Woodfired Pizza and Kebab

I’ve been becoming increasingly concerned that this blog is getting a little vegetarian. I thought I should try to restore the balance a bit…

That’s an iskender kebab from Woodfired Pizza and Kebab in Chatswood. It’s made up of cut up Lebanese bread, sliced tomatoes, yoghurt, tomato sauce, a bit of parsley, lots and lots of döner meat and the grease that flows out of it. The incurable carnivores out there can be reassured that the tomatoes and parsley really are the sum total of the vegetable matter contained in this meal.

Woodfired Pizza and Kebab does all the staples of Turkish fast food, with an accent on the explicitly mentioned pizzas and kebabs. Piglet – who is sadly restricted to the gluten-free – always chooses an option from their range of baked potatoes. Even though the potatoes are chosen for their guten-free properties, they are no poor relations to the rest of the menu. There’s a large selection of delicious (and optionally meaty) fillings and all the potatoes are topped off with melted cheese and cream – and served with salad, for those with any remaining vego sensibilities.

They have very delicious ayran, a sort of yoghurt drink. It’s definitely worth having ayran whenever the opportunity arises.

There’s a nice little sit-in eating area with tables and chairs decked out with Persian-patterned covers. In winter Piglet puts herself in the best spot, next to the outside wall of the woodfired pizza oven. She’ll often lean right up against the wall to soak in the warmth.

Since Woodfired Pizza and Kebab is essentially a take-away place with a sit-in area, the prices are quite reasonable.

Woodfired Pizza and Kebab
325 Penshurt St
North Willoughby

Ratings (out of 5 snorts)

Price	5 snorts
Taste	4 snorts
Service	3 snorts
Atmosphere	4 snorts

Homemade Yoghurt

Plain yoghurt makes a good topping for cereal, but it’s even nicer if you mix it with mashed banana and honey.  It’s also handy for savoury dishes.  Mix with cucumber and coriander to cool your mouth when you eat curry.  I’ve even watered it down and added salt to make ayran to drink, I’d love to make it frothy like Turkish ayran though.

When I started making yoghurt I did a bit of experimentation to figure out a simple method.  There are two things I found affected the result quite a lot.

The first factor is incubation.  I started out trying to make yoghurt in slightly prewarmed oven, wrapped in a towel.  I incubated it overnight, but I found the results were fairly inconsistent.  The thickness if the yoghurt seemed to depend on the weather.  It worked well in summer, but in winter it was so cold that the mix was still milky in the morning.  If I left it for the day while I went to work it would turn into curds and whey by the time I got home.  Unlike Little Miss Muffet I didn’t want to eat curds and whey, so I bought an incubator.  Now I can put on the yoghurt at bedtime and have yoghurt for breakfast even in winter.

The second factor that affects the yoghurt is the starter culture.  I start my culture using yoghurt from the supermarket, usually Jalna biodynamic yoghurt.    I’ve used other brands as starters successfully too, and I find that my finished product tastes similar to the starter.  Choose one you like.

I don’t tend to use my own yoghurt as a starter because I suspect that over time it could evolve a different balance of bacteria.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it would probably start to taste different.  

There are dry starters you can buy, but I haven’t tried them.

 

Recipe

¾ cup powdered milk (skim or whole)

3½ cups whole milk

½ cup yoghurt

 

1. Combine the powdered and liquid milk in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.  This should kill any environmental bacteria and make sure the only ones in the mix are from the starter.
2. Cover the mixture and allow it to cool to touch temperature.  I sometimes cheat and do this in the fridge, but you don’t want it to cool lower than room temperature.
3. Put the starter yoghurt in a measuring cup and mix it with some of the cooled milk so it will mix in easily.  Then combine the yoghurt starter and milk mix in a container that fits your incubator and incubate overnight.