Karl Summerfield

Bread. Sometimes it isn’t a very interesting topic of conversation. In my experience we spend more time discussing the filling of our sandwiches, rather than the bread that holds the filling. There’s nothing particularly interesting in a loaf of white toast slice – unless it is really fresh, buttered and full of chips from the fish and chip shop. But I digress…

Bread can be interesting! Once you decide you are a baker then bread becomes a topic you really enjoy discussing. I’ve dabbled with bread for a long time, and only recently have I started turning out loaves of bread that I can truly say I am really happy with. I have a couple of good mates who are on a similar journey and we can talk for ages about how we cook our bread, how long we let it rise, what temperature the oven should be at, what effect this has on the crust. It’s a lot of fun. For me it has been an exercise in what to leave out as well as mastering the most important ingredient for any artisan loaf—time.

My first loaves of bread were made to a recipe in a book by Annabel Langbein (she of Free-range Cook fame), and John Kirwin. The book was called “John Kirwan & Annabel Langbein’s favourite barbecue and grill recipes (1989)”, and it had a recipe for “Italian Pizza Bread”. It’s not a great bread recipe. Any bread recipe that begins “Add yeast and sugar and water to the bowl of your food processor” is probably not going to be a classic. I’m almost certain that the bread did not have any particular origins in Naples (adding some rosemary on top seemed to be the only real Italian touch). But it got me started, and the bread always got eaten. Even slightly dodgy home-made bread is still GOOD!

There are two issues I have had with home-made bread. The too yeasty flavour, and the dry crumbly texture. No matter how hard I tried and could never solve those two issues. Recently I seem to have cracked it. I am down to four ingredients now. Here’s my current bread recipe that turns out beautiful, bouncy, spongy artisan bread:

For 1 loaf:

375g strong bread flour (12% protein if you can find it)


1.5 tsp instant yeast


1 tsp salt


about 250ml water

Add all the ingredients together and mix into a dough. Don’t stress if the dough is on the soft wobbly side. I usually use the breadmaker set to “dough”. The breadmaker does a remarkably good job of mixing and kneading, but I never let it actually cook the bread for me. It has messed it up too often to be trusted! It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a breadmaker, or are morally opposed to them, you can make the dough the good old-fashioned way (and build up your forearm muscles at the same time). It is important to knead the dough long enough to end up with a smooth, bouncy elastic ball of bread potential. If the dough has lumps or is dense and unyielding then you have to keep going.

Put the bread into a warm place and let it rise for a good hour. The breadmaker also does quite a nice job of this too.

Punch the dough down (in other words knock some of the gas out of it), shape it into its final form (can be plain or really fancy). I usually line a round bowl with a well-floured tea-towel and put the dough in it covered with another tea-towel. Then let the dough rise again for another hour or so. This second rising is critical! Do not be tempted to do the 10 minutes that some recipes recommend.

Once the second rising is done turn the dough out ever-so-carefully onto a baking tray (if you shaped your dough on a baking tray, or in a loaf tin, in the first place then you can ignore this step). Sprinkle some flour over it if you like. Slash the top in interesting patterns if you like. Place it into a VERY hot oven. I usually go for 220ºC on fan bake. I sometimes put a tray of water in the bottom to generate steam for a chewy crust. The bread will be cooked in about 12-15 mins, so keep an eye on it. It’s done when you tap the bottom and it sounds hollow.

Give it a go. You will be completely delighted with the result. And if you aren’t then try again and muck around with the recipe until you have a loaf you are proud of.

Summerfields Foods

207 Waimairi Road, Ilam, Christchurch

open 11am-7pm Tues – Sat

[email protected]

ph 03 357 0067

summerfieldsfoods.co.nz

Virgil Evetts

Finally, success in the berry patch! My various currants and brambles are performing like never before this year- with the ongoing exception of my blackcurrant. I’m finally ready to accept that Auckland is just too warm for this plant. It’s aright really; I have little patience for jam-only fruit (except Damsons!) anyway. Conversely my redcurrant bush-going-on-tree is covered in fruit. Although redcurrants, don’t taste of much, they’re just so pretty- like edible Christmas decorations- and their tart juiciness works nicely with creamy desserts and roast meats. Strangely, the marauding blackbirds that usually plague my fruit growing efforts don’t seem to have noticed the redcurrants yet.  As with the ominous silence of naughty children, this probably means they’re up to no good elsewhere.

