All posts tagged: food

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 …

Taste at The Cloud

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Taste at the Cloud has been running at the Cloud on Queens Wharf since September 13th. Today is the last day. I highly recommend you check this out today if you are heading around the city. It’s your last chance! There is no entry fee, you only pay for your food and drink ticket. Tickets come your choice of 2, 4, 6 or 8 dishes with matching beverage. Prices $17, $28, $42 or $54. The more dishes you buy, the cheaper the average price per dish. We didn’t realise until after we had bought our three separate tickets that we could split 1 or 2 big tickets between us. Oh well. Hopefully this info benefits someone else. There are menus from four themed kitchens: Seaside, Urban, Rural and Winery/Orchard. Each offering four kiwi showcase dishes. You can choose to mix and match any of the menus. You simply queue at the kitchen of your choice, collect your food and then your drink. We checked out the food at the Cloud yesterday and Now I wish …

Tale of two prawns: Steamed Garlic Prawns & Super Tasty Grilled Prawns

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A thing or two about prawns Prawns in New Zealand are imported raw as we have no prawn fishery. They are snap frozen at sea and can be easily thawed at home, so never buy thawed prawns because you don’t know how long they have been thawed for. Maybe it’s only been a couple of hours, but maybe it’s longer. Why risk it? If they’re snap frozen at sea and you thaw them just prior to cooking, they will be as fresh as possible. Prawn size and weight If you have bought prawns before, you may have noticed a special numbering system in place. It seems counter-intuitive, but the smaller the number, the larger the prawn. Less is more! Well, less is big. U10 or U20 means under 10 or 20 prawns per kilo. These are the biggest prawns and also the most expensive. Handy guide to prawn sizes (per kilo) Extra large 10/20 also displayed as U10 or U20 Under 10 and Under 20 prawns per kilo Large 21/30 Under 30 prawns per kilo Medium …

Transferable skills

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I was at work and in my fist was a small piece of paper that said “Italy”. During the world cup season, we each had to bring in a morning tea based on our drawn countries. What to bring? There are many yummy Italian foods. Pizza, pasta, antipasto, breads…. Being a terrible baker, I challenged myself to bake for everyone at work. Chinese fighting muffins Light, fluffy bread and moist cakes? Never! It’s not my style. My baking is generally hard and dry. So I figured, why not harness my natural talent for making Chinese fighting muffins? Look upon it as a transferable skill. Maybe you have a negative cooking skill that could be turned right given the perfect recipe? Biscotti is hard and never moist. Biscotti is classy. Biscotti would be perfect. I found this online chocolate biscotti recipe by Susan from Farmgirl Fare. If I’m afraid of making something, the words easy and beginners in the heading makes a big difference. I worried about burning these since it’s hard to tell if dark brown biscotti …

Tasting, tasting, 1, 2, 3.

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2011 will be my third Taste festival and I’m looking forward to trying and buying new delicious things and soaking up the good atmosphere down at Victoria Park. Taste of New Zealand kicks off this evening in Victoria Park, Auckland and the menu can be found on their website here or scroll to the bottom of this post. The dishes range from 8 to 20 crowns and a crown costs $1. This year, there are 13 restaurants offering 35 dishes. Quick breakdown: Dessert 5 Shellfish 5 Fish 5 Venison 3 Beef 3 Pork 3 Lamb 3 Duck 2 Chicken 2 Rabbit 1 Mixed grill 1 Vegetarian 1 There are loads of dishes for omnis and pescis, but only 1 vege dish of portobello mushroom. I ordered 4 dishes last year (all the ones on my wishlist) and I recommend 3 or 4 dishes per person for dinner. Don’t forget to make room for all the samples on offer. It’s great to have someone with you so you can sample their dishes too. Last year, we tasted …

