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August 30, 2005

Eat Local Challenge: Your daily bread

Bread is very important to me. I love it fresh, I love it stale and ready for toasting, l love it with cheese, I love it in particular - fresh or toasted - with good salty butter. I love the way it mops up your plate after you've had a particularly tasty tomato pasta dish. I love the yeasty smell from the breadmaker as it cooks yet another loaf of homemade bread. I love making my own Brown Soda Bread and, most importantly, eating it. In short, I can't fathom a life without bread. That was why it was so important, after I moved to Christchurch - before the coming of the breadmaker - to find a local source of decent bread. The only time I ever use slice pan or a sliced loaf from the supermarket is when I'm temping and need something quick and easy to make my sandwiches for lunch. But it's not something that I'd chose as part of my normal daily life.

Part of Eating Locally is very supporting the small shops and producers of the area, something which I'll do as a matter of course - as long as their product is up to scratch. And for a while there, the bread that I was getting from a few bakeries around Christchurch wasn't much better than the "luxury" bread that you'd pick up at the supermarket. That was, however, before I discovered Ma and Pa's Bakery. They have a shop at in the Christchurch suburb of Richmond but, even more convenient for me, they have a city centre outlet just off Cathedral Square, on my way to the library. They make a variety of different breads and, even when well stocked, it's a habit of mine to walk past - just in case there's one that I might need. We've eaten our way through much of their stock at this stage - their nutty and sour Californian Sourdough, the very different Pain au Levain, a dense Rye Loaf, the wholewheat and wholegrain Wild West Grain Loaf, an intensely savoury Parmesan and Red Onion Focaccia, a delicious nigella seed-scattered Turkish Flatbread and, most importantly, their Maori Rewana Bread. A sourdough with a potato starter, the Rewana Bread is a solid loaf which is very happy to be eaten with one of my chunky Vegetable Soups. It's also a great basis for cheese-on-toast and lasts very well so that there's never a scrap thrown away.

Another café/bread shop that I've recently discovered is Vic's Café and Bake on Victoria Street. Vic's puts great emphasis on making all its food with vegetables from an organic supplier and it uses organic free-range eggs for its sumptuous brunch range of French Toast, pancakes and Eggs Benedict. The café is a great place to spend some time in the afternoon with a coffee and something sweetly delicious - and there are many decisions to be made about what loaf of bread should accompany you home. So far I've only managed to try their award-winning Wholegrain Bread. The loaf is packed with linseed, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, polenta, oats and rye and is a nutritious meal in itself. Match that with some cheese from the local range stocked by Canterbury Cheesemongers around the corner and you've a fantastic locally sourced meal. Is it time for lunch yet?

Posted by Caroline at 1:05 PM | Comments (0)

August 28, 2005

Eat Local Challenge: Spanakopita

There are so many things that you can't go near when you're trying to Eat Local. I had written this piece about Spanakopita ever before I started this challenge but, pressed for choice on Saturday night, it was something I happily turned to. I had spinach and onions from Canterbury, feta from Karikaas, ricotta from Zany Zeus (North Island but still New Zealand!), nutmeg, couscous for the accompanying salad and local free-range eggs from Piko, our brilliant local wholefoods/organic shop but I must admit failure with the pastry, which was Australian. If I had been a bit more organised ahead of time I could have made my own but still, it didn't turn out too badly!

When I was in college in University College Cork, one of our greatest treats was to go out for dinner to the Quay Co-Op. As well as a wholefood and organic shop, rather like Piko, it was also our local vegetarian restaurant. Although none of us were in any way inclined towards giving up meat, we all loved the food (good and filling), the prices (very reasonable) and the fact that they welcomed you bringing your own wine. I think there was a ridiculously cheap corkage of about £2 (this was way back in pre-Eurofication times) and we took full advantage of it for birthdays and other celebrations. I can even remember a party of us turning up with a bottle of wine apiece on Holy Thursday to do our pre-Good Friday drinking in comfort.

One of the dishes we most loved was their Spanakopita - a Greek dish of spinach and cheeses, enclosed in a delicate filo pastry case. One member of the group, who particularly had a weakness for this particular dish, prevailed on the chef on night to give her the recipe. It was something we often cooked for parties or get-togethers while we were in college and, especially as I have a spinach-loving boyfriend, I have regularly made it since then.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get your hands on filo pastry - and not so easy to manage - so, among other things, I have adapted the recipe to use a puff pastry crust. When made with puff pastry it really is a most obliging recipe, always happy to be made well before it is needed and sit around to be cooked at the last minute. I'm sure it wouldn't even mind being frozen for a while and cooked direct from the freezer, although I have not yet lived with a freezer big enough to take a whole Spanakopita. Besides, if the Boyfriend sees that I'm making it, there's no way that I would be allowed to save it for too long.

