All posts filed under: Eats

Do something with rhubarb

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“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.” – Brian O’Driscoll I think you can consider a rhubarb as a vegetable in the same way that a tomato is a fruit. Rhubarb is completely alien to me. I recognise the word, but I I can’t say I have eaten rhubarb before. If I have, I mustn’t have been paying attention or maybe it was cooked with fruit and I wasn’t sure where the fruit ended and the rhubarb began. I was determined to do something with rhubarb this summer, and to know for sure what it was (and if I liked it). It’s a bit embarrassing that I wasn’t  sure what rhubarb looked like. I couldn’t identify it in the wild, although I’m generally pretty good at identifying edibles in the ground. I thought maybe it looked like silverbeet or celery only bright red. I was on the right track. I even claimed that I’d never seen rhubarb in any shops. Surely if I …

Summer Rolls with Surimi and Nectarine

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When I was a kid, many weekends involved a family visit to at least one fish market. Sometimes, cousins, uncles and aunties and grandparents came along. It was a social occasion. It was sight seeing. A big aquarium alternative where everything can be fashioned into a meal. To quieten us and keep us content until our yum cha lunch or dinner, our parents would buy us crabsticks to snack on. I think they were 50 cents and I’m sure we knew they weren’t real crab, but it didn’t matter. According to Wiki, the word “surimi” literally translates to “fish puree or slurry” and I suppose things like other kiddie favourites like chicken nuggets, hot dogs and cherrios (saveloy) are similar in build. These days I forget often about surimi as an ingredient. At my market, surimi comes in frozen vacuum sealed packs of 500 grams ($4) and 1 kilo ($7). This week the big Australian supermarket chains have frozen 1 kilo packs for just $5. Maybe that’s too cheap. You can often find surimi from …

Easy bacon and egg pie

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I’m completely obsessed with hot English mustard. I’m not eating it with a spoon…yet. It’s a fairly new obsession, which began late last year, when as part of a month-long, shared-eating RWC season when we gorged on sizzling bacon and hot English mustard sandwiches at work. Since then, my taste for hot English mustard has steadily grown more ravenous. I’ve recruited The Koala and we’ve been enjoying mustard on almost everything. In New Zealand, we use both baby American mustard and real hot English mustard and if you ask for mustard, you would be presented with either one or asked for your preference. American mustard is very mild while hot English mustard has a mean kick that I liken to wasabi. Unlike the heat of a chili, mustard  doesn’t keep building up in heat as you eat burning so much that you can no longer enjoy your food. Here’s a super easy pie to eat with mustard. It’s got everything you want in it and nothing you don’t. We split this between 3 of us but in hindsight, between 4 would …

Surf & Turf Mac & Cheese

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Surf and turf is an American export and combines seafood and meat together in a single dish. It has gluttonous origins and suggests extravagance by combining two of the most expensive things off the menu. Can’t decide between the steak or the lobster? Have both! Gluttons unite! Here in New Zealand – a country that has an abundance of great seafood and meat – we don’t really do surf and turf. In true kiwi style, extravagance only goes with a slice of humble pie and what is more humble than mac and cheese? This recipe uses 3 elements and the oven but as long as you read the recipe through before you start, you’ll be ok. There’s plenty of time to do everything even if there is a little multi-tasking involved. Clean up as you go, there’s 15 minutes of downtime at the end to take care of the dishes and throw together a quick salad. Surf & Turf Mac & Cheese Enough for 2 dinners and 2 lunches (or a nuclear family) Ingredients 250 …

Make an edible gift

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Fudge When my sister and I were kids, we used to go to the Takapuna Flea Markets and 50 cents would buy us a small paper bag of russian fudge to share. It was buttery, sweet and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I never knew russian fudge actually contained butter until I decided to make it this Christmas as an edible gift. Plan A I used the classic Edmonds Cook Book recipe, but tried and true it may be, after over 24 hours, including some freezer time, it just wouldn’t set for me. Big fail! What to do with squishy russian fudge? Well, of course, there was always ice cream or sauce. But what about using it as a spread? A few ticks later, I devised a Plan B. Plan B I cut out puff pastry shapes using cookie cutters, sprinkled with raw sugar, baked at 170°C for  10 minutes until just done, cooled for a bit, cut in half and filled with the still soft russian fudge. Serve with coffee for Christmas afternoon treat or with Christmas breakfast. …