Out Standing

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On a beautiful Saturday morning, Parnell Farmers’ Market celebrated their “Hello Spring” event with face painting, Walnut the clown (making super balloon animal hats), Old Macdonald’s barnyard petting zoo and the main course: Julie Biuso’s Out Standing In Their Fields cooking demo. With 14 books under her belt and a 15th due out next month, Julie wears various foodie hats including writing, radio, television and teaching. I’m a subscriber to just one food magazine and Julie happens to be their food editor. Julie is well known for her accessible style of cooking and Taste magazine is my favourite for that same approach to food. Food shouldn’t be fussy! The first dish, a hot and sour pork salad was zingy and smart. Using asian exotics like lime, palm sugar, coriander, mint and fish sauce it has punchy flavours that bring out the freshness of the produce. Julie’s handy tips:  Use soft brown sugar as a substitute for palm sugar Refrigerate onions to save your eyes Don’t be scared about using fish sauce as a seasoning This …

Snapper are my first world problem

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Someone wise once told me, if everyone in the world put their problems into a hat, you would be glad to pull out your own. It’s true. I was pining for flounder, but at the Chinese market, flounder are held in high regard and the price reflects this. Snapper is cheap at the Chinese supermarket. At the regular supermarket, the pricing is the other way around. Snapper is expensive whereas flounder is cheap. Isn’t it funny? I had to settle for snapper. A little bit of coconut cream, chopped garlic, spring onion, green curry paste and plenty of salt and pepper. Wrapped these fish in paper and baked for 30 minutes. It wasn’t so bad. Tip: Buy flounder at the regular supermarket and snapper at the Chinese supermarket.

Orzo Salad – Day 1

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I’ve never made orzo salad before but I figured it was worth giving a go. I think of orzo as rice shaped pasta and at $4 for 2 x 500g bags at Nosh last week, it was worth a whirl. 250g of orzo made enough for 2 nights dinners for 2 people and a lunch. So in theory, my $4 of orzo will be enough for 20 portions. Yowzers! I just boiled the orzo for about 7 minutes in salted water, drained and mixed with pesto, halved cherry tomatoes and avocado. Served with a grilled mushroom topped with cheese and herbs and a sexy slab of marinated rump. It’s a fast, easy weekday dinner that gets me excited about the warmer weather.

Oysters Hong Kong

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  Since we’re messing around with oysters this week, I figured I could mess around with Oysters Kilpatrick. My asian-inspired version uses ingredients like lap cheong, spring onions and black vinegar which you can find in any Cantonese kitchen. I’ve named it Oysters Hong Kong. From a previous post:  “Chinese dried sausages or Lap Cheong are dry cured sausages normally made of pork and fat. These are smoked, sweetened, seasoned and taste like awesome. The sausages I buy from my local are vacuum packed and hail from Canada. You might like these if you like streaky bacon cooked in maple syrup.”   Oysters Hong Kong Ingredients 12 fresh Pacific oysters (opened) 2 Chinese sausages (Lap Cheong) 3 tablespoons black vinegar 3 tablespoons spring onion, chopped Preparation Turn on grill to 200°C. Slice the Chinese sausages into thin rounds and fry until brown. Set the oysters on an oven tray lined with foil. Bunch up the foil so they oysters have a nice bed to lay upon. Top with the cooked sausage and black vinegar. Grill for 2-5 minutes. …

Make Oysters Kilpatrick

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I usually prefer my oysters fresh and unmolested, but things have changed since trying Oysters Kilpatrick for the first time at Mikano in April. They were Bluff and they were divine, but at $5 each, they are a special occasion treat. Oysters Kilpatrick is a dish from Australia and this 70’s retro-to-the-gills recipe isn’t for the faint hearted. Can you taste the oysters at their full potential? Maybe not. Are they delicious? Yes sir! I’ve always said Worcestershire rather awkwardly and today I noticed this month’s edition of Taste Magazine sorts me right out: How do I say…Worcestershire? The famous secret-recipe sauce named for its English home county has lost a syllable over time: ‘Wuss-tuh-shuh’ or just ‘Wuss-tuh’ for short. I’ve been ordering my oysters from New Zealand Seafoods (www.nzseafoods.co.nz) for years. They own oyster farms in Mahurangi Harbour and offer fresh, shucked Pacific oysters for $50NZ (about $40US) for 5 dozen. It’s about $6 to deliver which I consider money well spent. The oysters are always well packaged (export quality) and ready to eat. Oysters Kilpatrick …