A word about feta cheese before I move on to the recipe. I always cut it into small cubes and fold it through the spinach and cheese mixture at the end as I like getting little pieces of it scattered throughout the dish but you can blend it more thoroughly, if you like. Also, always taste your feta before adding it. The cheese I used in Ireland was much saltier than the feta I find here so you may need extra salt to compensate. Don't forget to season the spinach and cheese mixture well. It is too late to be thinking of adding seasoning when it is cooked. In the summertime I normally serve this with a salad of diced vine ripened tomatoes and red onions, tossed with balsamic vinegar, and either Tabbouleh or some variation on Couscous Salad.

Caroline's Spanakopita
Puff pastry - two large sheets
Spinach - 1x 300g bag
Ricotta cheese - 200g
Onion - 1, finely chopped
Eggs - 2 plus 1 for glazing the Spanikopita
Freshly grated nutmeg - ¼ teaspoon
Pine nuts - 25g, toasted
Feta cheese - 150g, cubed
Sea salt, freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C and place a baking sheet in the oven to heat.

Roll out half the puff pastry and line a swiss-roll tin with it. Wash, dry and chop the spinach then combine it with the ricotta cheese, onion, eggs, nutmeg and seasonings. When well mixed, fold in the cubed feta cheese and put the mixture into the lined tin.

Roll out the rest of the pastry to make a lid and, using beaten egg, stick the layers together. This is when you can put the Spanakopita aside, leaving the glazing and baking until later.

Brush with more beaten egg and cut three slits into the top of the Spanikopita. Place into the oven on top of the hot baking sheet - to ensure that the base of the Spanakopita is cooked - and cook for 40-50 minutes until well-risen and golden brown.

Posted by Caroline at 9:03 PM | Comments (4)

August 26, 2005

Eat Local Challenge

I've just discovered the Eat Local Challenge posted by Jen on her life begins at 30 blog. She invited fellow food bloggers to make the commitment to eat locally produced food during August. In her own words:

"For the month of August, I would like to invite all bloggers to join me in taking a challenge to eat food local to where you live. You will be able to build your challenge parameters yourself, and set reachable goals for the month. Ths goal of this time is to eat as much local food as possible, and to really pay attention to where your food comes from."

Typical that I should discover this as the month ends but it did put me thinking.

In Ireland, my main source of food was the local Tesco. I'd go there a couple of times a week, without a list normally, and pick whatever caught my eye or was on special. Since moving to Dublin, I've never lived more than 10 minutes walk from the supermarket so there was never much pressure if I forgot something or I decided to make a dish for which I didn't have the ingredients. I just ran up the road and collected the necessary - and several other things which I didn't need but which came to hand at the time!

I rarely went to the butchers, there were no nearby greengrocers and, since I didn't really eat much fish at the time, I didn't need a fishmongers. As my favourite meal normally involves bread and cheese - but the bread has to be good and the cheese fabulous - I did need a cheesemongers. Some of my nicest meals involved something savoury that I picked up from Sheridan's Cheesemongers around the corner paired with a baguette from the gorgeous La Maison des Gourmets. I did make an effort to eat Irish cheese (Cashel Blue, I miss you) but you could hardly call a baguette, even if produced in Ireland, a local food.

For me, eating locally is all connected with shopping locally and I'm doing a lot more of that here in New Zealand. Maybe it's because I've a bit more time on my hands in Christchurch but I think it's also because this city is much better supplied with great shops. Where I live is within walking distance of two butchers - Peter Timbs in Edgeware and Verkerks on Manchester Street. There's a fishmongers a few doors down and a really nice cheesemongers just a few minutes walk away. All of those do make life a lot easier, especially if you're trying to buy and eat local. Now the supermarket stop is just once a week, complete with a proper list, and almost all our veggies come from the local market or direct from the growers. I discovered yesterday that Christchurch's first farmers' market takes place in Lyttleton next weekend so that will increase the Eat Local scope still more.

Time to put the thinking cap on and see what else I can manage in the line of local food before the month is up. But there are a few questions that I have to answer first:

1. What's your definition of local for this challenge?
I was going to be cheeky here and say all of New Zealand but then I realised that I generally eat more locally than that, especially as there are so much fruit and vegetables grown around the Canterbury region. So, Canterbury it is, then.

2. What exemptions will you claim?
I think the list of exemptions could be longer than the things that I'll be able to use so I'll just hold off on answering that one for the time being!

