Edible Gifts Ahoy

Christmas time, apparently. At our place we've decided no presents, which is fine with me. So I'm reminiscing about previous food presents and thought I would share some possibilities for you.

I've also been planning our Christmas day menu. Food being the reason for the season (the season of berries, jersey bennes, asparagus, stone fruit, outdoor eating and mosquitoes). We're starting with the Riverstone Kitchens' port rillettes, the recipe for which was in the November Cuisine magazine. It's essentially slowish cooked tasty pork, shredded and mixed with baby gherkins, parsley, capers, red onions and then preserved in its own cooking juices and fat. A big tub for Christmas nibbles are now sitting in my fridge and in a happy combo I was able to turn the remainder into gifts - two jars were presented last night to some lucky (I hope!) recipients.

Picture here:

Pork rillettes, packaged for giving

A few years ago we made flavoured vodka as gifts. Simply infuse vodka with fruit of your choice – we did some with lemon peel (don't include any white pith) and some with cherries (we were in Otago at the time). Infuse for a week or so, then strain and pour the now-infused and probably prettily-coloured vodka into a clean bottle. I've heard this works with chillis and I bet it works really well with mandarin. Wrap a nice ribbon around the bottle and deliver to a friend in need of alcoholic cheer.

Chutneys of various sorts are always popular. My grandmother used to make marmalade for everyone she'd ever met, which is a pretty good policy when you think about it.

Make homemade peanut or walnut or almond or almost-any-nut butter. Simply blend freshly roasted nuts (roast skinless nuts for about 14 minutes depending on size at 180C, watching them carefully as they burn quickly – and remember they will continue to cook after you take them out as they're high in oil) in a blender with some oil if required. Usually you need oil, but sometimes you don't. Salt to taste. If you can't get oil to match the particular nut, use peanut oil as it's virtually tasteless and goes with everything. I use approximately 1 and a half cup of nuts to about 1 tablespoon of oil, but add it cautiously in case you don't need all of it. Blend to your preferred consistency. If you want it crunchy, fish out some chunky chopped bits before continuing to blend smoother and stir those reserved pieces back in towards the end.

Deliver to a friend without allergies!

Biscuits are always popular. I like to make them to fit in a repurposed Pringles can (see picture). Today it was brandy snaps:

Melt 3T golden syrup, 85g butter and 1/3 c sugar and stir in ½ c flour and 1T ginger. Bake teaspoon measurements of the batter at 130C for about 15 minutes (or a bit more, but watch carefully) on a non-stick baking tray. Small teaspoon measurements come out about the right size to stack in a Pringles tin as a gift. You can also shape baskets around the bottom of an espresso cup while the snaps are warm or, if you make them bigger, around a large wooden spoon handle or similar to make the traditional tubes. Serve the baskets filled with fruit and cream if you're not giving them away. 

My chocolate puddle biscuits here work well at this (make sure they are really cool before stacking them). 

The other thing that would make a good present if I could bear to part with it is my newest fun find: Hakanoa Ginger Syrup.  Their site is here.  We've been making cold drinks with it with lime juice and soda water. It's also great in a cider cocktail, again with lime juice and ice and mint leaves. This is likely to be our Christmas day opener! It's also a lovely marinade for fish = equal parts ginger syrup, sake/mirin/sherry and light soy. Beautiful.

(note both half finished!)

We've been using Crooked Cider for those ginger cocktails, but also drinking it straight of an afternoon. It's a lovely, old fashioned, crisp, cloudy cider made with real cider apples in the Wairarapa and we're big fans. See here for contact details.  They've also made a pear cider, which is equally delicious.   Both are available in Wellington at Moore Wilson's, Glengarry's, Regional Wines and other places no doubt. Lars is often at the City Market in the Herd St building on Sunday mornings doing tastings and sales. Go see him, he's lovely.

Both the ginger syrup and the ciders would make great presents. If you're lucky, your giftee will share them with you!

Have a merry and safe summer silly season. Please eat fresh, local, seasonal ingredients and be careful on the roads, for my sake and yours. We're off to Oamaru and Moeraki for eating, so I'll report back once I've rolled back into town.

Non-Vichy carrots and a pineapple party

Before my all day meeting, I took a quick wander around the Chaffers Market for some inspiration for dinner. I spied some lamb fillets from Wai-Ora Farm Lamb and wandered off happy. These guys bring lamb from their own farm to the market and I'm a fan. www.wai-orafarmlamb.co.nz

What to have with the lamb?  I love veges, but I've not been very adventurous with cooking them. I guess because of the quality of the vegetables available in NZ, they don't need to be cooked elaborately to make them taste good. A quick steam or flick around a wok to release the flavour or caramalise the edges is usually enough for me. But I've decided to become more adventurous with them. Let's see how that plays out, eh.

When I got home I gently rolled one of the lamb fillets in fresh thyme, oil, salt and pepper and let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes. And then focused on the veges. 

I decided on two separate vegetables to accompany the lamb: pea puree and honeyed carrots. To make pureed peas, you simply boil peas in water with mint leaves and when just cooked puree until preferred consistency is achieved. I like it pretty chunky so you can still tell they're peas. I love the colour too. You might need to add some of the boiling water or stock (whichever you have).

