Amanda Thompson’s Foodie Favourites

General Manager of Wellington’s iconic Moore Wilson’s and Outstanding Food Producer Awards judge, Amanda Thompson really is a super foodie! Here she shares a few ideas that will excite every palate.

What’s your favourite recipe book and why?

“The one I end up returning to for dinner party inspiration is ‘Supernormal’ by Andrew McConnell, from his Melbourne restaurant.  My go-to recipe is the Roast Lamb Shoulder, Coriander & Mint Paste and Sichuan Sauce, served with the spring onion pancakes, all my favourite flavours and best eaten with your hands and a group of friends.  There are a range of dressings, pickles and sauces that you can easily mix and match and apply to other dishes which suits my entertaining style.”

What’s your favourite kitchen utensil and why?

“My Peugeot Pepper Grinder – as the supporting act to a large salt pig, I love the depth and flavour and aroma of freshly ground pepper! I struggle to think of many dishes or days where I wouldn’t use it.”

What’s your favourite ‘go to’ recipe? The dish that never lets you down

“After some consultation, it would be fried chicken.  Whilst not a set recipe - more a method of marination, dredging and shallow frying - it is always requested and a crowd pleaser.  It can be for finger food, bao buns or burgers or just large juicy bone-in pieces with sides.  I have a range of bases and flavours I use, from classic Southern style or Buttermilk & Sriracha, to Karaage or a sauced up Korean style depending on the crowd, what’s on hand, and the occasion.”

What’s your favourite NZ ingredient? Why and how do you use it?

“Mandys Pure Horseradish has been a mainstay of my fridge for years.  Made in Christchurch from freshly grown horseradish it is a flavoursome addition I use often.  Mixed into seasoned crème fraiche it is perfect to finish canapes of rare beef or hot smoked salmon with little effort.  Apart from the obvious addition to roast beef, I like it in dressings too, especially with new season potatoes and asparagus or roasted beetroot for a bit of punch.  Also perfect as a breakfast condiment alongside sliced salmon and cream cheese on bagels – don’t forget to add it into your Bloody Mary for the perfect spicy hit!”

Share a memory of a memorable meal.

“I have two happy memories that stick in my mind and are memorable because they were shared experiences.  An early memorable meal is my dad and I enjoying fresh pan fried flounders together,  just the two of us was always a treat.  He taught me at a young age, how to trim the tail and fins to fit it in the pan, season well and cook just right so that we could sit down to a feed for two, extracting the delicate flesh and clean skeleton with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon -  complete happiness and satisfaction.  The second, takes place on the Greek island of Paros, staying in the family-run Livadia hotel and restaurant on the beachfront.  It was no surprise to my husband that, on honeymoon, I had edged my way into the kitchen where a very patient owner/chef taught me how to make their delicious rabbit stifado with layers of flavour and fresh produce. Hours later the dish was proudly served and shared with us , chased with some of the rabbit hunters’ father’s homemade fire water – an idyllic meal and evening.”

Suzanne Sparrow’s Foodie Favourites

Food lover and Farro Category Seasonal Buyer, Suzanne Sparrow lets us in on her baked treat which is oft-requested and her most memorable meals.

What’s your favourite recipe book and why? 

The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon – it takes you on an adventure around Asia, creating delicious dishes from simple to complex, and producing tantalising food.

What’s your favourite kitchen utensil and why?

The Bundt Cake tin that was gifted to me by my Dutch Mother-in-Law. I use this regularly to produce my famous, oft-requested lemon syrup cake that always seems to go down a treat! 

What’s your favourite ‘go to’ recipe?

Mushroom Risotto. I like to include lots of different mushroom varieties; shiitake, portobello, chanterelles, oyster, and dried porcini, all finished with lashings of Parmigiano and quality olive oil.  

What’s your favourite NZ ingredient? Why and how do you use it?

Whole beef eye fillet seared on the barbecue, or portioned into steaks and accompanied with horseradish sauce and a good mustard. 

Share the memory of your most memorable meal.

I find all my meals memorable when I’m sitting around the table enjoying fabulous food with family and friends! And I do enjoy a grazing table where you get to eat variety of delicious food.  

Richard Emerson’s Foodie Favourites

Emerson’s founder and good food lover Richard Emerson shares some of his favourites…including a memorable Christmas lunch which included dish from his wife’s homeland; lamb sosaties.

What’s your favourite recipe book?