3. What is your personal goal for the month?
Well, as I said, it's a bit late that I'm starting but I'll try to increase my usage of food from the Canterbury area, discover new suppliers and be more imaginative in my use of the good basic Kiwi veggies.

Posted by Caroline at 2:17 PM | Comments (0)

August 24, 2005

Yoga - and Pumpkin Pie

Govinda's in Dublin - a vegetarian restaurant run by the Hare Krishnas - has a great reputation and was one of those places that I always intended to go for dinner. Somehow I never managed to make it there but, when I was searching for a yoga class in Christchurch lately, I discovered that they run them in the Christchurch branch of Govinda's. not only that but, for $15 you get an hour's yoga plus your dinner. How could such an offer be turned down? Last week I tried the class and I think I'll be returning every week for the food, as well as for the yoga. After working hard for an hour, the delicious meal is truly well deserved.

Over the last two weeks we have been served a dal-type soup with mustard seeds and then a plate of rice, curry, fritters, chutney and salad. All vegetarian, of course, but - more importantly! - tasty and filling as well. But the real highlights have been the deserts. Last week we got a glorious Apple Crumble which I, the crumble connoisseur, could not fault and this week an amazing Pumpkin Pie appeared. The lads at my table were very pleased to see it coming out, telling me that it's apparently the best Pumpkin Pie in all of Christchurch. Pumpkin Soup is no longer a novelty to me but this pie was a surprise - I had only heard of Pumpkin Pie for American Thanksgiving. Curious, I tasted it and it wasn't long before that special little slice disappeared. It was an open pie, with a smooth, velvety, cinnamon-scented filling. The texture was more akin to a mouse than a pie but no delicious for that. Well worth stretching for!

Posted by Caroline at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2005

The simple things in life - Ham and Pea Soup

As it is winter at this side of the world - although the temperatures seem to have taken a turn for the better lately - I've been cooking lots of soups. I love making anything that just takes 20 minutes of chopping and frying, and then is happy to sit simmering on the cooker for an hour or longer, until it's done. As a result of my interest in dried peas, beans and lentils, there's always a cupboard full of various legumes to be incorporated into soup and one of the best soups around can be made with dried green split peas.

If you have time to soak them, this cuts down on the cooking time but, as long as you have time to let it bubble away by itself, you need not worry about this. I've been working from a recipe by Clare Connery for Ham and Pea Soup and good it is too. Best served on a cold, miserable wintery day with some well-buttered slices of Brown Soda Bread on the side.

When my mother and aunt were about we made this for dinner one night, using a smoked ham hock instead of the ham bone. The following night we fished the hock out of the remnants, stripped the meat from it and made toasted ham and cheese sandwiches to accompany our mugs of second day soup. Delicious!

Ham and Pea Soup
Butter - 25g
Olive oil - 1 tablespoons
Large onion - 1, chopped
Large carrot - 1, chopped
Streaky bacon - 150g, chopped
Green split peas - 250g, soaked and rinsed
Bay leaf - 1
Ham bone - 1
Water - 1.5 litres
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and melt the butter. Fry the onion, carrot and bacon over a low heat until soft but not browned. Add the green split peas, the bay leaf, ham bone and water.

Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer for at least an hour or until the split peas have disintegrated into the liquid and there is a whole pot of green slush.

Fish out and discard the ham bone and bay leaf. Season to taste and serve to people with hearty appetites.

Posted by Caroline at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)

August 20, 2005

Bill's Open Kitchen by Bill Granger ***

Australian cook Bill Granger is the darling of the Sydney restaurant scene. He open his first café, Bill's, twelve years ago and hasn't looked back since. Earlier this month he opened his third Sydney restaurant and he has just visited Christchurch to launch his fourth cookbook, Simply Bill. Not bad for an untrained cook who, until he opened Bill's, had no experience in a commercial kitchen.

Bill's Open Kitchen is his third cookbook. In it, Granger veers towards fusion cookery with plenty of Asian and Mediterranean flavours but, fortunately, not in the same dish - although he has a nice take on mixing old traditions (afternoon tea) with modern flavourings (Orange and Cardamom Biscuits).

As befits a man who also does all the cooking at home (he and his partner had three small girls at the time) Granger also has plenty of ideas for fast and not inordinately difficult food. A professed fan of casual and easy dining, his Tagliatelle with Chicken and Green Beans and Spicy Omelette Sandwiches all look like tasty and quick options for the harassed and short-of-time cook.

The images and presentation are wonderful if, at times, a little bit too staged but there are good recipes and useful tips in Bill's Open Kitchen.

