For all those that were at the Cook School at The Good Food Trading Company today, here are the recipes.
I’ll definitely post the seasoning recipe as soon as I can.
Veal Scaloppine with Mushrooms & Madeira
Serves 2
2 x 150-180g veal scaloppine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Plain flour
15g butter
15ml olive oil
4 thin slices lemon
1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms or rehydrated porcini
¼ cup Madeira
¼ cup good quality beef stock
Method
Season meat with salt and pepper, then dip in flour and dust off excess. Heat butter and oil in a frying pan. Drop in lemon and brown on both sides. Remove to a hot plate and add veal to pan. Seal for 1-2 minutes, then turn and seal the other side quickly. Remove veal to oven. Tip mushrooms into frying pan and stir for 1 minute. Add Madeira and allow to bubble up, stirring gently. Stir in stock and bring to boil. Serve scallopine with sauce immediately, accompanied by ‘pommes sarladaises.’
Pommes Sarladaises
Scatter finely chopped garlic and plenty of freshly chopped parsley over a pile of tender browned potatoes, parboiled then sautéed in duck fat.
Tips for Pan-Frying:
- When pan frying meat, you should fry in an uncovered wide pan as a lid traps the steam and the food stews rather than frying crisply.
- The fat should be pre heated before adding the food to be fried; otherwise it will absorb the fat and become too greasy and will also not brown and form a skin to trap its juices, becoming dry and tasteless.
- Meat, poultry or fish should be fried in small batches; otherwise the temperature of the fat will be lowered and again hinders the browning process.
Fry as quickly as possible until the browning is complete, and then turn down to moderate heat to cook the inside through.
Fried food should be served as soon as possible after cooking. Juices gradually seep from even well browned meat and fish and they dry up and toughen on standing. Potatoes lose their crispness and fritters deflate.
Wine Reduction Sauce:
3 shallots, finely chopped
¼ leek, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
300ml wine, fortified wine or spirit
300ml stock
spices,
300ml double cream
Lemon juice to taste
Seasoning
Method
To make sauce, sweat shallots, leek and garlic in the olive oil. Add stock,wine and spice to the pan and reduce to quarter of original volum. In a second pan, reduce cream to half the original volume. Add stock mix to cream and hand whisk. Add lemon juice and seasoning to taste. Set to one side.
Its a constant challenge to feed a family in such a way that is fun and healthy. As A chef I have to constantly fight the urge to fall back on the chefs advantage of being able to use high fat/high sugar and bazaar expensive products. This is family food and needs to be nutritious, tasty and fun, otherwise everyone gets bored. If we can continue to make meal time a fun, family time we’ll, hopefully, never lose the ability to all talk around the table.
The trick with this meal is the Quinoa, that truly amazing South American grain that is so astonishing good for us. This is one of the oldest sources of plant protein and thanks to the Spanish conquerors, was so nearly lost to history. Thankfully in the high Andes some was secretly grown year after year and was rediscovered for the rest of us about 50 years ago.
Quinoa Salad with Roast Vegetables & Halloumi
Serves 6
1 red capsicum, chopped roughly
1 yellow capsicum, chopped roughly
1 red onion, sliced
1 courgette, sliced
1 small carrot, peeled and chopped roughly
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 cup quinoa (pronounced ‘keenwa’)
Salt & pepper
1 cup spinach, chopped roughly
150g haloumi cheese, grilled until golden brown
Vinaigrette dressing (see below)
Method
Roast chopped vegetables (except spinach), garlic and olive oil in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 30 to 40 mins until golden brown.
Meanwhile, wash quinoa with cold water in a sieve and squeeze dry in a clean tea towel. Place quinoa in a pan, place over a medium heat and dry fry until lightly toasted. Cover with boiling water and simmer gently until all the liquid has been absorbed, about 12 minutes.
Remove vegetables from oven and add to quinoa with spinach and seasoning. Add dressing and mix well. Place in a bowl with grilled haloumi on top as a garnish and serve.