Rick Stein’s India - this is the book I’m playing around with at the moment, in the outdoor kitchen. Some of the dishes are fantastic and fun to prepare, especially with a beer in hand!

What’s your favourite kitchen utensil?

Actually two favourite items that are used all the time…my red Meanie, a Spatula - great for mixing and folding bread dough. the thin sharp Kiwi knife for vegetables.

What’s your favourite ‘go to’ recipe? 

This recipe has never failed my Christmas Day appearance on the table…it’s my (Emerson’s) 1812 Pale Ale BBQ Farm Duck roasted slowly on the charcoal Weber with orange, 1812 beer, honey, star anise and with the skin massaged with sesame oil, allspice and salt. Best enjoyed with a pint of 1812 Pale Ale…mmm!

What’s your favourite NZ ingredient? And how do you use it?

NZ Lamb - you can’t get more kiwi than our wonderful lamb. It is so versatile and flavoursome. It can be prepared in many different ways…bbq, roast, mince or curries etc...

What’s your most memorable meal?

We decided to break tradition with the usual one large Christmas dinner and went for a gourmet feast of many different little courses over the day starting with little dishes…cold smoked ostrich, salmon gravalax, eggs en cocotte (baked eggs), lamb sosaties (South African dish of lamb and apricot kebabs), storm clams, pan-fried cheese folds and beef on mushroom tartlets…wow what a fun day indeed! Most of the things were pre-prepared earlier and just cooked off on the moment. It was just a great day of talking, eating and drinking the food matches.

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Lauraine Jacobs Foodie Favourites

Lauraine Jacobs finds joy sharing the love of fresh, local produce by creating feasts for family and friends.

What’s your favourite recipe book?

Time and time again I fall back on Karen Martini’s Feasting which has the most wonderful array of modern recipes that are laden with flavour and are never too complex. Karen is a chef who worked in Melbourne and Sydney and, after the arrival of her family, has carved out a niche as a cookbook author. Feasting is presented with a series of great themed entertaining occasions that share lots of lovely ideas for dishes. I love the idea of a feast being exactly that – a shared occasion. Excitingly there’s a new book out from Karen Martini called simply Cook. It’s a door stopper-type volume with almost every little bit of information a cook will need. Inevitably it will be up there with another essential book from the great Australian chef-turned-foodwriter; Stephanie Alexander’s The Cooks’s Companion which has been my major source of reference for almost thirty years. Karen, from the next generation of brilliant food writers, has shared all the new flavours we have grown to love.

What’s your favourite ‘go to’ recipe? 

I can never go past my own Harvest Chicken recipe. It was a riff on the old stalwart Chicken Marbella, but with the added twist of wonderful seasonal vegetables. The best thing about this recipe is that’s its cooked in a large oven dish and doesn’t create all sorts of washing up afterwards. I meet so many people who have cooked that recipe over and over.

What’s your favourite kitchen utensil?

I love all my knives and it would be hard to pick which one was my favourite. I am lucky enough to have a husband who’s keen on sharpening knives – probably because he catches and then fillets fish, which you certainly cannot do without the sharpest of knives. The down side of this is that inevitably I cut my fingers frequently! 

What’s your favourite NZ ingredient?

My favourite is the oyster. I know there are some folk who don’t enjoy the texture but for me oysters are more than a treat as my weekends (and even occasionally week nights) would not be complete without freshly shucked oysters. No lemon, no wasabi, not even chardonnay vinegar, comes between those oysters and me. We have two local sources – Orata Oysters in the Matakana Farmers Market, every single Saturday morning, and the funky, funny Matakana Oyster Shed just out of the Matakana Village on the Leigh Rd where Tom, the owner has an almost cult following amongst locals.

What’s your most memorable meal?

Since a trip to Japan with a lovely Japanese friend in the 90’s where I fell in love with Japanese cuisine, my most memorable meals have all been Japanese. The seasonality on every plate, the concentration on both presentation and taste, and the tiny portions that leave you on the brink of wishing for another bite always make a huge impression. I have been to Japan about seven times, and fortuitously we have one of the most accomplished caring Japanese chefs outside of Japan here in Auckland. Every meal I have had at Chef Makoto Tokuyama’s Cocoro restaurant in Ponsonby has been memorable. My favourite of all his amazing dishes is the warm savoury, custardy Chawanmushi, especially when he makes it in whitebait season. 

Lucy Corry’s Foodie Favourites

What’s your Favourite Recipe Book?