Make Ice Cream

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Merry Christmas everyone. I hope your day is filled with yummy treats and that your stretchy pants look as good this year. I look forward to catching up with family and eating lots of delicious things. Namely, a glazed ham. I dream of ham year round. The weather has really turned bright and hot for us this Christmas and with summer weather comes demand for ice cream. I successfully made ice cream for the first time and I stirred in a bit of home made russian fudge for a buttery flavour boost. No ice cream maker required, just an egg beater and plenty of bowls. I found this easy ice cream recipe online here by a user named Marble. I’ve reblogged it just in case that page ever disappears. I have very limited kitchen space so never had the desire to hoard a food processor or an ice cream maker. I love how the fanciest tool required for this recipe is an egg beater. No food processor or ice cream maker required! ICE CREAM Use 3 bowls …

Salad for Super Skin

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With my skin still in the wars and a list of things NOT to eat, I decided to eat foods I should include. Most of the stuff I read about eczema is about stuff to avoid, but finding foods to eat is much more fun. I really enjoy cooking from a list of superfoods that I keep stored in my memory and more so when they’re delicious superfoods. There are a few foods out there that are good for your skin. These include salmon, avocado, olive oil and pinenuts (in pesto) which are all in this recipe. With half a bag left of orzo, I made this delicious salad for super skin. For those not on a restricted diet, some halved cherry tomatoes would be a lovely addition. Add some parsley too and hey look! You got yourself a red and green festive looking dish just in time for Christmas. Is this health food? Maybe. Does it work on eczema and other skin problems? I don’t know. Would I eat it regardless? Yes. Orzo Salad with smoked …

Prepare Ika Mata (Cook Islands raw fish salad)

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Raw fish is delish I fell in love with Ika Mata during our honeymoon in Rarotonga a couple of years ago. This raw fish and coconut cream salad is “cooked” in lemon juice and confettied with diced vegetables. I’ve eaten it a couple times in New Zealand, but never had the guts to make it at home until now. It’s absolutely a summertime dish and I’m glad to be able to cross it off this summer’s to do list. It was much easier than I anticipated. I don’t know what I haven’t made it sooner. Some raw fish dishes from around the world (alpha): Crudo, Italy Ceviche, South America Ika Mata, Cook Islands Kelaguen, Mariana Islands (Micronesia) Kinilaw, Philippines Kokoda, Fiji Ota ‘ika or Oka i’a, Tonga, Tahiti, Samoa Poisson Cru or E’ia Ota, Tahiti Poke, Hawaii Tiradito, Peru This recipe uses yellowfin tuna because it happens to be on special this week at Nosh, but you can use firm white fish such as kahawai or gurnard if the price is right. This is good eating, but can feel on the light side. If you are like …

Cook Ribs

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Ribs The ribs at Al Brown’s new restaurant, Depot are incredible. Lamb ribs with harissa sauce sounded great and I liked the inclusion of roasted capsicum. Al’s recipe can be found on his restaurant website for those that live outside of Auckland or just want to be able to make the dish at home. What a giver! I also have a soft spot for Lonestar ribs. It’s the only thing we go to Lonestar for these days. Ribs shouldn’t be a special occasion food, so I figured that was time to attempt to cook ribs at home. I put together this recipe after reading a bunch of recipes online and also incorporating some flavours that would work well with pork. Roasted capsicum is easy to do. Just cut a capsicum into quarters, remove the seeds, smear with a little oil and bake at 180°C for 40 minutes. In hindsight, this sauce would be badass with a slow cooked hunk of pork. Think pulled pork with coleslaw, potato salad and fresh buns. Oh boy. Kaitaia Fire Kaitaia Fire is …