Posted by Caroline at 9:16 PM | Comments (4)

August 18, 2005

All things chocolate

Beer drinkers, as wine drinkers, are pretty well catered for in New Zealand. There are plenty of microbreweries and brew pubs about - Brew Moon, the Dux de Lux and the Twisted Hop are amongst some Canterbury favourites - but even the big breweries have pretty decent beers. One of the biggies is Speight's Brewery. Known as "The Pride of the South", it is based in Dunedin and produces a very tasty dark beer called, in an obvious move, Old Dark.

Normally, given my preference for wine I don't get to taste too many new beers but, as Bealey's Speight's Ale House opened around the corner from us in Christchurch recently, it seemed churlish to ignore their obvious speciality. Especially so when I discovered that they have a limited edition Chocolate Ale (Dunedin is also the home of Cadbury) on sale at the moment. I demanded a pint and spent the next hour drinking it - it's certainly not something that will go down fast.

Despite a few initial doubts, it was a fine flavoured, although sweet, drink. It had a true dark chocolate taste with a cherryish aftertaste. Immediately it reminded me of the Black Forest chocolates that were my childhood favourites from the Christmas box of Cadbury's Roses. That was, of course, before Cadburys decided to replace them and the yummy marzipan ones with some of those manky praline-centred things. The information on the bar suggested pairing the Chocolate Ale with rich chocolate deserts but it is a perfect after-dinner drink on its own. Maybe there should be an Irish version - Chocolate Guinness, anybody?

Posted by Caroline at 4:43 PM | Comments (6)

August 16, 2005

Peas, beans, lentils and other useful things

I've always been a lover of peas, beans and lentils - things that are cheap and can be turned into something delicious without too much effort. But, in Ireland, a hectic schedule prevented me from really getting involved with these in their dried form. Instead I had to content myself with their tinned equivalents which, although not hugely expensive, do prevent you from using them with too much abandon. Since coming to New Zealand, however, and discovering that dried peas, beans and lentils are readily available through the Bin Inn chain and also through the self-serve bins in all supermarkets, I've been putting them to good use.

In Dublin I had cooked dried chickpeas a couple of times with great - almost too much - success. When soaked overnight in too small a bowl, chickpeas have a tendency to start taking over the kitchen. And they don't stop expanding then, so make sure you have a big saucepan for the cooking. The problem, besides me cooking too big a bag on my first attempt, was that we didn't have a freezer in our Dublin flat so we had chickpeas in everything for a few days - stews, soups, couscous - and I even made a big bowl of hummus. At least we're blessed with a large fridge-freezer in New Zealand so I can cook and freeze to my heart's content. For a little work in the morning, you've got a supply of pulses for the next few weeks and they are delicious added to stews, soups and the like when you want to, as opposed to when you have to.

To cook pulses you do have to do a small bit of forward planning as most of them need to be soaked the night before you intend to cook them. Lentils, whether brown, split or Du Puy, are the few exceptions to this rule. Proper soaking, rinsing and cooking also help to prevent gas or wind, thus avoiding the truth of the old rhyme (taught to us as children by our father, much to our mother's annoyance!):

"Beans, beans,
They warm your heart.
The more you eat,
The more you fart."

I always rinse the pulses before leaving them to soak in cold water for at least 12 hours. Drain and rinse well again before putting them in the cooking pot and covering them with cold water. Add whichever aromatics you would like to the cooking water - bay leaves are always useful, as are roughly chopped carrots, onions and celery - but don't add any salt as this toughens the skins and you may spend a year and a day boiling before they might deign to soften. Sometimes, despite your forbearance with the salt, pulses may be uncooperative as regards the cooking process, especially chickpeas. It's best to buy dried peas, beans and lentils in places that you know have a quick turnover as stale pulses are no fun to be cooking. Chickpeas, in particular, are likely to take a couple of hours boiling although I was caught by surprise when a batch I bought from our local Asian supermarket took less than an hour to become tender.

On the other hand, If chickpeas are taking over three hours to cook then make a paste with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and some water then add it to the cooking pot. This tends to have an effective, if brutal, effect on the uncooperative legumes, rendering them tender within 10 or 20 minutes. Beware, though, if you're cooking the chickpeas for use in a salad, as this last resort measure also has the effect of removing the skins from the chickpeas, which is fine if you're making Chickpea Mash but is not so visually effective otherwise.

Cooking pulses is an ideal occupation if you're at home during the morning as they need little attention after you've got them on the cooker, just the occasional peek into the saucepan. When they're cooked (I've found a very good chart for the cooking times of various legumes here), just drain and allow them to cool. They can be used immediately or frozen for use at a later date. Vegetarian cookbook writer Rose Elliott, in her very handy The Bean Book, recommends freezing them in manageable bags of about 300g, which seems to be the usual weight of a tin of drained blackeyed beans or chickpeas, and then they're ready to go for any recipe - advice which I have found useful on many occasions.

