs finely and mix them with the other ingredient's.

Place the lamb skin side down in a ceramic or glass dish rub the paste into the meat, cover and leave for at least 1 hour in the fridge.

The leg of lamb coated in its marinade.

To cook the lamb - when cooked it on our hooded BBQ - heat oven or BBQ to 220.c place meat skin side down on flat BBQ plate or baking tray, cook for 20 minutes, then turn meat and reduce heat to 200. c. Cook until tender we cooked ours for another 40 minutes.

Remove from oven/BBQ place on a plate tent with foil and leave for 10 minutes, then slice thinly.

Hummus Dip

As in the blog listed below

http://cooklikeina.blogspot.com/search/label/Dips

Salad

I made a basic Greek salad with a balsamic dressing, but you can make any type of salad that you want. The trick is to make you salad pieces smaller than normal so that they will roll easier in the wraps.

1/3 lettuce roughly chopped into 2 cm pieces, 3 tomatoes chopped into 1 cm pieces, 1/2 cucumber cut into 1/4 's lengthwise, seeds removed then cut into 1/2 cm slices, 250 gms feta crumbled - I used Danish feta because it is soft and creamy perfect for this dish, 100 gms pipped kalamata olives cut in half

Dressing - 3 tbsps olive oil, 2 tbsps balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp dijon mustard

Whisk together.

I tossed all the salad ingredients except the feta and olives in the dressing the layered the salad with the feta, that way it doesn't fall apart to much. I also served the olives separately, because we had visitors over and I wasn't sure if they would like olives and I didn't want them to have to pick them out if they didn't like them.

To make the wraps spread some hummus dip down the centre of your chosen wrap, pile on some salad then the meat, roll up eat and enjoy.

As with any meal you eat with your fingers plenty of serviettes are needed.

If you don't like lamb you could substitute it for chicken breasts.

Summer Eating

With the warm weather over the last few days, we won't mention the torrential rain that we got last night.

My mind has been wandering towards Summer eating. Now Mr CLI loves to BBQ, not the run of the mill sausages and chops, we rarely have that, but cooking roasts in his hooded BBQ or his Webber.

His Webber is as old as our eldest daughter, on her first Christmas he decided to cook Christmas lunch, luckily I had pre thought and made entree's because it was a very late lunch. Not the thing you need with a 3 month old baby.

Anyway he has the timing done perfect nowadays, so he enjoys cooking on his BBQ. We were lucky when we bought this house to have a large cemented area at the back of the house, with an outside toilet, so we only had to put up a pergola to create a large eating area.

We have now extended it to go to the fence line, in this area we created a fernery including a fish pond and waterfall, that contains 4 very large goldfish. They were only 4 cm long when we got them they are probably close to 15 cms now ! They are Miss Fish's, fish.

So in the warmer months we use it a lot, we even have breakfast out there on the weekend. It is nothing for me to cook a batch of pancakes for breakfast, which we leisurely eat and enjoy the morning.

Other ideas are

- I bone a leg of lamb then rub it with a mixture of ground coriander, ground cumin, chopped fresh mint, olive oil, lemon juice, a sweet paprika. Mr CLI cooks it till tender, he also heats up some flour tortillas .

I make hummus and a greek salad, we spread the hummus over the wraps then some salad finally some sliced hot lamb. Roll it up and eat. Very yummy and actually very good for you.

- Another idea is to spatchcock a chicken and marinate that in fresh juice lemon or lime, olive oil and what every fresh herbs and spices that you fancy. Cook it till falling apart, basting occasionally with its juices. Then serve it with either salad, fresh bread, hot vegetables what ever you fancy.

There are plenty of other things. I have made home made pizzas , which Mr CLI has cooked in the hooded BBQ.

I even make a pineapple upside down cake which is cooked in the residual heat after Mr CLI has used his Webber.

The sky is the limit. So when you get your BBQ out this Summer don't just think sausages and chops. Try recipes that you would cook inside and adapt them for your BBQ.

Now I must go make a cuppa to warm me up with the cold weather today it is needed, but I will sit and think of the warmer days to come when we can once again wear skirts and sit outside till late enjoying the weather.

Till tomorrow good bye.

Mouth Watering Lamb Curry

Now I am not a fan of tongue burning hot curries, I can't see the enjoyment of killing my taste buds with heat from the curry which causes you to loose the flavours of the dish.

This curry isn't like that it has a mellow warmth that gets you mouth begging for more. It is a really good recipe that you can cook long and slow.

