Paparazzo

Snaps and casual photos around  interesting cuisine tourism venues.

This month - 'Add an avo’, Rugby delicious, NZ v France, University of food, Kiwi buffalo cheese, Just like mum made it, The food detectives, Twin wine awards, Good morning Vietnam, A hug from Wanaka, Licking the best, Festival Italiano.

Summer lamb on skewers

Using prime lamb loin we present a fun, summer recipe that is adaptable to any occasion, from gregarious BBQ to casual inside dining. Allow one lamb loin (often sold as a ‘strap’) per person and have a tasty time. 

We always rave about pre-cut, prime Kiwi lamb portions because lamb is not just part of our culinary heritage, but represents a premium cut of red meat, if you buy well

As usual we have used Silver Fern Farm packaged product available at your local supermarket, because it is pre-trimmed and ready to cook straight from the packet 

Using a prime quality cut also means ‘tender’, which makes these meat skewers so easy to cook, and so tender and tasty to serve with buns and condiments, and a good refreshingly healthy salad.

Squid Caesar

For this very flavoursome squid dish we combine a salad of traditional ‘Caesar’ flavours with tender, crispy-textured New Zealand arrow squid. 

It is a recipe made of three parts: squid preparation and cooking; salad; and dressing.

The squid

Use cleaned squid tubes, but you can use any squid product, including rings. Rule of thumb, one medium squid tube makes up two individual servings. Open up tubes and clean of excess skin and any cartilage. Cut into long, wide strips as pictured.

The gardening chef  

Matt Bouterey is no stranger to culinary recognition; his namesake restaurant in the Nelson region has collected a wall-full of awards since opening in 2006.

Among the numerous accolades showered upon Bouterey’s Restaurant & Bar in  Richmond, just south of Nelson city, are the 2009 and 2010 ‘best smart dining regional’ award in the prestigious Cuisine Restaurant of the Year. The restaurant was the runner-up in the 2011 award.

Still, it takes more than sweet publicity to keep a ‘smart’ eatery afloat in a small township of around 12,000 where a menu with $33 for a main course is considered ‘high-end’ dining.

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Nelson calling 

Can’t be many, but at the ‘Paris end’ of Nelson’s main street is a bonze head of one Eelco Boswijk who ran a coffee house known by locals as ‘The Chez’ (1961-2001).  From his concrete perch Eelco still glazes approvingly through the windows of neighbouring Harrys Bar and Hopgood’s restaurant.

 
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Warm the cockles

Suzanne Middleton explores Dunedin’s seafood heritage at the inaugural seafood festival at Port Chalmers and discovers just how tasty New Zealand clams are.

Port Chalmers, a 20 minute harbourside drive from Dunedin, is the perfect setting for a seafood festival.  The commerce of the sea dominates with three towering container cranes, mountains of woodchips, a maritime museum, and the bustling movements of fishing boats obedient to tides, weather and quotas.

Down at the wharf, huge Shed A has been transformed into a vast seafood buffet.  At the door we’re hit by crispy hot smells, plus those denser aromas of freshly cooked seafood.

Kiwi shellfish in coconut cream 

This is a recipe that combines New Zealand’s rich shellfish heritage with the regional flavours from the Asia-Pacific region. The work, and flavour, is in the coconut-based sauce and the taste rewards are delicious for those social dining occasions.

The shellfish: Work on about half a kilo of shellfish per person.

We have used cockles (or clams as the as the rest of world knows them) from Southern Clams, and available at supermarket chains such as Pak’n’Save, where we bought ours in handy, pre-packaged string bag.

Clams are sweeter and saltier than mussels and, like pipis, are harvested from the ocean sands near the shore year-round. It is said they taste particularly sweet during the summer..

Rainy afternoon with Tui Flower

New Zealand’s cuisine doyenne talks to Foodstyle magazine about her studies as a young woman in America and Paris, before returning home to a food-teaching and writing career that made her a household name. By Alan Titchall.

If Tui Flower had told me to go through the driveway gate and knock at the side entrance of her house, I hadn’t remembered it.

Her stately, double-brick, late Victorian-period villa in Mt Eden, Auckland is a residence to view with admiration. It has been in her family since the turn of the last century, having amicably shared the same street with the Auckland chapter of the Hells Angels Motorbike Club for some three decades.

An elegant sav

Foodstyle magazine talks sauvignon blanc with one of the Nelson region’s most respected and inspired single-vineyard producers.

Andrew Greenhough looks a little bemused when I question whether New Zealand is capable of making a dry white wine.

Most of his white wines are dry or on the dry side, he says.

What I meant by dry is the sort of very flinty, refreshingly crisp white wines, such as some pinot grigio produced in northern Italy, that you can quaff without feeling you are diving head first into the ripe contents of a fruit and vege shop. Kiwi wines tend to be on the ‘fruity’ side.

Book review

Foodstyle Review looks at a raft of kiwi cookbooks that came out at the end of 2011. By Alan Titchall.

Italia: Simple Recipes from the Italian Cook School,  Jo Seagar

The Molten Cookbook, Michael Van de Elzen

Julie Le Clerc’s Favourite Cakes

Taste Sweet Feast, Julie Biuso

Now is the Season, Laura Faire

Stoked: Cooking with Fire, Al Brown

Gorgeous Greens, Annie Bell

Kiwi Classics Our All-Time Family Favourites