The Kiwi Tucker Test

In my travels on the foodie blog trail, I've frequently come across the Omnivore's Hundred, and recently spotted the British Hundred. The first is a list of things that every good omnivore should try to eat at least once in their life, while the second is in a similar vein but covers only British food. Doing these challenges, I felt somewhat diminished by how little of the stuff on those lists I've actually eaten. I'll be honest, I've hardly even heard of a lot of these things. And I've spent a reasonable amount of time in the UK, though admittedly I was on the bones of my @$$ and could barely afford to eat, much less engage in far-reaching gastronomical endeavours.

So here's my challenge to the Brits, and anyone else who would like to see how much good New Zealand food they've really eaten: Take the Kiwi Tucker Test (the New Zealand One Hundred, shall we say?) and see how much Puha, Hangi and Kina you've eaten! Also open to Kiwis, Ozzies, and anyone else willing to give it a try.

I came to realise something while writing this list. Since I tried to exclude recent multicultural influences that feature strongly in local cuisine (such as Turkish, Chinese, Indian, Thai and Japanese, for example) but made an effort to include Maori and Pacific foods and local regional delicacies, it became clear that our British and American (or in my case Canadian) influences tend to lean towards the staid and not terribly healthy unless there's a huge swathe of veges on the side of the plate. So it's jolly good that Chicken Chowmein, Lamb Korma, Sushi and Beef Kebabs have made their way into our tummies and livened up what must have been a pretty bland palate for our parents' generation. With that in mind, I've avoided including those influences on this list in an effort to represent the taste of New Zealand as I remember it as a kid, before things got so flash and tasty. Would I go back to only eating food that features on the Kiwi Tucker Test? HA! No way.

My rules (just like the others):
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Post a comment at http://freshly-ground.blogspot.com/ linking to your results.

1. Sausage sizzle
2. Puha
3. Watercress
4. Whitebait Fritters
5. Train Smash (luncheon and sauce rolled up together)
   
6. Kina
7. Marmite
8. Weetbix
9. L & P
10. Watties' Tomato Sauce
11. Muttonbird
12. Yams
13. Taro
14. Weta
15. Huhu grub
16. Roast Chicken
17. Pavlova
18. Mince & Cheese Pie
19. Fish & Chips
20. Hokey Pokey Ice Cream
21. Milo
22. Hokey Pokey Ice Cream with Milo
23. Terakihi
24. Manuka Honey
25. Gisborne Oranges
26. Potato Top Pie
27. Anzac Biscuits
28. Mr Hutton's Double Cheese Sizzlers
29. Pipis
30. Oysters fresh off the rocks
31. Weka
32. Spaghetti from a tin
33. Watermelon from a roadside stand
34. Kumera
35. Rewa Bread
36. Samosas
37. Rhubarb Crumble
    
38. Vegemite
39. 'Tasty' Cheese
40. South Island Apricots
41. Hawkes Bay Chardonnay
42. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
43. Mac's Gold Beer
44. Bell Tea
45. Golden Syrup
46. Mixed Grill Breakfast (Sausages, Bacon, Eggs, Hashbrowns, Toast, Tomato)
47. Sausage Roll
48. Mince on Toast
49. Packet Macaroni Cheese
50. Chip Butties
51. Smoked Eel
52. Cookie Time Cookie
53. Watercress
54. Pork Boil-Up
55. Vogel's Bread
56. 2 Minute Noodles
57. Corned Silverside
58. Rabbit Stew
59. Blackberries picked from the side of the road in February
60. Homemade Plum Jam
61. Any Burger with a big slice of beetroot in it
62. Toffee Pops
    
63. Marinated Mussels
64. Hundreds & Thousands
65. Twisties
66. Wine Biscuits
67. Gingernuts
68. Foxton Fizz
69. Leed Lemonade (you'll have to be at least as old as me to remember that one)
70. Cream Donuts
71. Rasberry Buns
72. BBQ Steak AND Sausage AND Chops (all at once)
73. Coleslaw
74. Cold Potato Salad
75. Christmas Pudding
76. Sherry Trifle with fruit
77. Jaffas
78. Fresh Snowpeas eaten straight from the pod
79. Moro Bar
80. Tip Top Trumpet
81. Cheese, Pineapple & Onion Toasted Sandwiches
82. Coromandel Smoked Mussels
83. Fresh Coconut
84. Greggs' Instant Pudding
85. Crayfish
86. Summer Salad: Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Beetroot, Cheese
87. Honeysuckle Nectar
88. Bluff Oysters
89. Raro
90. Chicken Roll
91. Cheerios (Not the cereal - little red sausages)
    
92. Mallowpuffs
93. Wild Pork
94. Red Lamington
95. Feijoas
96. Kiwifruit
97. Summer Strawberries
98. Chokos
99. Pineapple Lumps
    
100. Whittakers Peanut Slabs
     

And for anyone who's interested in how I did on the other two, read on:

The Omnivore's Hundred

Here are the rules if you would like to play along…
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (caramel)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed
50. Sea urchin (Kina)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone (Paua)
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

The British Hundred, at Food Stories

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Link back to Food Stories, if you would be so kind.