Vinaigrette
Makes 400ml
½ tablespoon smooth Dijon mustard
50ml red wine vinegar
50ml balsamic vinegar
100ml hazelnut oil
100ml avocado oil
100ml olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
6 turns white pepper
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
Method
Place all the ingredients into a blender and blitz for 60 seconds. Strain through a fine sieve.
Wow, thats the Olympic marathon over, in both senses of the word. Can’t believe that it will be four more years until Rio.
Have to admit that I was one of those ex-pats that wondered if London could pull it off, They not only pulled it off but excelled and even managed to make this old cynic proud of the country of my birth. Watching the faces of my children as their heroes achieved the impossible was an awesome experience. I guess the real legacy of the Olympics is the inspiration in the kids, the belief that they could one day be there.
So, enough prattling on about the olympics. What about food? I guess you could describe us as a meat eating family and its a conscious effort to add fish in a couple of times a week. This is some simple Pan Seared Tuna with Risotto and Rocket. So easy and quick to make, and with a good bit of crusty bread an absolute winner.
Easy Risotto
The main point to remember when making risotto is that any liquid that you use, whether it is stock, wine or cream, should be boiling hot before you add it to the rice. This will stop your risotto from “clumping”.
For 2 – 3 main servings:
1 cup Aborio or risotto rice
2½ cups stock, boiling
½ onion or 2 shallots, chopped
1 – 2 cloves garlic, chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
100 ml white wine
Salt and pepper
Parmesan, grated
Extra hot stock, olive oil or butter
Method
Heat the wine gently (and saffron, if using.) In another large pan, heat a little olive oil and sweat the “soffrito” slowly – garlic, onion and any other root vegetable being used (e.g. carrot, leek). Add the rice and heat through for 1 – 2 minutes (called toasting). Add hot wine and allow to reduce. Add the boiling stock all at once, bring back to the boil and add seasoning. Cover and simmer for 15 – 18 minutes.
Add flavourings, rest for a few minutes and then stir through parmesan, a little extra stock, gently heated cream, extra virgin olive oil or butter – the amount depends on how ‘allonde,’ or creamy, you like your risotto.
Suggested additions:
- Ø Porcini: Soak 15g dried porcini in 250ml warm water for at least 20 minutes. Strain and use some of the stock in risotto. Add sliced porcini at halfway point. Add heated cream at the end, along with parmigiano and chopped Italian parsley. Drizzle with Truffle oil.
- Ø Smoked Mushrooms: As above, but use Aromatics Smoked Mushrooms instead of porcini.
- Ø Smoked Salmon: Add chopped leek to the initial ‘soffrito’. Before adding Parmesan, add chopped, cooked Smoked Salmon.
- Ø Chorizo & Saffron: Add a pinch of crushed saffron to the wine/stock and, before you add the Parmesan at the end, fold through 2 cooked, chopped chorizo sausages.
- Ø Pumpkin: Cook cubed pumpkin slowly in EVO with garlic and some red wine and add with the Parmesan.
- Ø Lamb, Feta & Capers: Add 1 – 2 seared lamb fillets, marinated in Balsamic Vinegar and Infused Olive Oil (Lemon or Porcini) plus 2 tablespoon salted capers, soaked and rinsed and 100g cubed Creamy Feta.
I’ve just spent the weekend as the private chef to a group from Australia who are now heading back home believing that the Bay of Plenty is the wettest place on earth. Thankfully they were staying at The French Country House, so were thoroughly cosseted from the elements raging outside.
Cooking to a captive audience is always fun, and in this case educating a few of our Australian cousins in the history of food was a blast.
This recipe is over five hundred years old and, as you’ll notice, has only three ingredients. In cooking, simplicity is probably the hardest thing to achieve as it takes restraint to not just keep adding things. The flavour is astonishingly lemony and the texture can only be described as velvety.
Lemon Posset is a very English dessert dating all the way back to the middle ages when access to lemons was a sign of wealth and power, so celebrating the lemon was the idea. These days it’s a little different, with most of us having access to a lemon tree, so give it a go and enjoy the lemon.