Posted by Caroline at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

August 13, 2005

Comfort Food: Eating for Pleasure by Maxine Clark ****

Now this cookbook is right up my alley. The combination of the words comfort, food, eating and pleasure - especially in winter - talk far more to me that those hated phrases low fat, slimline and reduced calories. Which isn't to say that comfort food is going to have a drastic effect on your waistline, although it might! It's just that the whole idea of comfort food which, by nature, involves things hated by the health police such as full fat milk, real butter and clotted cream, is especially evocative in the winter. With cold and rain outside (here in New Zealand), now is the perfect time to stay indoors, browse through cookery books and decide what tasty treat to cook for dinner tonight. You Northern Hemispherians will have some time to wait but there's no harm in getting ready in advance for dismal, dreary weather.

Maxine Clark being Scottish, there's an emphasis on porridge, scones and shortbread but she doesn't sell herself short and there's also plenty of foods from other cultures like Gooey Butterscotch Nut Muffins (America), Lamb Shanks and Apricots with Minted Sesame Couscous (Morocco) and Spanish spices make their way into Cod and Bean Stew with Saffron and Paprika. She also has a good way of giving a twist to a traditional recipe, adding a buttery caramel to the apples for a Deep Dish Apple Pie.

Divided into chapters such as At the Table, On The Sofa, Breakfast in Bed and On the Tray, Clark also makes the case for a more leisurely, contemplative lifestyle, one which involves your breakfast arriving on your lap as you wake up, the tinkle of the tea trolley at mid-afternoon, a unhurried dinner and curling up on the couch in the evening. If only life were so good! Comfort Food: Eating for Pleasure is more a state of mind than anything else and you may find yourself comforted by the mere reading of this book, as well as unable to resist a trip to the kitchen to put some of its recipes into action.

Posted by Caroline at 11:47 PM | Comments (2)

August 11, 2005

Chocolate and chilli

I think that my interest in the Mexican combination of chocolate and chilli may have been originally sparked from watching the film adaptation of Laura Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate in college. The fire of chilli and the dark richness of chocolate seems, to me, to be a rather good combination. The Chocolate and Chilli Biscotti I picked up recently to accompany my flat white (coffee) at the Underground Coffee Company Café in Christchurch was a good example of this and put my mind musing over other ways I could use chocolate and chilli together.

My interest was heightened while browsing at Aji last week. I came across discs of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate - a type of sweetened chocolate laced with cinnamon which is said to be perfect for making hot chocolate or a spicy Mexican mole sauce to serve over turkey. The owner of the shop said that she encourages people add a pinch of Aji's Kashmiri Chilli Powder while making hot chocolate. I didn't need a second telling and took that as well plus, as I had had a run of bad quality of cinnamon lately, some of their Triple A grade cinnamon. As we were going down to stay at a bach near Dunedin for the weekend - and an essential part of bach living are regular hot chocolates - the chocolate and spices were packed with the rest of the food, ready for experimentation.

I wouldn't rave about Ibarra Mexican Chocolate for eating purposes - it's rather sweet and grainy - but, for hot chocolate, it does a wonderful job especially when combined with the chilli and cinnamon. We sat on the deck outside the bach, the Boyfriend trying to catch fish with a hand-line while I, wrapped up in a rug, read one of my stack of books, sipping away on the surprisingly intense blend. Sweet, but with a hint of a kick, it really warms you from the inside out. I used about a ¼ teaspoon of chilli powder for the two of us and that was enough to make the tastebuds tingle. I would suggest adding the chilli a pinch at a time, tasting as you go, as each chilli powder will differ in the amount of heat it delivers. If you can't source the Ibarra Mexican Chocolate, you could try using some bars of good quality dark chocolate.

Mexican Hot Chocolate
Ibarra Mexican Chocolate - half a disc
Milk - two mugs full
Chilli powder - ¼ teaspoon
Ground cinnamon - ¼ teaspoon

Put the milk in a saucepan to heat over a moderate heat. Chop the chocolate roughly and add to the saucepan with the spices. Stir until melted then whisk briskly until near boiling point. Do not allow to boil. Pour into mugs while still frothy and serve immediately.

Serves 2...unless you're very greedy!

