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Posts Tagged ‘Faros Brothers’

Portuguese Sardines

Posted in Frugal Living, Recipes, tagged , on December 7, 2011| 43 Comments »

As a rule, I try to buy local seafood whenever possible.

The only real exceptions I make are for some tinned fish (it’s impossible to buy local anchovies), and these Portuguese sardines.  They’re ludicrously cheap – this one kilo bag contained nine large sardines and cost just $6.90 at Faros Brothers in Marrickville.

The fish were in pretty good shape despite the freezing and transporting – apart from the tails and fins, which were brittle and mostly shattered.    They still had quite a lot of scales on them, which gave them a beautiful iridescent glow – I tried to photograph it to show you, but my camera couldn’t quite capture the gleam…

I filleted the sardines and dipped them in a traditional flour-egg-breadcrumbs mixture before shallow frying.  They were a big hit with Big Boy and Small Man, both of whom love oily fish.

Best of all, there was enough protein to feed the four of us for under seven dollars!

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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

 . . . . .

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

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