Lemon Posset
Serves 6
900ml cream
250g caster sugar
Juice of 3 Ben Meyer lemons
Method
Boil the cream and sugar together in a pan and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice, off the heat, and mix in well. Leave to cool slightly then pour into six glasses and leave to set in the fridge for at least 2 to 3 hours. Serve.
Some Ice cold Lemoncello, from Dystillerie Deinlein at the top of the Minden, is the perfect way of keeping the lemon theme going.
What can I say it’s national Roast Day (yes I know, who knew?), and frankly what can beat a properly roasted chicken, the original food for the soul.
Roast Chicken with Avocado
Buy a free range, corn-fed, chill-fresh bird. To test if the bird is cooked, pierce the thickest part of the thigh with a skewer – the juices running out should be golden and clear. Also, you should feel the leg ‘give’ when tugged gently away from the body. To carve a chicken easily and neatly, allow at least 15–20 minutes resting time, preferably longer. This lets the juices, which have welled up to the surface during cooking, to seep back into the flesh to keep it succulent.
Serves 6–8
2.5 kg chicken
1 carrot
1 onion
1 stick celery
1 tablespoon standard flour
1 soft avocado
4 tablespoons Lemon Pepper Grove Avocado oil
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons chopped Parsley
6 rashers fat streaky bacon
500ml chicken stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons verjuice or white wine
- Preheat the oven to 190°C.
- Prepare a ‘mire poix’ of vegetables and place in bottom of roasting tin. Sprinkle over flour.
- Crush the soft Avocado with 2 tablespoons of the Lemon Pepper Avocado oil and blend to the consistency of soft butter; mix in the crushed Garlic and Parsley. Loosen the skin by gently sliding your finger between skin and flesh. Smear the Avocado “butter” generously under the skin, remembering the points where the thighs join the body. Brush remaining Avocado oil over the bird and season with salt and pepper, then place the bacon strips in a row, slightly overlapping each other, all along the breast.
- Lay the chicken on its back in a roasting tin on a high shelf in the oven. Cook for 20 minutes per 450g and sometimes 20 minutes over. (This has to be flexible because of the size of the bird and the type of oven.)
- After 1 hour, set aside the crispy bacon for serving later. When chicken is cooked, check the core temperature of the bird has reached 72˚C and rest, covered loosely with foil, for at least 10–15 minutes before carving.
- Meanwhile, add verjuice or white wine to cooked ‘mire poix’ and deglaze the roasting tin, stirring with a wooden spoon, once reduced a little add the chicken stock and bring to the simmer. Strain through a sieve and serve with chicken and crispy bacon.
Had a wonderful diner with friends on Saturday night, only problem was that I forgot to take piccies once they all arrived, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say it tasted great.
Don’t quite know why the photos turned out so yellow, although they do take on a vintage look. We had chicken liver and salmon pates to start with followed by fillet of beef with a pickled walnut crust, and finished with swiss meringue roulade with passion fruit and orange, washed down with a spot of Orange;Cello from Deinlein.
There’s something so special having friends around you’re table, only problem is that it was Super15 Rugby Rugby finals night and our local team, the Chiefs, were in the final. So the kids had to borrow my laptop and try to watch on line, never quite a goer.
Anyway the night was a great success, spending quality time with real friends and to top it off the Chiefs won.
Swiss Meringue Roulade
Serves 10
6 egg whites
150g caster sugar
50g flaked almonds
Method
Preheat the oven to 220˚C. Line a swiss roll tray with baking parchment. Whisk egg whites until very stiff. Gradually add sugar a little at a time. Spread on the lined tray and sprinkle with flaked almonds. Bake for about 10 minutes.
Turn out and cool. Remove baking parchment. Spread with whipped cream, orange segments and passion fruit pulp, or any other fruit you like, e.g. strawberries, raspberries, peaches, nectarines, etc.