Posted by Caroline at 11:41 PM | Comments (2)

August 9, 2005

Savour New Zealand: Dean Brettschneider

New Zealand baker Dean Brettschneider was one of the people that I encountered at the recent Savour New Zealand in Christchurch. Together with Lauraine Jacobs, a Cuisine food editor, he has recently published Taste, the third in a series of quality books on baking. At Savour New Zealand, when not signing stacks of Taste and his other books, he gave an eagerly anticipated class called Kneading the Dough in which he made a loaf of my favourite sourdough bread.

With sourdough, you don't use yeast from a packet or jar. Instead you just use the natural yeasts from the air, making a starter that ferments over time to raise the dough. I was particularly interested in this bread as the Boyfriend had tried a series of sourdough experiments in Dublin with not a huge amount of success. Getting one useable loaf of bread out of about ten can't be seen as a good statistic in anyone's books!

Dean emphasised the simplicity of sourdough during his class and, when I talked to him afterwards, I asked him if he saw his role as taking the mystique out of breadmaking. "There's people that do create that mystique. All the hidden secrets. What is it? Just flour, water and salt," he says. "The books are about giving people the confidence, giving them photographs, giving them explanations. Some good information that works. I try to unlock the secrets. Nothing is complicated. It is simple. It's about the little things."

In the notes that accompanied the class, he stated that his baking philosophy was "back to the future", a statement that he enlarged on later. "It's going back to the past for the style of product," said Dean, "but we're using futuristic knowledge and modern ingredients to bring it forward."

So why sourdough? As I've discovered myself, it's not the easiest bread to make. "Sourdough is what everyone is interested in," according to Dean. "That's what everybody wants to know. People either get scared about it, they get enthusiastic and passionate about it or it's too hard. It's one of those things that I'm going to focus on for a while because it's not so hard. But what I like about it is that flavour and that natural feel."

Despite the fabulous bakeries that you can find scattered around New Zealand and the success of his own baking books, Dean doesn't believe that there's any major new interest in baking. "There's a resurgence within a particular group, within the group that is passionate and excited about good food. But it's not going to take the world by storm. The majority of people don't really care. They want white bread."

In his class he encouraged people to bring a loaf of their own sourdough around to a dinner party instead of a bottle of wine. He sees that as "throwing a few seeds out and they're springing up here and there." Dean is firmly convinced of the importance of introducing people to truly good bread and then "they're going to have an appreciation for good bread, good baking. So they're going to go and search for that good loaf of bread. That's what the books are about, creating a demand. They discover where a good bakery is and they go there and they get a good experience. That's the secret. Lauraine and myself educate these people, passionate food people, but I also have a task on my hands of educating the bakers about delivering the experience to these type of people. You get mediocrity all the time. Take the time, learn, learn, learn. Most bakers are not wanting to learn really. It's a long, long mission."

This can occasionally be discouraging, but it doesn't seem to have taken its toll on Dean whose youthful looks belie the fact that he has spent the last twenty years baking. I asked him if they ever feel like dog years: "It has its toll," he says ruefully, "but if you have the enthusiasm it's kind of magic. It just lifts you. So if I want to get a bit enthusiastic I just bake. You can be in the worst mood but it just lifts you."

This enthusiasm comes across in his demonstration as, while demystifying the whole sourdough process, Dean shows how baking can be fun. But, as he also noted during the class, "the simple things in life are not always easy" and, while I may have had good intentions while the glorious sour nutty taste of the sourdough bread was still on my lips, I still haven't got round to making it. Maybe, with my newfound knowledge, it's time for further experiments...

Posted by Caroline at 9:19 AM | Comments (0)

August 7, 2005

Pies in New Zealand

Pies truly are a New Zealand classic. Maybe it's because of the British influence and their Pork Pies, although colonisation of Ireland didn't leave us with any such culinary heritage. As I mentioned the other day, pies are eaten by Kiwis on long road trips - the guarantee of a good pie will encourage people to take major detours - and they are apparently the traditional accompaniment to a rugby match. The national pie is bacon and egg and, every summer, magazines and newspapers compete to give the perfect recipe for this picnic standard. Apparently a good Bacon and Egg Pie is dependent on you not breaking the egg yokes as you add them to the sliced bacon in the pastry case. Hmm...another recipe to try out at some stage in the future!

When I was small I remember my mother regularly making a deliciously savoury Lamb's Kidney Pie encased in shortcrust pastry. It was never steak and kidney, for some reason, not that I ever minded. For me the Kidney Pie, with bacon and sometimes mushrooms, was the height of culinary sophistication although, if I took a piece of it for lunch at school, I was bound to get someone going "urgh...kidney...disgusting!" I think I put them off their lunches more often than they managed to put me off mine.