My boysenberry has formed an impressively prickly thicket and is currently sporting a hundred or more pink-tinged fruit- several times last year’s yield.  Sun-warmed fresh boysenberries are one my favourite treats of the season and very few even make it indoors.  They’re almost  too good for sharing.

My original raspberry plants never really liked their plot and were evicted last Autumn to make way for the bees. In their new position under the Moro blood orange tree they’ve run rampant.  Every day or so they waylay me with a small handful of juicy, velveteen fruit.

In the last few weeks  Ive been enjoying the first fruit from my tayberry. This raspberry/loganberry cross has large crimson fruit, a potent raspberry flavour with just a hint of rose-water and a texture akin to boysenberry. I’m seriously smitten and will be encouraging the clump to put on some serious growth this season.  Quite possibly the finest of all brambles…

My goji berry is back in leaf but whether or not it makes it to flowering – let alone fruiting- remains to be seen.  Although very easy to grow, these much touted ‘super-fruit’ are more troubled by snails than any plant I’ve come across. Snail bait or not, the scraggly bush is stricken every year.. You have to know when you’re beat as a gardener.  

But the real star of my fruit garden so far this season has been my Japanese plum (Dan’s Early, Koanga). My bees had a grand time amongst the blossoms a few months back and as a result the tree is now groaning under the weight of intensely flavoured, crimson fleshed fruit.

We’re enjoying these de-stoned, chilled and dressed with a little icing sugar and glug of grappa. Doesn’t sound like much but trust me- it’s sublime and so perfectly red.

PS

Did I ever tell you that I finally found a fruiting Orange berry plant? It was growing in a display bed at a Garden Centre, so I palmed a few fruit and popped them into my mouth. Yes, I know naughty me. Anyway I can finally confirm that Orange berries really aren’t worth growing. The fruit are sweet, slightly pithy and taste of very little. Grow something else.

Virgil Evetts

Any event offering what to an idiot might appear to be free food brings out the very worst our species. Take The Food Show for example – a fine distraction which I look forward to every year but it doesn’t half attract some pushy, grabby and ill-mannered sample-monkeys.  I do wonder if these people realise that there are cheaper ways to fill up on tiny cubes of Kapiti cheese and Heller’s sausages.  So last Friday, with a curmudgeonly disdain for human kind at the slop trough, I rode the Link bus down towards Victoria Park on my way to Taste of Auckland 2010. I had every intention of being unimpressed you know, but the best-laid plans of mice and men being what they are…

Victoria Park is a great, if rather underutilised, venue for large, summery events.  It’s conveniently central, but well away from the soulless wind tunnel of Downtown Auckland, and because it’s on the Link bus route there’s no need to take your car. Gosh, you can even walk from Queen Street if you’re partial to a bit of exhaust fume inebriation.

Taste occupied the entire park, sort of like a shanty town for the well-healed, with huge marquees and ‘streets’ of temporary shops (the “producers market”), and mock-ups of some of the city’s finest eateries. Low-rent, canvas-tents-flapping-in-the-breeze kind of affair it was not. Everything looked very permanent, very expensive and seriously impressive.  To some degree this might explain the steep entry fee ($30-$90) and the many additional costs inside – but more on that later.

What struck me most about Taste was the abundance of open space and the chilled demeanour of the crowd. There were no cheese-sampler bottlenecks, pushchair gridlocks (a serious problem at anything held at the showgrounds in Greenlane), or rotund women with startled perms standing on my feet. In other words, first-class layout, marquee design, crowd management and while I dare not say Taste attracted a better type of clientele (but I really do want to), certainly a calmer and less stompy type.

What I liked:

The Producers Market comprised almost exclusively of Auckland (region)-based producers; meaning most of the giant and overexposed Corporates didn’t get a look-in. I tasted my way around the market several times – just to be sure, you understand – and settled on the following favourites:

Salash Delicatessen

Outstanding Serbian-style cured meats made with free-range pork and a whole lot of class. Their five-day-old chilli-loaded salami is a thing of squishy, luscious beauty.

