Simplicity... Rose Petal Brulee, Apricot & Saffron Jam, Glazed Shammali

Simplicity is something we all forget, how and where we started what we do today, I for one have extremes in my food play, sometimes over complicated, sometimes keeping it simple, here I opt for the simple approach in appearance but deep in flavour to finish off my time of playing with these middle eastern flavours

Rich Brulee lifted with light and delicate flavours of rose petals steeped in the cream, they are fundamental to Persian and north African dishes and not forgetting Turkish delight, so using their delicate flavours to help the vanilla is a perfect balance here with that solid caramel topping. I flavoured my caramel with fenugreek which becomes intensely bitter, from the already natural bittersweet flavour obtained from the small pods, roasted ground and boiled into the caramel its pungent aromatic taste a bit like lovage

The elements of the dish represent a breakfast, a sunset breakfast dessert, in the past making a fruit taffy or leather on the side to bring in other possibilities which were representing "bacon" of a breakfast, but this is about simplicity. So the 3 elements are the egg, shammali "soldiers" & jam, the smooth texture of the brulee is perfect for taking the edge of the slightly over sweet apricot, saffron & vanilla jam, eating with fun, dipping the soldiers into the brulee spooning on the jam..

Shammali.. A Turkish-Cypriot cake of semolina, almonds and yoghurt, to be representative of the flavours I added a pinch of cardamon, which I have to adopt as my new favourite ingredient the beautiful aromas from ground cardamon powder I can never seem to get enough of now, joining the realms of my love for vanilla it excites the palate no end. The Shammali when baked and still warm is drenched a slightly sweet syrup and allowed to steep, then cut and gentle glazed in a hot pan, those crystallised crusty edges remind me of pain perdue in a Paris cafe early in the morning

There are other elements that could have been included here to lift the dish and make it more "breakfast" like, but this again would risk over complicating things for what gain? I find its simplicity satisfying and its in depth surprising flavour elements really do invoke the saying the.. the proof is in the pudding..

Now from one extreme to the other, Martin Lersch of http://khymos.org/ has set the new TGRWT#15 which is smoked salmon and dark chocolate, Mexmix is hosting this round and you can get the details at http://mexmix.blogspot.com/2009/02/tgrwt-15-dark-chocolate-and-smoked.html this is the food blogging event that has us put together seemingly strange pairs of ingredients that share a certain number of chemical components, thus, making them "compatible". Could be interesting!