But, back to my pie-fest for the Boyfriend's birthday dinner, the Beef and Chorizo Pie was topped with a thick homemade scone-like pastry so I decided that the pastry for the Chicken and Mushroom Pie should just be plain (bought) puff pastry. I must admit to not being particularly precise about how the pastry fitted across the top of the pies as, for me, the nicest part of a pie is where the gravy bubbles up around the pastry.

A search online for Nigel Slater plus Chicken Pie brought up this recipe for Deep-dish Chicken Pie which I adjusted to my own needs. The filling is fabulous, much richer by being made from stock than it would have been from milk (although I couldn't resist adding a little cream). Thickened a little, it would make a great filling for a Chicken Lasagne or you could use it as a pasta sauce or on top of rice or...

Chicken and Mushroom Pie
For the chicken:
Chicken thighs - 8, skinned and boned
Carrot - 1, chopped into rough chunks
Onion - 1, halved
Bay leaves, thyme and parsley stalks

For the rest of the filling:
Onions - 4, chopped
Olive oil - enough to cook the onions
Smoked streaky bacon - 200g, chopped
Mushrooms - 350g, quartered
Butter - 70g
Flour - 70g
Chicken stock - 2 litres, from simmering the chicken pieces
Cream - 100ml
Peas - 150g, fresh or frozen
Thyme - a few sprigs
Puff pastry - enough to top your ovenproof dish
A little beaten egg for glazing

Put the chicken pieces in a heavy-based pot with the carrot, the onion and the aromatics. Cover with just over two litres of water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and leave to simmer for about 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the water has become a tasty stock.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a heavy pan and cook the onions slowly until just starting to colour. Add the chopped bacon and mushrooms. Continue to cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes until everything is soft. Remove the chicken from the stock and chop into rough chunks. Add to the mixture.

Strain the stock and discard the vegetables and herbs. Melt the butter in a pan and add the flour, cooking it over a moderate heat for one minute. Pour in the stock and cream and stir well, then simmer for 10 minutes or so until it thickens into a rich sauce. Add the onion and chicken mixture with the thyme and peas and season well. Pour into a deep oven dish and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll out the puff pastry and lay it on top of the pie. Brush with egg and cut two or three holes in the top to leave steam out. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the pastry is golden and puffed and the filling audibly simmering.

Adapted from a recipe by Nigel Slater.

Serves 6.

Posted by Caroline at 7:49 PM | Comments (8)

August 5, 2005

Taste: A New Way to Cook by Sybil Kapoor ****

In a world full of cookbooks, Sybil Kapoor's Taste: A New Way to Cook is truly innovative. Kapoor writes from a far more scientific perspective than most food writers, explaining in great detail about the elementary tastes of sour, salt, umani (savoury), bitter and sweet. She helps the reader to understand basic taste combinations and how these work to enhance and compliment each other.

A chapter is given to each taste, with salt and umani combined, plus one on how chilli heightens taste awareness and another on how aromatic ingredients - spices and herbs - have an impact on each of the five tastes.

Taste: A New Way to Cook is photographed like the science book that it is closer to than a cookbook. But there are also recipes for each chapter, carefully chosen to highlight whichever taste Kapoor is focusing on.

This is not an easy read, and it can be somewhat confusing, but it is always truly intriguing. This is a book to return to again and again as Kapoor suggests experiments and combinations to try and you start making sense of her statements in your own head. This, rather than atomic particles or the table of the elements is the part of science that makes most sense to me. Informatively educational.

Posted by Caroline at 1:01 PM | Comments (2)

August 3, 2005

The Boyfriend's birthday dinner

Yesterday was the Boyfriend's birthday so I decided to throw a small surprise birthday dinner - just us, three of his sisters, one sister's boyfriend and our two Scottish Housemates. The plotting and planning for this has been going on for a couple of weeks but, after pondering various options, I only decided on what we were going to eat fairly late in the day. My first idea was for a kind of Chinese banquet, heavily influenced by the fact that I'm reading a cookbook by Chinese Australian chef Kylie Kwong at the moment. That, and the fact that it contains a recipe for Sung Choi Bao of Pork. We loved this when we had it for the first time - and the second - at Indochine restaurant and it looks like a good dish to try out at home. I think I'll still end up cooking it at some stage but it looked like a difficult dish to make for eight. So, eventually, I decided on another of the Boyfriend's favourites - the good old Kiwi meat pie.