Forage something and cook with it

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There is loads of onion weed in the garden again and a recent post on Alessandra Zecchini’s blog reminded me of the onion weed dumplings I made last year. I’m loving daylight savings time and it’s nice to be able to cook and photograph in natural light after work. I made these potato cakes for a pre-dinner snack but I think it will be easy to find another reason to eat these. I used the bottom 10cm of the plant which is the white/green base. It’s crisp rather than stringy. Thoroughly wash the onion weed and don’t use any that may have been sprayed with yucky chemicals. Otherwise, happy foraging! Onion Weed Potato Cakes Makes 8 Ingredients 2 large potatoes 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup chopped onion weed 3/4 cup grated cheese salt (garlic salt optional)  black pepper Oil 8 onion weed flowers for garnish  Preparation Preheat oven to 180°C. Peel the potatoes and remove the skin. Continue peeling the potatoes until it gets too hard to grip. Reserve for another use – about a …

Food pyramids are boring.

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<rant> I’ve never eaten to a food pyramid. Not even for a day. I don’t see the point when they seem to change with every generation. Someone somewhere decides a specific eating pattern is a good fit for the population and it gets broadcast. I don’t like margarine. But I buy it because it’s supposedly be better for you than butter, but these days, some kinds of margarine are linked to heart attacks. Margarine and butter contain the same amount of fat. With the rules changing every 5 minutes and dependent on who you talk to, who and what can we trust? I don’t eat KFC every day because I don’t feel good after 2 days of consecutive junk food. If I felt good, I would consider it. We should eat food that tastes good and makes us feel good. If I didn’t enjoy what I ate and did it purely for the health benefits, when the rules change, I would be pissed off. I would be if I had been suffering through margarine all …

On the bandwagon at Depot

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This week, I convinced Miss A to try out Al Brown’s new restaurant at Sky City: Depot with me. It’s had great reviews and what I read about the food really appealed to me. If you haven’t read the reviews, this place is small. The are no real chairs, just stools that you perch at. This means your bags and coats may need to find a hook on the wall. It also means that you’re unlikely to get cosy enough to let your dining experience drag on. Smart. Third time’s a charm. We had failed to get a table twice the night before – at about 7pm (full) and then at about 10pm (kitchen closed). This time we were joined by Uncle and more determined to eat. It was lunch so the turnaround was faster and that means better odds for a table. They don’t take bookings here and they get busy. You have been warned. We took one end of a large table. If communal dining isn’t your thing, then you might want to say …

The secret to making Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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Vietnamese spring rolls (or summer rolls) are one of my favourite things to eat and I always order this as starter when we visit a Vietnamese restaurant. The light, refreshing roll contrasts with a punchy sauce and I feel like I never get enough of these things. The beauty of making food at home is you can have as many pieces as you like. You can eat as many as you like for a main course without confusing your poor waiter. I’ve made these rolls once before but it was a messy failure. My mistake was to soak the rice paper in hot water and for too long. By the time you roll up, it disintegrates and you can forget about trying to eat them with any ounce of dignity. I have found the secret which I will share with you below. When we were eating in Hanoi, Vietnam at the start of this year, I noticed that the rice paper rolls were a tad under softened. That led me to believe that the rolls …

Salad, pie and pudding

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Easy mid week 2 course dinner. This is the second Maketu Pie I’ve had and like the mussel pie, this smoked fish pie is flavoursome without being too salty. Salad Lay down a handful of spinach leaves, top with 2 slices of peppered havarti and 2 sundried tomatoes. Drizzle with french dressing. Pie Unwrap a Maketu smoked fish pie. Bake for 30 minutes at 180°C. Pudding Pear Pudding: Melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 1 cup of milk. Sift 1 cup of self raising flour and about half a teaspoon of cinnamon, mix with half a cup of sugar. Mix liquid with flour. Beat in 1 egg. Pour into 2 buttered ramekins. Slice 1 ripe pear and arrange in a circle on top of batter. Sprinkle with more sugar if desired. Bake for 40 minutes at 180°C. Since the pudding will take longer in the oven than the pie, you can put the pie and the pudding in the oven at about the same time. Serve with custard or ice cream or be greedy like us and …

Eszter Burghardt’s Edible Vistas

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I recently stumbled upon some amazing photography by Canadian based Eszter Burghardt. She uses food as props for her landscapes. More of her work can be found here. Is this food photography or landscape photography? They remind me of very specific New Zealand landscapes. These 4 photos conjur up memories of places that I have visited and loved in this country: The emerald lake at Tongariro Huka Falls Thermal pools in Rotorua Milford Sound What do you think?

