The perfect recipe is not always to be found in the pages of a cookbook (or this humble magazine). Sometimes, it can turn up in a sharehouse in Melbourne. It was in such a place that Louisa Allan and Shuki Rosenboim first met in 2009.
“We enjoyed cooking together, and both liked the same style of food,” Allan says. For Rosenboim? “I was working in restaurants, but I wasn’t making the type of food I wanted to be making.”
The pair cooked up the idea to start selling their own Middle Eastern dips, salads and falafel at local farmers’ markets and, as their popularity grew, this led to the opening of cult foodie favourite Very Good Falafel in Brunswick in 2016.
“It’s a very welcoming space, and everything is super fresh,” Allan says. “Some of our customers have been coming to us since the markets, 10 years ago.”
Before launching the business, Rosenboim returned home to Israel to learn the finer points of falafel from the experts, including his mother.
“She showed me how she makes them, and then I changed it a little bit,” he admits, laughing. “But I never told her!”
While none of these recipes contain falafel, they do reflect the type of food that both Allan and Rosenboim love to cook for themselves at home. And just like that falafel, each dish is a perfect representation of what this pair strives to achieve every day: very good food, made with love.
FOLLOW US: @verygoodfalafel
TBIT/IRAQI TSHULENT
SERVES 6-8
Begin this recipe a day ahead. You’ll need a heatproof 4.5L-capacity baking dish with a lid.
2.2kg whole chicken¼ cup (60ml) extra virgin olive oil, plus ⅓ cup (80ml) extra2 ½ onions, finely chopped1 ½ tbs tomato2 cups (400g) jasmine rice, washed, drained4 (400g) roma tomatoes, finely chopped1 ¼ tbs fine salt1 tbs baharat spice mix1 tsp each ground cardamom, sweet paprika and smoked paprika
