Secrets of spice trail

Chef Shane Delia will take you on a spice journey, showing some easy and practical ways to bring the fragrance of the Middle East to your kitchen, writes Mary Jane Daffy

Chef Shane Delia produces comforting Middle Eastern dishes with flair. IN Middle Eastern cuisine every meal is a journey. The principles of cooking and hospitality are crucial to the culture and home cooks spend hours, sometimes days, preparing endless dishes for family feasts.

“The whole day is built around food,” chef Shane Delia says. “Food is a real family environment, irrespective of what your family comprises.”

Shane’s Maha restaurant in Melbourne has recently undergone a million-dollar makeover but the kitchen still produces comforting Middle Eastern dishes with flair. It’s a far cry from the doner kebabs, hummus and tabouli, which for many Australians was their first introduction to Middle Eastern flavours.

“It’s a whole different ethos and mentality to food in the Middle East,” Shane explains. “It’s life to them. It’s what you do. Food comes in season, there’s an abundance, and you pickle it or preserve enough of it to last until it comes back the following season.”

Shane has traversed the Middle East from Lebanon to Iran, Jordan and beyond cooking and discovering secrets of Middle Eastern cooking for his Spice Journey series. He embraces the diversity of flavours and variety of dishes at every meal.

“The day starts with a table spread with meats, cheeses, tomato, bread, olives and pickles,” he explains. “There’s always an element of sweetness too. I saw it heavily in Turkey. They have maybe a sweet fried gozleme filled with pistachio or thick bread drizzled in honey with clotted cream.”

It all sounds so simple and fresh but how do you learn the principles of Middle Eastern cooking and transfer them into the home?

We asked Shane to bust the many myths of Middle Eastern cuisine and tell us the secrets.

Picture: NICOLE CEARY STOCK FOR SUCCESS Many ingredients you’ll need aren’t in supermarkets so preparation is key.

“That’s half the battle. You need to make sure you’ve got all the spices you need; the right rice, olive oil and a mortar and pestle,” Shane says.

Grains are essential so stockpile the pantry with burghul, lentils, freekeh, couscous and chickpeas. Keep some haloumi and labna in the fridge and for sweets, invest in some dried fruit, nuts and rose water. FRESH AND FAST “Middle Eastern food is homebased cooking so it’s planned to make, cook and eat,” Shane says. “This is not a set and forget cuisine.”

Traditionally, most of the ingredients are made from scratch.

“If you’re serving a dish that uses tomato paste, more often than not in Middle Eastern homes that tomato paste was made at home,” Shane says. “You can reduce time by buying those components.” BALANCING ACT A Middle Eastern table is heavy with a variety of dishes and balancing them can be dizzying.

Shane starts by choosing his main dish and building from there.

“Lets say you begin with a beautiful piece of fish,” he says.

“A snapper sprinkled in sumac, oil, lemon zest covered in foil and baked in the oven. You’re going to need a yoghurt or dip of some sort to go with the bread on the table. You’re going to need a vegetable of some sort. White zucchini is in season so you can grate some of those, toss some fennel seeds on top and add pomegranate for sweetness. Cut some bread and there’s dinner.” PERFECT PILAF Perfecting pilaf is all in choosing the right rice for the pilaf you want to create.

Turkish pilaf and basmati rice is often used for pilaf that is mixed with fruit and nuts.

“The secret is not to use too much butter,” Shane says. “It can turn it greasy and that’s a turn-off. I prefer the Lebanese rice that my mother-in-law makes with toasted noodles, lamb and onions through it. She uses jasmine rice and it delivers a much cleaner, lighter flavour.” COOKING WITH KIDS Want to entice the kids to eat Middle Eastern cuisine jampacked with flavour and spices? Shane says the trick is keeping the kids in the cooking journey.

“Then they’ll eat it,” he says. “Last week I took my two kids (Jayda and Jude) to the shop and they chose the potatoes. I boiled them and then we carried them out into the sun and let them dry out and then baked them until they were nice and crunchy with lots of fennel seeds, garlic and oil. The kids loved them.”