Food Show – pics and picks

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I had a good time at the Food Show in the weekend and I bought much more than last year’s show. This year felt less busy than last year. I don’t know if it was just more spread out or if there were less visitors/exhibitors. There were lots of new things to taste and we got wine glasses around our necks for easy boozing. My picks of the day… Best looking display: All Good Bananas and Pam’s. Meat tasting of the day: Heller’s brand new fresh chorizo sausage (not yet available in stores) Wine of the day: Coopers Creek “The Clays” Huapai Malbec 2008. Cheese of the day: So many excellent cheeses. Too hard to call. I bought a peppered havarti though which is unusual for me. But it’s creamy peppery bite was pretty special. Interesting foodie concept: Kapuka Pork’s Adopt A Pig scheme. Adopt a pig, get updates on your free-range pig at the farm and when it is ready, it will be processed, packaged and sent to you. Interesting products: Namida Wasabi Spirit. Tastes like wasabi …

Anticipating Food Show

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It’s Food Show time here in Auckland! Wahoooo! Last year we went for Miss C’s birthday and this year will be no different. Super food bargains and plenty of samples here we come! Many exhibitors invited me into their stalls to get better photos of their products. My SLR must say “legitimate photographer”. Hey, I guess I could say I’m from the press.Wordpress that is… Here are some of my photographs from last year’s show. There are lots of interesesting cheeses at the food show and lots of bargains to be had. We had just been to a cheese factory before last year’s food show so we missed out on the Food Show cheese. I swore that I would go on a cheese famine before this year’s show. Mega fail. I currently have 3 kinds of cheese in my fridge at home. Is there room for more? Maybe just 1 or 2? This year it is $22.50 and you can buy tickets and find out more info on their website here. Last year’s Food Show Tips …

Taking on the Ultimate Gnocchi

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I tried gnocchi for the first time a couple of weekends ago. It was at a restaurant and they weren’t the light pillows of deliciousness that I expected. They were dense and a bit chewy. Thinking I could do better, I was determined to give gnocchi making a go. Pronounced nyo-key and translates to lumps, but may have come from the words nocchio or nocca which mean knot (in wood) or knuckle. Commercial gnocchi look more like fat grubs than knuckles. Gnocchi isn’t familiar to me so I’m not sure if it’s considered a pasta or a dumpling and a quick search online suggests that it might be both. I did a little research and found Cook Almost Anything’s Ultimate Gnocchi article an amazing guide for new gnocchi makers to work with. Apparently, too much flour leads to heavy gnocchi and with the fear of creating chewy bullets, I overcompensated. I made my dough with less flour than suggested. My gnocchi wasn’t so soft it disintegrated in water, but they were really, really light and soft. Is there …

French food and truffles

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I had a lovely foodie day yesterday celebrating Bastille Day.  I adore French cuisine (who doesn’t) and it is a dream of mine to one day eat French food in France. Yesterday, some of us at work dressed up in French inspired garb and we had an incredible feast for morning tea. Morning tea is a big deal at my work. Because we have a lot of early starters, not everyone is around for afternoon tea so morning is the only time we can get everyone together. Our French inspired morning tea consisted of: Baguette Croissants Pain au chocolat Chicken and cranberry pâté Mushroom and brandy pâté Cheese Cream cheese Ham Cake Pickles It was so delicious and a lot of fun assembling your own bite sized morsels of goodness. I forgot how much I love pâté. We ate as much as we could and there was plenty left over. If only the French had siesta I could crawl under my desk and have a nap. Sabato Field Trip A couple of hours later, I gathered …