Matter of taste
Restaurateur Shane Delia is on a mission to add more spice to people’s lives in his new show Middle East Feast. He tells Danielle McGrane just how easy it is to be more adventurous in the kitchen.
Cooking Middle Eastern food doesn’t have to be intimidating or complicated.
That’s the message from chef and restaurateur Shane Delia through his new show, Middle East Feast. He wants to show just how accessible recipes from places such as Oman, Israel and Lebanon can be.
“What I try to do with this show is to ease all of that angst around ‘it’s complex, and it’s spicy and it has too many ingredients’, and try to give people an opportunity to connect with the flavours in a way that means something to them,” Delia said.
Each week, over 10 episodes, Delia brings in a different guest to cook up recipes from Middle Eastern cuisine, and these chefs aren’t necessarily used to the spotlight.
“I brought in guest chefs I knew could really cook and offer something a bit different – I wanted to bring in real people from the community,” he said.
“Some of them have got restaurants, some have got bakeries, some have got cafes, some of them aren’t cooks at all, but they’re real people. I wanted their authenticity to permeate through the screen and let people connect with them. So it does not have to be about celebrity rock stars, it can be just about average people.”
Delia is demystifying these recipes and calling on people within his community to help him – he’s even brought in the man who runs his local kebab shop.
“Amir has got a Turkish kebab shop around the corner from my house. It’s a suburban kebab shop and it’s tiny. It’s just him in there and his wife lives upstairs,” he said.
“He’s never been on TV, but I admire the guy. I drive past the shop every morning and I see him stoking the coals, he’s in there doing the hard yards.”
“I thought, ‘If we’re doing something about kebabs or meat on a stick, this is the guy you want’. So I think that the episode with him is one of the best ones.”
When it comes to Middle Eastern cuisine, Delia knows what he’s talking about.
He’s written cookery books Maha: Middle Eastern Home Cooking and Spice Journey, and has several restaurants in Melbourne including Maha, Maha East, Maha Bar and Biggie Smalls. And he knows it can seem like a difficult cuisine to master.
“I think there’s a lot of different ingredients that people aren’t necessarily used to. And it takes a lot of time in its purest form – you’re talking about dishes that take a whole day to prepare so that element can be complex,” he said.
But he also believes there are simple ways to introduce the staples of the cuisine into everyday cooking.
“What we’re trying to do with Middle East Feast is show people it doesn’t necessarily always have to be really hard,” Delia said.
“You don’t necessarily have to cook these dishes, but here’s some flavours, here’s some techniques,
here’s some ingredients that may just enhance what you do. And if it starts with turning spaghetti bolognese into something that feels a little bit more exotic by adding some spice and serving it with rice instead of pasta, that’s great.”
“It’s just a shift in perspective, start small, aim high and see where you end up. What I’m trying to do is show people you can take these core ingredients and core flavours, and just be brave enough to start experimenting at home.
What have you got to lose?”
Of course, the secret to starting any cuisine is getting the right ingredients, which Delia says are more accessible now than they’ve ever been
“I think in the last five years there’s been a real change in people’s desire to try new ingredients. And supermarkets, especially your mainstream supermarkets, are always really quick to adapt and capitalise on those opportunities,” he said.
There are certain things that a good Middle Eastern cook should have in their pantry, according to Delia.
“Things like pulses and grains are really a big part of Middle Eastern food. I’m a strong believer in making things easy so you can buy most pulses and grains in a tin already ready to go,” he said.
“Obviously spices are important and spices are the engine room of the Middle Eastern kitchen. You don’t have to have all the spices and I think that’s where people get unstuck.
“Where they think ‘Oh there’s so many spices and can I put in cumin rather than coriander powder, and do I use seeds or do I use ground?’ It’s just become this whole thing.
Delia’s great hope for the show is to open people’s eyes to the flavours and the beauty of Australian Middle Eastern culture, and to show the diversity within that.
“We talk about Turkish food in the show, and Turkey isn’t in the Middle East but we’ve got Turkish food in there. And I think now it’s more important than ever to acknowledge that the Middle East encompasses a lot of different people and religions and beliefs. We’ve got Israeli chefs there too, so the premise of the show is to show how diverse Middle Eastern culture is in Australia and how far it has come.
“We live in an unrestricted society, and I think food has a way of evolving really rapidly in those environments. Middle Eastern food in Australia has grown so quickly because it’s disarmed – Turkish food talks to Lebanese food here, Lebanese food here talks to Israeli food, everyone talks to each other and it’s one big melting pot, there’s no borders and no boundaries.
“The show really shows that. I cook dishes on there that don’t have any boundaries, don’t have any borders – we just take what works and what makes sense and bring it together.”
Shane Delia: What we’re trying to do with is show people it doesn’t necessarily always have to be really hard.
Middle East Feast with Shane Delia, Thursday, 8pm, SBS Food and SBS On Demand