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Posts Tagged ‘bakers flour Sydney’

Marvellous Marrickville

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , , , , , on May 13, 2011| 44 Comments »

Marrickville, in Sydney’s inner-west, is a suburb known and loved by local foodies for both its interesting restaurants and fabulous food wholesalers.

A quest for Ben Furney Mills’ flour, which I mentioned in a previous post, led me there again this week.

For Sydney bakers, Southern Cross Supplies offers a huge range of wholesale food and grocery items at reasonable prices.  There is a small showroom you can wander through, but most of the items are stored in a large warehouse which is off-limits to the general public.  You can, however, walk in and purchase single items over the counter.

The bakers (bread) flour was very reasonably priced – $22.50 per 25kg bag, and the 5kg bag of dark rye flour below was $11.  They also had chocolate, grains, an assortment of packaging, dried fruit, some great muffin pan liners and a large range of condiments.  If you ring them, they’ll happily email you their product list (it’s also available on their website), although pricing of items is only given out on enquiry.

. . . . .

While we were in Marrickville, we made a stop at Chef Express to pick up frozen berries – the mixed berries were $9/kg, the blackberries $10/kg, and the raspberries are currently on special for a tiny $6/kg.  Ever since Lorraine put us onto this supplier, we’ve bought all our frozen berries from them.

. . . . .

The highlight of the trip was a visit to Faros Brothers!

Whenever I’m in Marrickville, I try to stop at this fabulous fishmonger – the produce is always fresh, and the prices are ludicrously cheap compared to seafood at the Sydney Fish Market.

On Tuesday, $60 bought us:

  • Two small Atlantic salmon (about two kilos in total)

  • 300g local calamari rings

  • 6 large Australian green prawns

  • a half kilo red snapper fillet

  • a kilo of Portuguese sardine fillets, and

  • an Australian smoked trout.

We made sardine alla beccafico  following this recipe…

…and the snapper, calamari and prawns went into a tomato-based paella (we’re still infatuated with our new pan).

It was a great finale to a fabulous day’s shopping!

. . . . .

Southern Cross Supplies
6B Rich Street
Marrickville NSW  2204
Tel: 02 9572 7888

. . . . .

Chef Express
17-19 Buckley St
Marrickville  NSW  2204
Tel: 02 9519 3488

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Faros Brothers
34 Buckley Street
Marrickville  NSW  2204
Tel: 02 9519 3785

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Harkola

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , , on September 24, 2009| 18 Comments »

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We discovered Harkola Foods a couple of years ago, when we first started buying flour in bulk, and have been regular customers ever since.  This wonderful food wholesaler is based in the western Sydney suburb of Auburn and we’ll visit several times a year to stock up on supplies.

They offer an enormous range of nuts, flours, dried fruits, spices and Middle Eastern specialities.  You can also buy packaging materials, baking supplies, rice and oils there, all at amazing prices.

To give you an idea of their range, here are some of our purchases from today:

  • Parchment paper – as the standard width is too narrow for our 90cm oven,  we purchased a 120m roll of 40cm wide paper for $30.  The narrower size is also available, as are foil and clingfilm in huge rolls.
  • The gorgeous mint tea glasses above were a tiny 82c each!
  • We picked up two bags of Manildra bakers flour for friends.  These were $11.50 per 12kg sack and, because Harkola sell a  pallet load of this flour every week, the stock is always fresh.
  • Dried yeast, which I stock up on about once a year, is available vacuumed packed at $3.50 per 500g.
  • They have a huge range of nuts available – we bought almond meal at $12/kg and whole roasted macadamias for $20/kg.  There was also a wide variety of dried and glace fruits on display.
  • Legumes galore – red lentils and white beans were $2.80/kg and popcorn was just $1.80/kg.
  • Spices are plentiful, and I bought some ground cumin ($10.25/kg) and ground coriander ($7/kg).  Again, the rapid turnover of these  items ensures their freshness.

In addition to the staples, we picked up some more unusual food items.

These Lebanese sweets are made from pistaccio nuts, apricot paste, nougat and date paste.  This entire box of individually wrapped treats was on sale at $6.50.

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There is, of course, lots of couscous on offer, including the medium sized Israeli couscous as well as this larger variety from Lebanon, known as Moghrabieh.  These small balls of semolina swell up to the size of miniature peas when cooked!

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A new find for me – fig marmalade from Lebanon.  This has a deliciously interesting flavour, as the jam includes both sesame and anise, as well as the usual sugar and acid.  Imagine sweet figs with a hint of tahini.  I suspect this was the secret ingredient in an Egyptian chicken and harissa dish we tried recently.

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Given how expensive fresh figs are here, it’s hard to believe this 800g jar stuffed with delicious fig paste was just $4.99!

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Harkola Food Worldwide
3 – 7 Highgate Street
Auburn   NSW  2144
02 9737 5888
http://www.harkola.com

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