Pies are big business over here. You can get them at any local corner store or garage shop and they, rather than the plastic Irish sandwich in a plastic box, seem to be the food of choice for anyone travelling a long distance. Why I don't know. The only way they seem to differ from that typical 'hang' (otherwise known as ham) sandwich is that they're usually served hot. Other than that, the pies that I've had seem to be a matter of indifferent pastry enclosing mysterious meat filling and dried up gravy. Not necessarily a culinary classic - but, when well made, pies can be delicious. Never being one to cook a single dish when two will be too much, I decided to make a Beef and Chorizo Pie, adapted from Julie Le Clerc's Simple Café Food, as well as a Chicken and Mushroom Pie, inspired by Nigel Slater.

Simple Café Food and its successor, More Simple Café Food, were the origins of my accompanying salads for the meal. Fed up with my usual tabbouleh and couscous salads, I branched out with slight adaptations of Julie Le Clerc's Orzo with Spice-Roasted Carrots, Currants and Pine Nuts, Cracked Wheat with Lemon, Spinach, Herbs and Seeds and Roasted Purple Onions with Dried Sour Cherries. Although not a very extensive menu, I would have been lost without the help of one of the Boyfriend's sisters, on the salad-making side of things, and one of our Scottish Housemates who got stuck into the washing-up with a will and a way so that we were finished - just! - before the Boyfriend and the other Scottish Housemate (deputised to distract Boyfriend from preparations) returned from the local pub.

For desert we had a dense Chocolate Birthday Cake with cinnamon and chilli. I had just purchased this fabulous Kashmiri Chilli Powder from Aji in Christchurch and, being a fan of chocolate/chilli combinations, couldn't resist using it. Although both the cinnamon and chilli did add a depth to the flavour of the cake, it was not enough to satisfy me. More chilli the next time, methinks, and I might even pop back to Aji for some of their 'Triple A grade' cinnamon to give it an extra richness.

Beef and Chorizo Pie
Pastry:
Butter - 50g
Plain flour - 2 cups
Baking powder - 3 teaspoons
Salt - 1 teaspoon
Milk - 1 cup

Filling:
Olive oil
Stewing steak - 1 kg
Chorizo sausages - 3, sliced
Onions - 2, peeled and sliced
Garlic - 2 cloves, peeled and finely chopped
Flour - 5 tablespoons
Red wine - 1 cup
Water - 3 cups
tomato paste - 3 tablespoons
Thyme - 1 tablespoon, chopped
Green beans - 300g, chopped into 2cm pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Egg - 1, beaten, for glazing

Start by making the pastry. Rub the butter into the flour until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add milk and bring together to make a smooth dough. Wrap and refrigerate for half an hour before using.

Heat some oil in a heavy based saucepan and brown the meat and chorizo in batches. Leave to one side while you cook the onions and garlic over a medium heat until beginning to brown. Stir in the flour and cook for one minute. Remove from the heat and add the red wine and water, stirring until smoothly combined. Return to the heat and boil until mixture thickens. Stir in tomato paste, thyme, meat and chorizo. Simmer slowly for 45 minutes and season well. Transfer to a large ovenproof dish and leave to cool then add the green beans.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Dust work surface with flour and carefully roll out pastry to 3mm thick. Place on top of pie and glaze with beaten egg. Bake for 35-40 minutes until pastry is golden brown and the gravy is bubbling.

Serves 8.

Adapted from Simple Café Food by Julie Le Clerc.

Posted by Caroline at 9:14 PM | Comments (3)

August 1, 2005

Most useful cookery books

After just putting up my own review of Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion a couple of days ago, I was delighted to see it featured in the Waitrose Food Illustrated Magazine's top ten most useful cookery books.

My other favourite from the list, by a long shot, is Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food. I asked for this for Christmas ten years ago, fell in love with the man's simple yet tasty ideas and have become a convert to Nigel Slater's sensual and mouthwatering writing ever since. His food column is the main reason that I started to buy The Observer on Sundays and, since coming out to New Zealand, my mother faithfully posts the Slater-edited Observer Food Monthly out every month. I ended up getting Real Fast Puddings later that year - in fact, I blame him and that book for my never-ending Crumble fascination - and have since collected the rest of his books including the particular well-used Appetite: So What Do You Want to Eat Today?

I don't have many dealings with Delia Smith's books, although have been known to buy them for the members of my family that wouldn't be so practiced in cooking, but I have become a fan of her website. It's a useful resource to have on hand when you're looking for a reliable recipe for Flapjacks at a moment's notice or, for those of you living in that side of the world, what fruit and vegetables are in season and what's good to do with them.

Several of the other books on the list - Claudia Roden's A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, the Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook by Alice Waters and Elizabeth David Classics - are on my eventually get round to reading stack of books. At this stage I think I've taken Elizabeth David books out of the library about three times and never had time to read more than the first few pages before it's due back! Some day...

Posted by Caroline at 8:21 PM | Comments (5)