Waiheke Herb Spread

Made with 11 different ‘wild’ herbs, including calendula, plantain, dandelion, sage, parsley and lavender and finished with a decent measure of garlic, cider vinegar, sea salt and olive oil. Lovely, fresh herbaceous flavours and, mercifully, not just another pesto knock-off.

Bees Blessing Organic Strawberry Cordial

Made from the concentrated juice of sun-ripened organic Hawke’s Bay strawberries, and sweetened with honey. Gorgeous stuff which beggars the question, why aren’t there more real strawberry drinks around?

Purple Monkey Finger Kumara Vodka

Bizarre name and vaguely unpleasant logo (why is the monkey sniffing its finger?) aside, Purple Monkey finger is a genuinely interesting and innovative product. Yes it really is distilled from fermented kumara . Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? I’m no great vodka connoisseur, but I liked PMFKV, if not for its taste (what’s to like or dislike about vodka? It just is), then for its cute but clever provenance. 

Saveur Duck cold-smoked duck breast

Although they are not exactly a boutique producer, Saveur have helped elevate or possibly lower duck to something approaching a mainstream meat.  No bad thing in my books. The prototype cold smoked breasts previewed at Taste were quite superb, rather like a very, tender ducky ham. I bought a few of these for the freezer but doubt they’ll last long…

Colchis Fresh Georgian Cheese

How refreshing to find a new (to New Zealand) family of cheeses. Not that there’s anything wrong with the usual suspects from France, Italy or the Netherlands – on the contrary -but enough already. Colchis Cheeses are made in Auckland by expat Georgian mother-and-daughter team Marina and Nina Kandelaki. The Kandelakis arrived in New Zealand 14 years ago with no previous experience of cheese making.  Last year they picked up a Gold Medal at The New Zealand Champions of Cheese awards for their Sulgani, a whey-soaked fresh cheese similar to mozzarella but with a more defined flavour and a faintly bitter finish.  Fine cheese, nice people and more than enough to pique my interest in Georgian food.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Taste of Auckland. It was a superbly staged and perfectly pitched event. However, I found the constant pressure to purchase “crowns” (the festival currency) irritating and pointless, and I objected to the prices of some the restaurant dishes and bar drinks. With an entry charge of $30 this was all a bit on the nose. But these are pretty small quibbles. Taste, was fun, interesting and a perfect marriage of food & wine festival and expo.  Will I go again? You better believe it.

Fiona Summerfield

It would seem all over the world there are various ways of putting meat inside some sort of pastry! In New Zealand we have inherited pies and pasties from England, but in Russia there are piroshki, in China there are dumplings and wontons, India has the samosa, and in the Middle East there are a variety of incredible pastries made from meat and filo. At the farmers market we bought a Colombian Empanada to try. It wasn’t our first encounter with South American empanadas. We bought the Colombian one because we wanted to see how it differed from the empanadas cooked by a bloke from Chile that we met at a barbecue. The Chilean empanadas were very good. They had been fried which of course makes most things good! The Colombian one had been baked and it had potato as well as meat in the filling. It was less spicy than I remember the Chilean one being, but we all enjoyed it.

As usual when you start to do research on any well loved dish you end up more confused than at the beginning. Most people think empanadas are of Spanish (or Persian) origin. Many countries have their own version, and then there are the variations on that version. Most agree that empanadas are, at their most basic, a dough filled with some sort of (usually meat) filling and (usually) baked in the oven. Having said that, they can be fried, they can vary in size, and they can have a variety of fillings including vegetables and seafood. Spices included also vary enormously. So far all the ones I have tasted have been very nice.

I decided to make some on Monday night. I thought I would try the Argentinian version and made the hairy bikers[http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/beefempanadas_85448] recipe. The spices in this recipe include cumin, paprika and chilli. I also included some ground coriander. They are a bit fiddly and take some time to put together. I do remember Daniel turning up late with his plate of Chilean ones apologising for them taking longer to make than he had planned – they still disappeared very quickly. My home-made Argentine ones also disappeared very fast and there really needed to be more.

