The Very Good Oil
Virgil Evetts Since my recent foray into deep-frying, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the many oils we use in the kitchen. At any one time I have at least 4 or 5 different types of oil in … Read more
Features
How to use… Dried Shiitake Mushrooms
Virgil Evetts These rather ropey-looking fungi are widely available in most supermarkets, but are the sort of thing that, unless you’ve tried them before, you will probably instinctively ignore. I can’t say I blame you either – they look like … Read more
Release the dogs…
Virgil Evetts Since researching and writing about the whole free-range issue a while back I’ve been taking my stance in regards to free-range pork very seriously indeed (I haven’t touched conventionally farmed chicken for years). But as assured as I … Read more
Winter Finger Food
Winter Canapés By Michal Haines Winter entertaining can be a drag. The colder weather seems to makes everyone ravenous. It can be hard to concentrate on your cooking when your guests turn up at your door looking like they may … Read more
My ( Formerly) Secret Shame
Virgil Evetts As much as I might convince myself that I have sophisticated, urbane tastes, embarrassing, childish regression keeps bubbling to the surface. Perhaps I should explain… I just can’t help it, I really can’t but I’ve developed a serious … Read more
Slow Cooking Low-Down
Virgil Evetts The thought of deep, earthy slow cooked food is so very appealing amidst the miserable chill of winter. Tough but tasty cuts of meat cooked until meltingly soft, swimming in rich complex gravies along with sweet nuggets of … Read more
Mere Macaroni
Virgil Evetts For one reason or another- but mostly because of the criminally high prices of dairy in recent years, good old macaroni-cheese- that most kiwi-fied of dishes had completely dropped off my cooking radar. In fact I’d pretty much … Read more
Sweet Slices
Slices are a great favourite of mine, they are generally quick and easy to make and are fairly quick to cook. While most of mine don’t get a chance to make it to the freezer many of them are easily … Read more
Churros up
Virgil Evetts I am so in love with Churros right now. As promised in my posting on cannolli, I set about making them on the weekend, and I gotta say- OH MY GOD. I used the recipe from the excellent … Read more
Roasting Meat
Sunday Best-Rules of Roasting By Michal Haines The classic New Zealand Sunday roast is a tried and true tradition. I recently did a wee poll at work and found, quite to my surprise, the traditional Sunday roast is still going … Read more
Chocolate guilt
Virgil Evetts When you start to unravel the ethics of eating, it rapidly becomes impossible to exist with a clean conscience. Take chocolate for example – amazing stuff, I love it to bits. But the closer you look, the more … Read more
Pasta the poverty line
Virgil Evetts I’ve been thinking about the term ‘peasant food’ lately. It’s become such a clichéd part of the western food lexicon. We use it to describe anything vaguely rustic and it makes us think of crumbling Tuscan farm houses, … Read more
Can I Cannoli?
Virgil Evetts I’m a bit lily-livered when it comes to deep-frying. I used to own a bench-top deep fryer, which makes the process pretty fool [ergo flame] proof, but I got sick of cleaning the perpetually greasy thing and hated … Read more
Lemon-licious
Virgil Evetts It’s true that the food garden is a mostly lifeless, dreary, place in winter, but a little sunshine can be found in the form of citrus. While I sometime curse the lack of local limes and their kin … Read more
