Lamb, flour and goats cheese are the ingredients for this month and the theme is ‘A’. I went with the first idea that came to mind when I read the Paper Chef blog post: Gozleme. I have two themes for ‘A’, the first is another ingredient – aubergine, but if you don’t know what aubergine is and you call it eggplant, you can have the second theme ‘adapt’. I guess adapt fits better as I adapted a recipe I already had so I can’t take all the credit for this one.

Gozleme is one of things that looks like it should be difficult and time consuming to make at home but is actually surprisingly easy and ridiculously tasty.  I almost didn’t even try to make them but I had a bit of spare time one Saturday, gave it a go, and the rest they say is history.  If you are not sure what Gozleme is, where have you been? Just Kidding. Gozleme is a Turkish dish, that is sort of a cross between a flat bread and a pastry, that is filled and then fried or barbecued. I think anything goes when it comes to the filling; a few classic combinations are feta and spinach, mushrooms or minced meat.

The original recipe came from My Grill by Pete Evans.  His version contains beef and is cooked on the barbecue.  It’s still winter here and I wasn’t prepared to barbecue in the dark, so my Gozleme are pan fried, and clearly my filling differs as it contains lamb and goats cheese.  We ate them for dinner, but really Gozleme make the perfect weekend lunch.  With the crispy dough on the outside and the lamb and creamy goats cheese on the inside, they feel a little bit special, and worthy of a lazy Saturday lunch.

Lamb and Goats Cheese Gozleme (serves 2-4, depending on how hungry you are)

200g plain yoghurt
250g self raising flour, plus extra for rolling
pinch salt
150g minced lamb
1 clove garlic
1-2 shallots
1 sprig rosemary
baby aubergine (100g)
100g goats soft cheese
a small handful of chopped, fresh mint
salt and pepper
olive oil
lemon wedges to serve

Start by making the dough. The great thing about this dough is it doesn’t need to rise, so it is quick to make and can be used almost straight away.  Beat the yoghurt and a pinch of salt in a bowl until smooth then gradually add the flour to form a smooth dough.  Knead and then rest for about half an hour while you prepare the other ingredients.

Finely chop the garlic, onion, rosemary and aubergine.  Heat some oil in a small frying pan, and over a medium heat, fry the onion and garlic. After a couple of minutes add the minced lamb and rosemary and fry for another couple of minutes until the meat starts to brown.  You now need to add the aubergine, you may also need to add a little extra olive oil at this point as the aubergine needs a fair amount of oil to cook through.

Once the lamb and aubergine are cooked (this should only take about five minutes) take off the heat, stir through the mint and season to taste.

By now the dough should be ready to roll. Divide the dough into four even portions and on a well floured surface, roll each out into a circle about 30cm round.  Take a quarter of the lamb mix and spread on one half of the circle leaving about a 1cm gap around the edge.  Crumble a quarter of the goats cheese over the top, and brush a little water around the edge of the circle to help seal.

Fold the dough over the meat mixture and seal well. Try and get as much air out of the parcel as you can so it doesn’t puff up during cooking. Crimp the edge with a fork to help seal.  Repeat with the rest of the dough and filling.

Heat a frying pan on high with a little olive oil. Cook the Gozleme 1-2 at a time, depending on the size of your pan.  The Gozleme should be cooked for 2-3 minutes on each side until the dough is golden brown and crispy but not burnt.  You may need to press them down in the pan to ensure all of the dough is cooked.  If the dough is not brown enough it will taste doughy and soggy (not very pleasant and highly disappointing).

Serve with a wedge of lemon to squeeze on top.

This months ingredients are quail, cabbage and lime. The theme is July.  I had a think about it, tossed around a few ideas; rejected the salad and the simple roast with cabbage; and settled on a risotto. Cooking in July, in the Southern Hemisphere, is hearty winter food. No one back in the UK believes me when I tell them it gets cold in Sydney. Admittedly, the average daily high in winter is about 16C, however the temperature at night can get as low as 2-3C (it doesn’t happen often but we had 1C and a sprinkling of frost the other morning). That would be fine but the houses just aren’t built for such low temperatures, so they get very cold inside.  This means winter in Sydney screams hearty, comfort food to warm me up from the inside out.

So how do I turn quail, cabbage and lime into comfort food?  I roasted the quail and served it with a wintery risotto of course. Risotto is something I cook all year round as it doesn’t usually involve putting the oven on, but somehow using red wine and adding mushroom and bacon makes it more wintery.

Lime wasn’t an obvious flavour combination for the risotto, but had to be included somewhere, so I decided to roast it inside the quail to add flavour and keep the bird moist, the same as if I were roasting a chicken with lemon.

Cabbage is in season here at the moment so fits the bill for the wintery theme. A risotto is probably not the first thing you think of for cabbage, but I recently tried a Jamie Oliver recipe for risotto with radicchio that worked surprisingly well, and one of my favourite pasta recipes has cabbage in it, so it actually not such a strange idea.  Throw in some bacon, mushrooms and sage, topped off with a roasted quail and you have the perfect winter comfort food, with a touch of class.

Quail, Cabbage and Mushroom Risotto serves 2

2 quail
1 lime
4 sage leaves
salt, pepper and olive oil
180g risotto rice
800ml hot stock (chicken or vegetable)
75g bacon, chopped into cubes
half an onion, finely chopped
1 celery stick, sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
handful chopped fresh sage
100ml red wine
2 medium flat mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cabbage, sliced
40g butter, plus butter for frying
olive oil
salt and pepper
Parmesan to serve

To start, prepare the quail for roasting. Remove any giblets from the inside of the bird and stuff with a slice of lime and 2 sage leaves.  Season the quail with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Place in a small roasting tin ready to roast. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

Set aside the quail while you start the risotto.  In a suitable frying pan, slowly fry the onion, celery and garlic, until it starts to soften but not brown, after about 5 minutes add in the bacon and up the heat a little to brown the bacon.  After a few minutes, add in the risotto rice and stir for a minute to coat in oil until it starts to turn translucent. Add the wine, and increase the heat to boil off the alcohol, stir until all of the wine is absorbed then start adding the stock a ladle full at a time.

As you start to add the stock to the risotto, put the quail in the oven and roast at 200C for 12-15 minutes until the quail is browned and cooked through. Once cooked, remove from the oven and cover with foil to rest for a couple of minutes while you finish off the risotto.

After you have added a couple of ladles of stock to the risotto add the sliced mushrooms. Stir the risotto continuously as you add the stock, so the rice doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. This also helps to achieve the creamy texture of the risotto.  The risotto should take about 20 minutes to cook. About 5 minutes before the risotto is ready, fry the cabbage in a separate frying pan in hot butter. Fry for about 2 minutes until starting to brown, but still remains a little crunchy.

To assemble the risotto, once the rice is cooked to your liking, remove from the heat and stir through the 40g butter, a handful of grated Parmesan and the cabbage. Adjust the seasoning to taste then put the lid on the pan and leave to stand for 5 minutes while you carve the quail.

Squeeze the lime from the quail into the risotto and stir in any pan juices.  Serve the risotto, with the carved quail on top and sprinkle with Parmesan.

I always judge new dishes with the “Should I cook it again?” rule.  This was definitely a ‘do again dish’, except I might use lemon instead of lime next time. Thanks Paper Chef for introducing me to the delights of your challenge, looking forward to next month already!