It’s an interesting question isn’t it? Surely all you have to do is look at the label or ask the expert behind the counter, after all it’s our food, the very thing we put in our bodies every day. Well obviously not, as was proved when I visited a supermarket recently and asked the prepubescent teenager masquerading as a butcher wether they had any aged beef, his shocked and immediate answer was “no sir, its all fresh”
Now for the labeling, in NZ we’re covered by the toothless cretins at FSANZ (food standards Australia and New Zealand) who seem to be of the opinion that a food producer can put anything they want on their labels regardless of truth or proof. If anyone has the audacity to challenge a label these protectors of our food standards simply ask the manufacture to provide internal research with no independent corroboration. Recently the behemoth of frankenstein science, Monsanto, tried to introduce a new soy seed that FSANZ just accepted on Monsanto’s research whereas India demanded independent testing which lead to them dumping the project and losing millions of dollars of research in preference to actual scientific verification. When will we learn!!
Isn’t it just right and fair that we know where are food is from and what it contains or do we just allow the corporate thieves to keep making extreme profits from misleading us all?
The deliberately cloudy area of Genetic Modification is yet another classic, the FSANZ laws leave consumers in the dark by allowing a number of GE ingredients to be included in our food without any label:
- Refined ingredients such as oils, cornstarch, soy lecithin and sugars that have been highly processed don’t require labeling
- Any food prepared at the point of sale such as fresh baked bread, takeaways and other fast foods don’t require labeling.
- Dairy, meat, eggs, fish, honey and other foods from animals raised on a diet of GE animal feed don’t require labeling.
- Processing aids and food additives such as vegetarian rennet in some cheese, brewing and baking aids and colourings don’t require labelling.
- Flavourings when they make up less than 0.1% of the final food product don’t require labeling.
This just beggars belief and yet a prominent NZ chicken producer (note producer and not farmer) recently proudly advertised their chicken was GM free, although they obviously forgot to mention that the feed that the chickens had lived their too brief lives on was not. Have these people never heard the old adage that we are what we eat!
Now this argument will rage on with the global corporates muddying the waters by telling us that the human race has been modifying our food supply for thousands of years, which is true but what they don’t mention is that it was always by natural means over time and not by adding a genetic code from a different species (anyone for frog in their corn!!). Or the other little chestnut that is bounced around as the argument killer is that we have to do this as our population has grown so big that we won’t be able to feed the world without GM, if this is true then why have Monsanto developed a suicide gene so that their seeds can only be grown once instead of a proportion of the crop being kept as the seed stock for the next year. To me this is just a cynical moneymaking exercise that should have them barred from a place at the table, this is our food.
So what can we do, tricky really as it would be wonderful to think that we had the politicians with the balls to stand up to these institutions but lets be honest that isn’t going to happen. At a personal level we need to start making choices that can make a difference. Make personal connections with your food suppliers, whether its your local butcher, fishmonger or farmers market, find out what they believe and learn to trust through sharing in their knowledge. Above all support your local farmers and producers, get to know them and encourage them. It’s your food.
For all those that were at the cook school yesterday at the wonderful Good Food Trading Company, here are a couple of recipes for you.
Speedy Pasta
Serves 2
200g pasta ‘00’ flour
2 eggs or 4 egg yolks
Method
Sieve flour into a bowl. Add whole egg and combine mixture with finger tips. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead into a dough. If possible, rest in refrigerator for at least half an hour.
Roll out onto floured board into a rectangle. Next, flour surface of pasta and, using both hands, roll rectangle into a ‘swiss roll’ shape. Use a sharp knife to cut into desired thickness, e.g. tagliarini (thin), tagliatelle (medium) or parpadelle (thick).
