My friend M had her birthday recently. What I didn’t realise was that her birthday is the same date as my our wedding anniversary so when we booked our trip to New Zealand months ago I didn’t realise that we’d be missing out on her birthday. She is such a good friend that she postponed her birthday celebration until we returned. She was having a celebration where a friend of hers Sara, a lovely lady that makes all manner of fantastic Persian delicacies, was making the food for her. So in turn I offered to make dessert for her and I have been dying to try and make a Baklava. I was inspired by Alejandra’s delicious Orange Hazelnut baklava and adapted her recipe.

I adore this dessert, it’s so sweet, sticky and delicious. I wanted to make something that fit the occasion and a flavouring such as rose and pistachio immediately sprang to mind. It’s one of my favourite combinations – if you’re a regular reader you’ll see evidence of my obsession with rose. While I was clarifying the butter I wondered if somehow browned butter would work. Browned butter is wonderfully aromatic with its nutty aroma so what better way to enhance the nutty flavour of a Baklava than using browned butter instead of regular melted butter.

I was nervous, this was my first time making baklava properly. I don’t usually do unusual things for events such as this where other people are tasting my food-certainly I felt out on a limb making baklava for the first time already but when you’re out on a branch, you may as well enjoy your time on the edge. The key to not having a soggy baklava is that the syrup and he pastry must be at opposite temperatures. Either you pour cold syrup over the hot baklava or warm syrup over the cold baklava. I chose the former as the timing suited me to make the syrup the night before and store it in the fridge.

Zereshk Polo Ba Zaferon: Saffron rice with berries

Tadige Nan: crunchy bread

Today is also the day for Persian New Year (at 10pm to be precise) which is what I learned from talking to Sara. We were lucky to try these fantastic dishes which she painstakingly made over 2 days. We were dining with Sara & Shahram; Dean and Penny; Esan and Ellie, Laura and of course M and her boys.

Khoreshte Gheyme Bademjan: Eggplant and lentils with tomato

Shirin Polo: Saffron rice with meatballs

Sara made Persian rice studded with berries, saffron rice with mini meatballs, a delicious eggplant bake with a lentil-ey bean, a rice, egg and chicken layered dish and gorgeously crunchy bread. We feel absolutely spoilt by all of the delicious food. “Sale No Mobarak” or Happy New Year in Persian!

Tachine Morgh: Rice layered with chicken and egg

And did the baklava work? Thankfully it worked a treat. The baklava was crunchy with a light aroma of rose and the ultimate compliment came from the Persian and Iranian guests Sara and Ellie who were very complimentary about it. And like an actress drawn to the drama, or a moth to the flame I am a ham when it comes to food and compliments like that only spur me on and encourage me to enjoy my time out on the proverbial limb.

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There are often signs that one should not step foot in the kitchen. This morning, I received one. I was closing a kitchen cupboard door when the whole door came crashing down onto the ground shattering everything in its path. Luckily my irreplaceable china was safe in the credenza but as luck would have it some rather loved china was broken in the process. This made me wary after that. Is this the universe’s way of telling me to stay out of the kitchen?

Then there was the other not so subtle hint when I was reading the recipe I had planned to make. I had no sugar thermometer. I asked my twitter friends if anyone had made Marshmallows without a sugar thermometer before. The answers ranged from No to Yes but only if you get to know the soft and hard ball stages. The crucial piece of information came from the blogger Passion4 Eating who gave me this very helpful site which, if you don’t have a sugar thermometer, you should read before starting to avoid any confusion. Which I did very quickly and I set a bowl of cold water in the fridge to standby.

Despite the clear warning signals, and despite my nervousness, somehow these gorgeous Marshmallows worked. They are as light as a whisper, sweet nothings to be treasured on lazy days. These gorgeous fine bone china white cubes are dusted with freshly fallen sugar snow and topped with pink rose petals. I gave one to my husband who had never tried home-made marshmallows before and his face registered confusion “Is it meant to be so … light? Aren’t they firmer?”. And then he went on to eat more, and more, and more. And then there were none.

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One of the best things about food blogging is meeting fellow bloggers. Case in point is Christie from Fig & Cherry who has proved to be a great blogging friend and a lot of fun to hang out with. We have a lot in common, from obviously loving food,  Dexter, pillow menus, hotels to being bossy chatterboxes.  So when she read about our visit to Dunes, we got to talking and she mentioned that she hadn’t been to Palm Beach before. It seemed a tragedy for a Sydney-Sider so we sought to rectify this as soon as possible. However the weather gods decided to not let us have our picnic in the end. Such is the crazy weather that we’ve been having lately.

I was watching Food Safari’s episode on England and was fascinated by the way they made Pork Pies. I had one whilst in London and it was delicious, particularly the pastry (just don’t look at the nutritional information, you’ll think it’s a misprint but I’m afraid not!). I had heard that the traditional way to make English pastry for things such as Steak and Kidney pie is through using Suet ( the hard fat around the kidneys and loins in beef and sheep) but I had yet to cook with it. Sure it wasn’t in anyway healthy but I figure a few times eating it in your lifetime can’t hurt. But I dipped a trepidatious toe in the Suet pool by buying a Suet mix where I simply added flour, cold water and salt to create the pastry. If it worked, I’d look at ordering some from the butcher’s. Because I was pressed for time as I was making this on a Friday I took some shortcuts with the pastry and frozen spinach.

We woke on the Saturday morning to a light howling of wind and an overcast day. It seemed that today was not going to be the day to go to Palm Beach so we made alternate plans. As for the fate of this pie? It was my husband’s lunch, well received, and eaten picnic style with his hands. Just in front of a computer.

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