Paparazzo

Snaps and casual photos around  interesting cuisine tourism venues.

This month - La Mamma deliziosa, Top Kiwi chef David Schofield, Italian recipes with Kiwi produce, An award-winning brew, Giapo the great gelato maker, A taste of Greece, Georgian cheese, Budding butchers, Liquid gold.

Lamb salads for spring

These two delicious lamb-loin salads are flavoursome, light and healthful for the warmer months, and combine the delicate tenderness of premium New Zealand lamb with crisp vegetables and soft white cheeses. 

For what is considered an iconic national product, lamb consumption per capita is very low in this country, with research indicating Kiwis lack confidence cooking with the premium lamb cuts used by top restaurants and exported overseas.

Spicy squid salad with wonton crisps

This is a very flavoursome and healthful salad using creamy, delicious New Zealand arrow squid, julienne of fresh vegetables and crispy wonton pastry. Its intense flavour comes from its two dressings, which is the only ‘tricky’ part in an otherwise simple dish.

You can also use squid rings, but as we keep saying, always ask for New Zealand squid, as its quality is unsurpassed in a market full of imported seafood.

The wonton pastry is used for texture and a bit of carbohydrate, but can be left out. You can also substitute vegetables, but stay with the two sauces, because they give this squid salad its zing. 

Taupo cuisine review  

One of the country’s top visitor destinations was elevated to new heights in the accommodation and cuisine stakes with the opening of its first internationally branded, five-star, property last year. Foodstyle Review explores Taupo’s tasty side, highlighting a choice of worthy cuisine tourism venues. By Alan Titchall.

Comparing Taupo with Queenstown, the country’s top visitor destination, this lake-side destination doesn’t profit from an international airport and cuisine-curious hordes of foreign tourists on currencies stronger than ours.

Consequently, cuisine offerings in Taupo, although always of a high standard, have been limited – dependent, mostly, on tight-budgeted locals and domestic visitors.  

Vegan haute cuisine 

An executive hotel chef in Auckland spent several years creating an extraordinary menu of vegan recipes. Vegan is often marginalised as extremist vegetarianism, but this food reaches giddy heights in culinary excellence and delicious flavours.


Jinu Abraham, executive chef at Heritage Auckland, is reluctant to use the term ‘vegan’ to describe his cuisine and you won’t find the word on his menus.

He prefers the term ‘plant based’ to describe a menu range completely devoid of animal or insect products, even honey, milk or cheese.
 
Read more...

Wine - All about terroir

For wine critics it starts in the bottle, for wine journalists it starts with the winemaker, but for winemakers it starts with the land, the geology and the climate or, as the French say, the terroir. By Alan Titchall.

For winemakers, terroir, or ‘sense of place’, is what really makes their wine.

Terroir is so important in most of wine-growing France, it is the base of its Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée system, and the model for wine appellation and laws in many New-World wine regions, including New Zealand. 

Terroir is what distinguishes the grand cru vineyards of Burgundy, within acres, or even metres, of each other, and a substantial price difference in the bottled product, regardless of the winemaker’s talents.

Book reviews 

Foodstyle Review looks at three cookbooks based on TV shows and another focused on heritage puddings. By Alan Titchall.

Taste of a Traveller Brett McGregor - New Zealand’s first MasterChef.

Masterchef New Zealand The Cookbook Volume Two -
Recipes from the top 12 contestants & the judges.

Country Calendar - Cookbook Allyson Gofton 

What’s for pudding - Alexa Johnston.