What an impossible question! I have lots of favourites, but there are two I return to often: Nigella Lawson's How To Eat (her first book, which she reputedly wrote in six weeks). There are very few pictures (and certainly none of her in red satin dressing gowns looking coquettish), just great writing and lots of useful recipes. It's her best book by far.

Niki Segnit's Flavour Thesaurus isn't a cookbook per se, but a guidebook to flavour combinations. It's endlessly fascinating and such a delight to read. Segnit's Lateral Cooking is similarly wonderful but it's a bit unwieldy to read in bed.

What’s Favourite Kitchen Utensil?

My German bread knife, which was one of a set of wonderful knives that a couple of my siblings gave my husband and I as a wedding present. A good bread knife is a joy to use (my husband persists in using it for everything, which does not bring me joy!) and this one has sliced up thousands of loaves in the last 18 years. It's also great for tomatoes.

What’s your ‘Go To’ Recipe?

My weeknight dinner saviour is frequently pasta and some kind of un-sauce - maybe a finely chopped red onion marinated in red wine vinegar, some olives, capers or anchovies, lots of finely chopped fresh parsley, a handful of currants and perhaps some toasted pinenuts, all bound together with a generous slosh of extra virgin olive oil.

What’s your Favourite NZ ingredient?

It's hard to go past the feijoa, which manages to be humble and exotic all at the same time. I adore feijoas and can't get enough of them in season, even when everyone else can't stand even looking at another one.

What’s your most memorable meal?

I'm very fortunate to have eaten many, many memorable meals in my lifetime, all of them special for different reasons. A truly memorable meal has a number of important ingredients - the food plays a role, but the company and the location are also crucial. I've eaten incredible meals in exotic foreign locales, but lots of great meals around my family table too.

Kate Coughlan’s Foodie Favourites

The first in our series of Foodie Favourites, an insight into the food experiences which have shaped Kiwi food lovers and producers. Here NZ Life & Leisure editor Kate Coughlan shares her food story.

Your Favourite Recipe Book?

That’s like asking ‘Which child is your favourite?’ Simply can’t choose. My most recent cookbook purchase is Homecooked by Lucy Corry, The Kitchen Maid, editor of NZ Life & Leisure Taste section, and a judge for the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards. I picked up Homecooked in a bookstore, found myself laughing loudly while reading her text. It was as though I was sitting with Lucy sharing a chuckle and eager to get cooking.

What’s your Favourite Kitchen Utensil?

My zester is an equal first to the Asian vegetable grater given to me by the wonderful Plaa Corrigan of Waikawa. Plaa taught my sister Annie and I how to make a Thai Salad and then gave us each a special grater. That utensil, and the zester, always remind me of wonderful times cooking and of the uplifting impact of zested citrus.

What’s your Favourite ‘Go To’ Recipe?

Slow-cooked brisket (12 hours for a whole brisket) smothered in smoked paprika and a little chilli, served on a shared table with a pile of slider buns, Nadia Lim’s braised red cabbage, finely chopped kale salad, thin slices of gherkin and horseradish. A good winter crowd-pleaser. I replace beef with smoked salmon for the fish-aquarians and smoked tofu for the vegans.

What’s your Favourite NZ ingredient?

Gosh, another curly one: Salmon or cheese? Really, this decision kills me. But I think I’d go for salmon. When I was a vegan, for three years, I dreamed equally of smoked salmon and grilled cheese.Those dreams ended my veganism as I couldn’t bear the thought of life without ever eating smoked salmon again - or was it grilled cheese sandwich I couldn’t live with? Can’t choose..

What’s your most memorable meal?

Oysters, soda bread and a half-pint of Guinness at a small restaurant on the banks of Galway Bay in southern Ireland. The cook ran down a narrow path to a shed on the water’s edge and returned with a bucket of drippingly fresh oysters for the lunch I was sharing with my friend Bev Doole. Twenty-something years ago and I can still taste the briny, salty deliciousness and the satisfying maltiness of the beer. Oddly enough I have never drunk Guinness since. Then again, there’s the memory of a Caprese Salad, eaten while overlooking the island of Capri from Massa Lubrense (near Sorrento). My host was someone’s cousin from Island Bay and he’d dashed outside to pluck tomatoes, still warm from the sun, sliced them and a lump of mozzarella, sprinkled red wine vinegar over them before dousing the dish liberally with olive oil, salt and a handful of basil leaves. He then poured me a kitchen tumbler of homemade red wine. Ahh, if I had died right then, I’d have gone straight to heaven.