To cook pasta, use 1 litre of water for each portion pasta and 1 litre for the pan. The water should boil fast while the pasta is cooking. Allow about 150g fresh pasta per person. Add 1 tablespoon salt per 4 litres boiling water. (Olive oil is only really necessary with lasagne sheets to prevent sticking.) Fresh pasta cooks in 2-3 minutes; “al dente” pasta should feel firm but not have a hard, chalky centre. Drain in a colander. Do not rinse or you will lose the precious sauce-catching starch. Quickly add olive oil and garlic to the hot pan, tip the pasta back in with a handful of freshly chopped herbs or some fresh tomato sauce (see below), cooked mussels, clams or fish, olives and capers or hot steamed vegetables.
Tagliatelle with Chicken & Green Beans
Serves 2
1 x 200g chicken breast, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1½ garlic cloves, finely sliced
Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 batch tagliatelle (see ‘speedy pasta’ recipe above)
1 tablespoon olive oil
100g baby green beans, topped (not tailed) and sliced from end to end on the diagonal
65ml (¼ cup) chicken stock
Good quality parmesan cheese, grated
25g basil leaves
Method
Place the chicken, EVO oil and garlic in a bowl and stir to combine. Season with salt & pepper. Cook pasta in a large pot of rapidly boiling salted water until ‘al dente’ and drain well. Meanwhile, 5 minutes before pasta is cooked, place a large frying pan over a high heat until hot. Add olive oil and heat for 5 seconds. Add chicken with marinade and sear quickly for 30 seconds. Add beans and reduce heat to medium. Cook for another 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Return heat to high, add the stock and simmer for 30 seconds. Add pasta and toss to combine.
Divide pasta evenly between two bowls and top with freshly grated parmesan cheese, basil and freshly ground black pepper.
Like all families we have a few traditions, in our case they revolve around food. Tonight was pizza night which always gets some healthy debate going, you see I 
like to be adventurous with the toppings and the rest of the family seem to prefer a plainer approach, added to that Fraser is of the belief that his base is better than mine which I hotly deny even though I secretly agree.
Making Pizzas becomes a family affair, making the dough in the morning and then all of us doing the prep as we chat through the day. My idea of Lamb, spiced red cabbage and Goats cheese has been vetoed in favour of prosciutto and potato, Smoked Salmon and leek, and that old monster the ham and pineapple.
Make lots as what’s left will freeze really well, we always triple the recipe so that we have lots left over for the lunch boxes over the next few days, it sure beats processed food.
Family food is so much more than just slamming something on a plate and eating on the hoof. Make the time to prepare together 
and eat together and use that time to talk, tonight the prep time was taken up with Alex’s French homework. Listening to Anne delve into her memory and try to extract her schoolgirl French was a joy that even the dog joined in with, Bon appétit.
Pizza
For the tomato sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
1 medium clove garlic, peeled and crushed
450g ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1 dessertspoon chopped fresh basil
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
For the base:
1 tsp active dry yeast
Pinch of sugar
165ml warm water
250g plain flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp olive oil
Method
Place yeast, sugar and water in a bowl. Set aside until bubbles form. Meanwhile, make up tomato sauce by heating olive oil in a saucepan, adding onion and garlic and cooking for 2-3 minutes to soften. Then add chopped tomatoes and basil, season with salt and pepper, and continue to cook over a medium heat for 20-25 minutes until tomatoes have reduced.
Add flour, salt and oil to yeast mixture. Mix to form a smooth dough and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in a clean, oiled bowl, cover and allow to stand in a warm place for 20 minutes or until doubled in size.
Knead and shape into one large or several small balls. Flatten with back of hand. Place on greased baking tray, add a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce, add toppings (see below) and bake at 180˚C for 20-25 minutes for a large pizza and 10-15 minutes for smaller pizzas.
Toppings:
- Ham, red onion and mozzarella.
- Olives and mozzarella.
- Smoked mushrooms and mozzarella.
- Pancetta and parmesan.
- Red onion and goats’ cheese or feta.
Barbecued Crayfish with Lime Aioli
Serves 4 people
If you have just dived for the crayfish yourself, the best way to eat this is straight from the barbecue on the back of the boat, with a glass of New Zealand’s wonderful Pinot Gris. If you are not a diver, the barbecue at home will do just fine. Read more →