I think there are useful ideas from empanadas that work well in our more traditional Kiwi meat pies. Adding olives and sultanas is an interesting twist to a mince pie but both work so well with mince. The good thing is since there seems to be a never ending variation, this is a dish to try everywhere and of course to try the endless recipes on the internet for the “best empanada”! Have you made empanadas before? Got any hints or tips to share?

Summerfields Foods

207 Waimairi Road, Ilam, Christchurch

open 11am-7pm Tues – Sat

[email protected]

ph 03 357 0067

Virgil Evetts

I was raised to shun MSG. It’s a poison after all, Hitler in powder form really. It causes headaches, flue-like symptoms, stomach cramps, rectal bleeding… Oh the things it does! Actually, says who?

MSG (or monosodium glutamate), is undoubtedly one of the great pariahs of western nutrition, ranked equal to saturated fats and the many horrors known as ‘chemicals’ (never mind that every tangible thing in the universe is made of chemicals); but it would seem that it has earned this status largely because of hysteria, misinformation, and probably a smidgeon of institutionalised racism.

MSG (of a sort)  exists naturally in foods most of us eat practically every day – tomatoes and yeast extracts for example are loaded with the stuff. Kombu kelp, a potent natural source of glutamate, has been used liberally by Chinese and Japanese cooks for over 1200 years, and the apparent modern evil of refined MSG has been a standard in the Asian pantry since  the early 1900s. A diet rich in MSG doesn’t seem to have detrimentally affected the health, prosperity or proliferation, of the peoples of China, Korea and Japan, now does it?

So what is MSG? Basically it’s a crystalline form of glutamic acid. To explain what this actually means would require a lengthy and rather dull crash course in chemistry, so for more info click here (be warned though, its bloody boring). Not only does glutamic acid exists  in many foods (see above) , it is also naturally present in our bodies all times. In other words, it’s neither new to our diets nor foreign to our bodies.   Despite its very bad name, MSG has never been conclusively linked to any health problems by a reliable source.  Now I’m sure you have all read very compelling evidence to the contrary- so have I; but it’s important to understand the difference between an essay written by a dietician or nutritionist (a title which in publishing terms can mean anything from an MD to well-meaning hippy), and an unbiased scientific study. An unbiased study is one commissioned by a government or non-partisan research organisation – not one commissioned by a drug company or a food manufacturer. As it stands right now there is no conclusive scientific proof  to suggest that MSG is inherently bad or dangerous. By comparison, common table salt has been proven, beyond the shadow of a doubt to be damaging to human health in certain stuations.  However, it is logical to assume that excessive consumption of MSG could cause problems. For example, glutamic acid helps sharpen nerve responses in the brain. It is therefore plausible that it could indeed be associated with migraines in some people. But let me just repeat the important points here: COULD be; SOME people.

The function of MSG as a food additive is to improve or enhance  flavours, by bringing out the tangy, savoury quality known as umami. Think of the slightly meaty flavour of sun-dried tomatoes or dried yeast flakes – that’s umami. MSG, does not have a flavour of its own as such. Although many Chinese chefs are very heavy handed in their use of MSG, only a very small amount is needed to dramatically improve a dish. One of my favourite MSG laden off-the-shelf products is Japanese Kewpie brand mayonnaise. The trouble is, this  mass produced but undeniably luscious stuff is made with eggs laid by battery farmed hens. Nuff said.  But I have found that a frankly superior approximate can be produced by adding MSG powder to homemade mayo.  Use sunflower oil in place of E.V.O, rice vinegar in place of lemon juice and ¾ teaspoon of MSG per cup of mayo. Et voila! Home-made Kewpie. Shudder and recoil if you must, but take it from one who gets around a bit, this is some seriously good stuff.

Just becuase there is no hard evidence to suggest that MSG (aka flavour enhancer 621 or Seasoning Salt)  is dangerous to human health doesn’t mean that its entirely harmless; it just means that it’s not outright deadly or a common  allergen. Sure it’s possible you’re allergic to MSG, but you’re probably not. What I can tell you with some confidence is that I have ingested MSG thousands of times over the course of my life, and most of you have too. Maybe it’s building up in our livers or brains, waiting to strike in later years. But probably not.