You will know when the lamb is cooked , when you taste a piece you will find that it literally melts in your mouth.

The original recipe is from Rick Stein, but I have altered and simplified it over the years. I always serve rice pilaf with it that I have cooked in the oven, you could serve it with steamed rice.

This is a dish that really needs lots poppadoms or a good roti bread, as it really is a dish best eaten by dipping roti or poppadoms in it. I also serve it with a good dollop of greek yoghurt, the coolness of the yoghurt goes well with the warmth of the curry.

Lamb & Potato Curry

100g unsalted butter, 2 - 3 onions, chopped, 2 tbsps fresh ginger, finely chopped, 6 cloves garlic cloves, chopped, 1 tsp dried chillies, 2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes or 1 bottle tomato passatta, 12tbs ground turmeric, 2 tbs ground cumin, 2 tbs ground coriander, 4 tbs sweet paprika 2 kg lean lamb (such as leg), skin and excess fat removed, cut into 4cm piece , 400ml can coconut milk, 300ml water , 2 tspn salt, 1kg potatoes , peeled, cut into 2-3 cm pieces, 2 tbs black mustard seeds, 1 bunch (about 80g) coriander, roughly chopped, plus a few extra leaves to garnish

Melt the butter in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, ginger, garlic & dried chilli flakes, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 - 15 minutes until the onion mixture is soft and lightly browned. Spoon the onion mixture into a blender or food processor and blend to a smooth paste.

Return to the pan and add the tomatoes, spices, lamb, coconut milk, water and salt, then bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer,covered, stirring occasionally, for 1¼ hours, or until the lamb is tender. It seems the slower and longer you cook this the more mellow the flavour is.

Stir in the potatoes & mustard seeds, cover and continue to cook for 20-25 minutes until potatoes are tender. You may need more water, because this is a wet curry. Stir in the coriander and more seasoning, if necessary. Sprinkle with extra coriander leave to garnish.

Serve with steamed rice or rice pilaf.

Pastitsio

Now for those of you that don't know Pastitsio is the Greek version of lasagna. Except it only has 3 layers, pasta, meat sauce, pasta then topped with bechemal.

I had heard of it and seen it on T.V. shows but had never eaten it.

On one of our trips to Adelaide we took Miss Fish to - The Greek on Halifax - a Greek restaurant that Mr CLI & I had found on an earlier trip to Adelaide.

http://www.thegreek.com.au/

Now Miss Fish is the Chicken Parmigiana Queen of Victoria, so she was a bit disappointed when the restaurant didn't have any, but as luck would have it while explaining to her that this restaurant was Greek a waitress brought out the specials board. Now Miss Fish not only loves Chicken Parmigiana, but she also loves pasta. Once I explained what it was she was very happy to have it.

Now it had been made with very long tubular noodles, think rigatoni but long like spaghetti. Now having seen this sort of pasta before, it now required another trip to the

Adelaide Central Markets, oh what we do in the name of food. lol.

I found the pasta at a stall that I regularly shop at.

Mezarri Number 11

Now when I made this I realised all too late that I didn't have enough of the tubular pasta for both layers, so I fossicked in the back of the shelf and got out my large pasta shells - another Adelaide market purchase - that I usually fill with a ricotta cheese mix and bake in a tomato sauce, so these became mt first layer of the dish.

Now you really don't have to go and purchase special pasta, for this dish. The only reason that I did was because I could buy it. Most recipes use rigatoni.

You can also use either beef or lamb mince, on this occasion I used lamb mince.

Pastitsio

Meat sauce - 500 gms lamb or beef mince, 1/2 only finely diced, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp dried oregano, 2 tbsps tomato paste, 1/2 cup beef stock, 2 cups tomato passata

Bechamel - 3 tbsps butter, 1/4 cup plain flour, 4 cups milk, salt & pepper, 1 cup grated tasty cheese

Topping - 1/4 cup grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 200.c. Bring enough water to the boil to cook noodles, cook the noodles until al dente. Drain

Meat sauce

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a frypan or large saucepan, add onion cook 1-2 minutes or until starting to soften. Add mince, cook until all pinkness leaves the meat, ensuring that you break up any lumps while stirring. Make a hole in the centre of the meat add the tomato paste, cook for 1 minute, stir into the meat. Add the herbs, salt, pepper, stock & passata.

Cover and reduce the heat simmer for 25 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened, but some liquid remains. Remove from the heat.