Pinot Noir and a Platter

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I’m super lucky to have Sabato just around the corner from work. Sabato is a gourmet food store and it’s a happy place where I can pretend to be a foodie during my lunch break. Here I can pick up olives stuffed with all kinds of wonderful things, small pottles of very good pâté and breads with heart. I can sample a whole lot of new things that I’ve never tasted before. Sabato make delicious gourmet sandwiches to order. The sandwhich I had was huge, wrapped in pretty paper and filled with yummy Sabato goodies. Platters are great. Each bite a tasty something else. Interactive and social. Platters are made for sharing. Manzanilla olives stuffed with chorizo, potato sourdough, chicken and brandy pâté, Ferndale gruyere, Whitestone priobiotic brie, and of course, roasted garlic*. All washed down with a celebratory glass of pinot noir. When we ate this platter for dinner, I pretty much ate a can of olives by myself. Red wine and olives. That’s real health food. But if tomorrow, scientists decide that neither red wine or …

Roasted Garlic

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Garlic is always unreasonably cheap and I use a lot of garlic in my cooking. Sometimes though, I do buy too many bags of garlic to use before it starts sprouting, so roast garlic is a great way to eat up garlic quickly. Roast garlic is some kind of voodoo magic where the flavour vastly differs to the raw stuff. Roast garlic is really mellow, smooth and sweet. The cloves shrink inside their pods making them easy to remove from the paper. They are squishy, so you can either dig each clove out with a butter knife or use your fingers to squeeze them from of their papers. Or as I do, squeeze them out and pop them into my mouth. To use, mash with a fork, or crush with a knife to make a roasted garlic paste. If you are smearing into toast, you can just spread a whole roasted clove as you would a pat of butter. This recipe makes 4 bulbs of roast garlic but you can easily do more or less, just …

Bacon Burger Summer Rolls

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Foodie purists look away now. I love bacon. I looove hamburgers. I loooooove summer rolls. I’ve learned a few things since I posted  The secret To Making Vietnamese Spring Rolls. It’s surprising that what some have known pretty much all their life, second nature that is so simple that it’s just a given, can be foreign to others. So a big thanks to all the summer roll pros for the feedback. Now I have learned that drying on a teatowel isn’t required at all for the rice paper and if you just roll it up went it is pliable, it will continue to soften to perfection. Here in New Zealand, it’s not uncommon to put random ingredients into an exotic dish to make some oddball fusion monster. Think green curry chicken sushi and butter chicken pizzas. Maybe it’s the same in other countries too. I’m totally into it. If it tastes good, I’ll eat it. So, with a bit of streaky bacon and ground beef in the fridge, I decided to use them to make summer rolls. …

Crunchy Roast Potatoes

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I had these with pan-fried flounder, but these potatoes are great with just about anything. Very easy. I  give these potatoes a little once over with the peeler if they are developing eyes. Keep your eyes peeled! But you can fully peel them if you prefer. Crunchy Roast Potatoes Ingredients 4 medium potatoes 2 tablespoons cooking oil (I used avocado oil, but use whatever is available) 3 cloves garlic, chopped 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika 3 tablespoons breadcrumbs Salt and pepper  Preparation Pre-heat oven to 200°C. Cut potatoes into thick 2 cm slices and then cut again so you get small cubes. Transfer potatoes to a shallow roasting dish. Add oil, garlic, paprika and breadcrumbs. Salt and pepper generously. Mix well. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden.

Buttery Golden Pan-Fried Flounder

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When I was a little girl, a single steamed flounder, a plate of vegetables and plenty of rice would feed our family. My parents would allocate me and my sister a flounder roe each. Since flounder come with two roes by default, it was lucky they stopped at two kids. The roe was a treat!  The roe itself isn’t a thing of beauty, but I loved biting into it and imagining I was eating thousands of tiny fish at once. If you’re wondering what flounder roe tastes like, I find it mild and slightly creamy with a only hint of fishiness. The fish eggs are tiny – much smaller than other fish roe. Salmon is my number one fish, but if I must pick a white fish, it’s got to be flounder. I adore flounder but I usually steam or baked it. Flounder has a sweet flavour and a delicate texture. When cooked, it flakes with a little pressure and the large bones make it easy to eat whole. As a kid, my parents never shied away …

