Saturday morning. Sunny. I walked through the leafy Elwood streets to Brighton Road and Lezzet, a turkish restaurant and scene of The Cooking Lesson. Kamal, the Head Chef and owner met me and 4 others and explained that today we were going to be learning the art of baclava, which, he added, was handy as they had run out the night before and we would be making a batch for the restaurant. We made baclava nests and fingers and learnt about the intricacies of filo pastry...every packet has a different personality, it seems. We used a wooden rod and we all had a go and yes, we made an entire tray which he did use for the restaurant. We then made turkish delight, but I agree with Kamal...it's a 2 person job and really, you need a pretty well equipped kitchen. Turkish Delight is all heating ingredients to the right temperature and pouring and straining and setting. So the advertised glass of wine, take home pack of herbs and spices, recipe book did not materialise and if we wanted a baclava rolling rod, $5 thanks. To use someone else's clever observation, it was a lesson in, not only cooking, but also in turkish economics.
No comments:
Post a Comment