(This honeyed carrot recipe is slightly related to carrots a la Vichy, which are a bit more complicated to cook. But I do like the name – Vichy for the water they're supposed to be cooked with in France. The water is named after spa town Vichy where the water is naturally effervescent and an alleged cure-all. I don't have any French water lying around the house, so I just use quite salty water.)

Boil the sliced carrots in salty water until tender and then drain and return them to the dry pot over a very low heat with a little honey and butter. Roll around in melted honey and butter and serve.

The lamb is simply fried on a really hot pan for a couple of minutes each side (no additional oil required). Best to under cook fillet rather than risk over cooking.

Super supper. 

No leftovers with that dish, but I was lucky to have dessert from leftovers from the pineapple party a few days earlier.

I'm used to people I live with not liking pineapple. My father and sister both can't stand it. And neither can Pav. The only problem of course is that eating a whole pineapple by myself is a bit of a challenge. So last weekend, with Pav away, I threw a pineapple party.  Two pineapple paramours came around with wine and a savoury course as a prelude to the pineapple dessert which was the planned centrepiece.

It's probably the simplest dessert possible. Are you ready? Bake whole pineapple for 2 hours at 180C in a baking tray. Longer would be fine if the pineapple's big. Slice up and serve with cream, gingernuts (your favourite recipe or buy some), any juice that escaped from the pineapple during cooking and syrup.  I made the syrup with 2 cups of apple juice, 100g sugar and 1 tablespoon of finely diced ginger (hurrah, ginger) simmered for 15 minutes or so to reduce. I used fresh ginger, but I bet it would be grand with crystalised or preserved ginger instead. The pineapple paramours loved it and so did I reheated a few days later!

 Happy eating.

Ginger Pud with the Boys of Breaker Bay

Sunday night is a great night to eat casually (early) with friends to prepare for the week ahead. I recommend it. So Pav and I schlepped off to Breaker Bay to hang with our mates who love food, the fresher the better. Preferably straight out of the sea across the street. We're OK with that too, so we love hanging with these guys.

They're currently searching for Wellington's best chicken pate. I'll let you know what they decide. We had two to compare tonight. I'm not going to give away any brands, but suffice to say they've got a challenge ahead of them as comparing chicken pates is like comparing apples and tennis balls – same, same, but different.

Main course was lovely fresh blue cod and scallops with creamy leeks. Pav and I are fans of 'great ingredients not messed up' and this was certainly that.

I had promised a hearty pudding and had recently been to Ruth Pretty's cooking class at Handmade2001, so had Ruth's booklet to inspire me. Pav and I both love ginger in the extreme (Pav regularly doubles the ginger in his ginger baking, Legend) so it's easy to convince us on:

Upside Down Ginger Pudding

Because I can't leave well enough alone and I didn't have 12 guests (Ruth's recipe is for 13 servings) I made half of her recipe (what I made is set out below) and fed us all enough so we didn't need seconds. Anything you do like in this recipe is Ruth; anything you don't like is me:

Turn oven on to 190C. Put the kettle on.

• juice of 2 oranges (and finely grated zest of about half of one of them)
• half a cup of raisins (jumbo if you like, and I do)

Soak raisins in orange juice for half an hour and then drain.

• 3 pieces of stem ginger in syrup (I use Opies brand), finely chopped (more if you're keen)
• syrup from the jar (a trick I learned from Nigel Slater, who seems to love ginger too)
• 8-10 macadamia nuts toasted (about 7 mins at 180C, shake twice during toasting, remove from hot pan to cool as they continue to cook and burn quickly – don't leave the room while they cook!) and chopped
• golden syrup

Spray individual serving moulds for the number of people you have (I used 4 250ml cup coffee cups, but I reckon you could stretch to 6 or 7 with this amount) with nonstick spray and gloop about a tablespoon of golden syrup and a teaspoon of the ginger syrup in the bottom of each. More of each won't hurt. Then divide the nuts and ginger pieces between the moulds.

Now make the pudding batter.

• 50g butter, at room temperature, in chunks
• half a cup of brown sugar

Cream butter and sugar together until it changes to a lovely pale colour.

• 1 egg

Beat in the egg.

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 tablespoon of ground ginger
• half a teaspoon of baking powder
• pinch of salt

Shift all this together and add the drained raisins and orange zest.

• quarter cup of milk

Gently fold milk into batter.

Divide batter among the moulds, no more than about half full. Place in an oven tray and fill the oven tray with enough boiling water (remember the kettle from earlier?) to come about one third up the side of the moulds. Spray tin foil squares big enough to cover a mould and cover each mould with its own personal silver cap. Scrunch the foil around them so the batter has a chance to steam in its cap. Carefully transfer to the oven.

Bake for 20 mins or so until the skewer test shows they're cooked. Serve upended into bowls with cream or ice cream (we served with Spanish peach gelato, but that's another recipe).

Very sweet. And good and gingery. And I reckon it can be adapted to other flavours. My notes from Ruth's class say that they can be frozen in their moulds (immediately after pouring the batter) and then cooked from frozen for just a bit longer than the recipe says. Might try that sometime too.

Pottery and photo credit: Crown Lynn pottery from mid 1960’s designed by visiting Californian Dorothy Thorpe, pattern “Pine”. Supplied by the fish-guy of Breaker bay. Styled and lit by the architect of Breaker Bay.