Lemonade

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A friend brought over a bag of real lemons. Real lemons are large, a deep yellow colour, with bumpy, thick skins. They smell super lemony – nothing like the anemic fake-looking lemons you get from supermarkets these days (what are they?!). Supermarket lemons make me frown. I was thirsty for something sweet and tart, so I made lemonade. I used a little of the J.Friend and Co honey that I received from a goodie bag for covering Out Standing In Their Fields a few weeks ago. The one I got is Vipers Bugloss. Don’t know what the heck that means? Me neither. Luckily, their website fills in all the gaps (it’s an alpine wild flower). It’s pretty awesome. You even get to know who the beekeepers are (Lucy and AJ), the vintage (2009) and where it is made (Clarence Valley, Muzzle Station). I’ve never needed to know that much about my honey, but it’s a nice touch. Especially in an age were ingredients come from all over the place. The first glass no doubt will …

Birthday Ham

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Party in the backyard I took the day off work for my birthday and The Koala came home a little early to help set up for my party. Our new outdoor table is getting plenty of use and the $20 I paid for it was a true bargain. I cleaned up a junk corner of our house last weekend and uncovered some parasols that we used for our wedding over 2 years ago. They’re so pretty that we had to do something with them. The Koala decorated a tree with them and I am stoked with how they turned out. Ham Ham on the bone is one of my favourite porky products and I look forward to Christmas ham every year. But ham once a year isn’t enough! For my birthday, my sister gifted me a Hellers Free Farmed half ham on the bone. From the Hellers website: Hellers Free Farmed products are sourced from selected New Zealand farms. The Sows are outdoors and once weaned, the piglets are raised in barns with no crates or …

Eleven Eleven Eleven. Stolen Hakanoa

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Everyone should invent a cocktail on their birthday. What a way to start the day right? Yesterday morning, the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the century, I celebrated my birthday with a cocktail at 11 minutes past 11. For my birthday, The Koala bought me a bottle of Stolen Rum in gold. I first had this rum at Taste at the Cloud in a cocktail called Stolen Summer. It was delicious. Stolen Summer is STOLEN white rum infused with Manuka wood smoked Apricot, Peach and Nectarine, fresh lime and ginger beer. I’m still experimenting with Hakanoa Ginger Syrup at the moment so I thought why not pair them together? Stolen Eleven Eleven 1 shot Stolen Rum (or any smooth golden rum) 1/2 shot Hakanoa Ginger Syrup A squeeze of lemon A lemon wedge A sprig of mint Ice Add the rum, ginger syrup into a glass of your choice. Top with a squeeze of lemon juice and ice, a sprig of mint and lemon wedge. Sip in the sun.

Ponyo wants ham!

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Years ago, we had an art exhibition at Rising Sun on K Road on my birthday. My family got me a glazed ham for my birthday (at my request) and we brought it to the exhibition to share with friends and art appreciating strangers. It was grand. A few years later, at a different bar, I met a guy that said he met me once at an exhibition where there was ham. Ah, to be forever associated as the art and ham girl. Awesome. Fast forward another 5 or 6 years, it’s my birthday today and what better way to celebrate than to have another glazed ham with my nearest and dearest. I adore ham and when I saw the Studio Ghibli movie Ponyo, I could relate. Watch this clip if you don’t know what I mean. As for the ham, I’m inspired by Pepsi, mango and brown or palm sugar. I think a cup of each should do the trick and a squeeze of lime juice for an extra South East Asian inspired pop.

Hakanoa (Ginger Syrup) Braised Pork Belly

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I’m quickly falling in love with Hakanoa Hand-made Ginger Syrup. “Made from filtered water, organic fairtrade raw sugar, fresh ginger, organic dried ginger, organic sultanas and fresh lemon juice,” this syrup ticks all the boxes ethically and best of all, it is delicious. More info on this product can be found on their website hakanoa-handmade.co.nz. I’ve used it to make sangria as well as ginger flavoured milk. Don’t know it until you’ve tried it. It is amazing. Best of all, I like to use it as a marinade in meat dishes and my favourite meat and cut has got to be the delicious pork belly. Free range pork belly should be available where ever you find free range pork. Maybe you are bored of pork belly these days. No problem. Hopefully the world gets tired of pork belly and it will return back to being a cheap cut of meat. More for me! If you still have room in your life for another pork belly recipe, try my Hakanoa Braised Pork Belly recipe. The addition of cornflour …