Bechemal Sauce

Make this either in a saucepan on the stove top or a large jug in the microwave.

Melt the butter, add the flour, cook for 1 minute. Add the milk, whisk until thickened. In the microwave this will take approx 5 minutes on the stove top 7 - 10 minutes. Once thickened remove from the heat add the cheese, whisk till melted then season with salt and pepper.

Assembly

In a large dish mine was approx 20 cm x 35 cm. Add half the noodles stir in about a cup of the bechemal sauce, flatten the noodles to make an even layer. top with all the meat sauce, spread evenly. Then top with the remaining noodles. Pour over remaining bechemal sauce. Top with the parmesan.

First layer of noodles awaiting the meat sauce.

All ready for the oven.

Bake for 20 - 30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling and the parmesan has melted and browned.

I served it with buttered french stick, if you wanted to you could serve it with a Greek salad, but I found the pastitsio and french stick was enough.

So try this dish it is quite simple and very tasty.

Parmesan Crumbed Lamb Cutlets

Now we had a bit of a treat for tea this week at the CLI household. Parmesan crumbed lamb cutlets.

While shopping this week I was perusing the meat dept. and noticed some lamb cutlets on special, so I scooped them up for tea. Now normally I don't buy them as they are so expensive, and Miss Fish could quite easily eat the meat of at least4 cutlets, but as it was only Mr CLI and I it worked out well.

Now I am very simple with my accompaniments with crumbed cutlets, creamy mashed potato, steamed vegetables and gravy. What I don't do simple is the coating.

It is best if you crumb the cutlets at least an hour before cooking them so that they can stay in the fridge for the crumbing to set, so that when they are cooked the coating doesn't fall off.

You can also use this coating for schnitzels.

Parmesan Crumbed Cutlets

lamb cutlets with most of the edge fat removed that have had the meat flattened with a meat mallet, coating for 8 cutlets - 2 cups dried breadcrumbs, 2 tbsps finely chopped fresh parsley or 2 tsps finely chopped thyme, 3 tbsps finely grated parmesan, 2 eggs, 3/4 - 1 cup plain flour, olive oil and butter for cooking

Place the flour on a plate, beat the eggs together with a fork in a dish large enough to dip the cutlets in. Mix together the breadcrumbs, herbs and parmesan on another plate.

Now line up your plates in order - flour - eggs - breadcrumbs. Also have handy another plate/tray to put the crumbed cutlets on. Place the cutlets in the flour lightly, then lift and gently shake them you only need a very light dusting of flour. You can do all the cutlets at this stage.

Next drag the cutlets through the egg, then place into the breadcrumbs. gather a handful of the crumbs and sprinkle thickly over the cutlet, then press down. Turn over the cutlet then press again, this ensures that the cutlet is coated in a thick coating of breadcrumbs.

Place onto clean plate/tray, continue until all the cutlets are coated. Place in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

When ready to cook remove the cutlets from the fridge about 15 minutes beforehand to ensure they aren't to cold which delays the cooking process.

In a frypan heat approx 6 tbsps of olive oil & 2 tbsps butter until foaming slightly. Place the cutlets in, don't move them for at least 3- 4 minutes, this ensures that the coating has browned and won't stick to the bottom of you pan.Turn and cook the other side for approx 5 minutes. This should give you a slightly pink meat, which will be moist.

When cooked and browned on both sides remove to a paper towel lined plate, to absorb excess oil.

Serve with creamy mashed potato, steamed vegies and gravy.

What to do with four lamb leg steaks

Well I found myself with a problem what can I cook with 4 lamb leg steaks. After a search through a couple of cook books I got an idea to make a Lancashire Hot Pot. I didn't use a specific recipe, but I went with what I thought would work. It is very simple, not many ingredients required, the hardest part was peeling the potatoes.

Lancashire Hot Pot

4 lamb steaks, enough potatoes sliced 1cm thick to cover base and top of of dish, 2 cups chicken stock, 2 tsp chopped fresh thyme, 2 bay leaves broken in half, salt and pepper, 6 juniper berries flattened

Layer the base with with potatoes sprinkle with salt and pepper, place on 2 bay leaf halves. Place steaks in a single layer, sprinkle with juniper berries, salt , pepper and bay leaves. Cover with potato slices. Carefully pour over stock sprinkle some salt and pepper ontop.

Cover with double layer of tinfoil then place on lid if using one. Bake 180.c 1 - 1 1/2 hours. You can remove lid once potatoes are cooked and let them crisp in the oven.

Enjoy !