In the press: papers magazines Persian delights next More edible Iranian exotica from Sydney's Ashrafi Food. Their ingredients are being used increasingly by such Sydney chefs as MG Garage's Janni Kyritsis, and International's Brian Duncan, and Ampersand's Pascal Barbot. Try some Angelica seeds as a flavoring agent in chicken dishes, broad beans or eggplants. Or infuse in a sugar syrup for meringues, souffles, or mousses. Barbot uses such an infusion to make lemon and orange tarts. The seeds smell of musky sort of citrus, and they're pretty potent - you don't need many. The dried white mulberries are versatile, too. Turn them into compote, soak them in liqueur and use them in an apple pie, or as a substitute for sultanas in a baked pudding. (I soak them in a bit of grappa first.) Not bad in cassata, either. They're chewy and sweet, a bit like dried sultanas. Then there's the dried wild figs. These are out of this world. About the size of a big marble, you can eat these straight out of the container. Otherwise use them in compotes for ice cream, or, as Brian Duncan suggests, to accompany duck confit. Then there are barberries, packed full of Vitamin C and pectins. Janni Kyritsis uses them in a goat stew pie and to make sharp, lemony sauces. The high pectin content ensures a heavy syrup - that's why they are often used in jams or preserves. Ashrafi Food also supplies crackingly good saffron, dried limes, and superbly scented rose petals and buds. Seriously good food; three ticks and an elephant stamp, without a moment's hesitation. Ben Canaider, Epicure, The Age, 8th June 1999         Don't forget to floss It's probably safe to say that when you were a child wheeling around the Royal Show, big stick of pink fairy floss in hand, it never occurred to you that the sickly, sticky stuff would one day be served up at one of the top restaurants in the land. Did it? But it's happened. At hot spot MG Garage, in Sydney's Surry Hills, chef Janni Kyritsis is sending out plates of fairy floss at the end of meals, to have with coffee. Of course it's not quite the same as the sideshow version. The teeth-rotter of choice for Sydney's power diners is Iranian, made by hand from pulled sugar and sesame oil, and it's white, not pink. Kyritsis buys it in packets from a small company that supplies Iranian foodstuffs, Ashrafi Food. The taste, he says, recalls halva. "It does have a taste, it's not like something that's come out of a machine." Now, he says, he has people ringing up and saying they won't come to MG Garage unless he promises to serve the fairy floss. "I do it for fun. Just be a child at the end of the evening - it's just a restaurant." Necia Hall, Epicure, The Age, 25th May 1999 next   Woolly yarn "It looks like sheep's wool and tastes of halva," says MG Garage's Janni Kyritsis of the hottest ingredient on restaurant dessert menus: Iranian fairy floss. Indeed, the Easter Show may have come and gone, but the fairy floss, which has been produced in the Iranian town of Tabriz, near the Turkish border, for hundreds of years is now being used to decorate ice-cream at Fez, as a garnish at Claireville Klosk, and served up with Greek sweets at MG Garage. Importer Ashrafi Food says the product's Iranian translation means "wool" and its flavour comes from rubbing the tray in which it is blown with sesame oil. Short Black, Sydney Morning Herald top