1. Grey squirrel
2. Steak and kidney pie
3. Bubble and squeak
4. Spotted dick
5. Hot cross buns
6. Laver Bread
7. Toad in the hole
8. Shepherds pie AND cottage pie
9. Scotch egg
10. Parkin
11. Welsh rarebit
12. Jellied eels
13. Stilton
14. Marmite
15. Ploughman’s lunch
16. Cucumber sandwiches
17. Coronation chicken
18. Gloucester old spot
19. Cornish pasty
20. Samphire
21. Mince pies
22. Winkles
23. Salad cream
24. Malt Loaf
25. Haggis
26. Beans on toast
27. Cornish clotted cream tea
28. Pickled egg
29. Pork scratchings
30. Pork pie
31. Black pudding
32. Patum Peperium or Gentleman’s relish
33. Earl grey tea
34. Elvers
35. HP Sauce
36. Potted shrimps
37. Stinking bishop
38. Elderflower cordial
39. Pea and ham soup
40. Aberdeen Angus Beef
41. Lemon posset
42. Guinness
43. Cumberland sausage
44. Native oysters (Well I've had native NZ oysters straight off the rocks - does that count?)
45. A ‘full English’
46. Cockles
47. Faggots
48. Eccles cake
49. Potted Cromer crab
50. Trifle
51. Stargazy Pie
52. English mustard
53. Christmas pudding
54. Cullen Skink
55. Liver and bacon with onions
56. Wood pigeon
57. Branston pickle
58. Oxtail soup
59. Picalilli
60. Sorrel
62. Chicken tikka masala
63. Deep fried Mars Bar
64. Fish, chips and mushy peas
65. Pie and mash with liquor
66. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (with gravy)
67. Pickled onions
68. Cock-a-leekie Soup
69. Rabbit and Hare
70. Bread sauce
71. Cauliflower cheese
72. Crumpets
73. Rice pudding
74. Bread and butter pudding
75. Bakewell tart
76. Kendall mint cake
77. Summer pudding
78. Lancashire hot pot
79. Beef Wellington
80. Eton mess
81. Neeps and tatties
82. Pimms
83. Scampi
84. Mint sauce
85. English strawberries and cream (I've had strawberries and cream...)
86. Isle of Wight Garlic
87. Mutton
88. Deep fried whitebait
89. Angels on horseback
90. Omelette Arnold Bennett
91. Devilled kidneys
92. Partridge and pheasant
93. Stew and dumplings
94. Arbroath smokies
95. Oyster loaves
96. Sloe gin
97. Damson jam
98. Soda bread
99. Quince jelly
100. Afternoon tea at the Ritz

I just can't help myself

Firstly, a big hug going out to Off-Black and Fish. The offer of a big lasagne to go in the freezer and get you through this most unbelievably difficult of times stands. Just say the word.

Has anyone noticed how the price of meat seems to keep rising? Even beef mince is costing $12.95/kilo now, which makes a lot of our economical meals suddenly less affordable. How is one supposed to react to this? Well, we've continued to patronise the Wai-ora Lamb stall at the Hutt Market, and I'm consistently impressed by the quality and the price of their product. I've posted about it before, and I just can't keep myself from going back.

For the first time ever, I bought Lamb Rack. This cut cost $7.50, which was a treat for us as a single meal, but cheaper than you can find a similar cut for at the supermarket or the butcher; and the meat is just divine.
I prepared these with my favourite lamb dressing: Garlic, fresh chopped rosemary and mint, freshly grated parmesan, freshly ground salt and pepper, and olive oil. Then I cook them on my special Pizza setting on the oven, which mainly roasts the meat from the bottom while gently grilling the parmesan and oil on top.
I cooked it for about 40 minutes, which was a bit too long, and the lamb is a teeny bit overdone for my liking, but its how Dessert Chef likes it, and the meat is so damned good anyway that it still tastes gorgeous. It's a bit hard to get the timing just perfect when you're cooking on a weeknight with an almost 2-year old running about under your feet.
I served these up with roasted onions, steamed veges fresh from the market, and fettucine with alfredo sauce.
The following week at the stall I found three little lamb steaks for $3.50! These were delicious; I encrusted them with fresh picked oregano and mint, and cooked in hot olive oil very quickly in a pan.
So since the price of our old friend mince is shooting up, why not spend the money on good free range meat instead? Nice work Wai-ora Farm. Keep it up.

(No, this is not a sponsored post. I just rate this lamb, and support small operations who are doing it right)

Now, about buying local...

I keep going on about this, but it seems that every day I find another reason to bang the drum about growing your own food and buying locally if you can. Apologies in advance to my offshore readers: this might hurt a bit.

I've already had my say about NZ Garlic vs Chinese. Now it seems that we have even more reason to be wary of food imported from China. The scandal involving Chinese dairy company San Lu - 47% owned by NZ dairy giant Fonterra - which has left four children dead of melamine poisoning and thousands more seriously ill, brings to light the differences in food production standards between NZ and China, with whom we are the first country in the world to have a Free Trade Agreement. (Apologies to the family connection - I promise that I only raise this issue to make an important point)

While the impotent NZ Food Safety Authority sits on its hands about the issue of Country of Origin food labelling (the basic gist being that if it's not obviously from another country, ie, "Made in Thailand", then the redundant "Made from local or imported ingredients" is all the information the consumer needs to make a decision, whether those ingredients are from Australia or China), we find that there is indeed a Chinese product on our market that has been confirmed to be tainted with melamine, the same contaminant that has killed four Chinese babies. While we don't buy White Rabbit Candy, obviously enough people do to make it worthwhile importing here. Nor, you might say, do we eat candy like babies drink infant formula. But the question has to be asked, if we found it in the candy, what else is going to turn up that we don't yet know about?

The rhetoric coming from Fonterra as this crisis has escalated largely concludes that due to the scale of the operation, ie, the Chinese marketplace, it's virtually impossible to rule out every source of poison or contamination in the supply chain and to guarantee the safety of the product generated thereof. And lucky old NZ is the first country in the world to allow a free flow of Chinese goods - foodstuffs included, under the half-lidded eyes of the FSA - over our borders.

So, should we be happier to hear that the US has now opened up negotiations with our Government regarding a Free Trade Agreement? The farmers sure are, just like they were happy to know that Fonterra wanted all that milk powder to send to China. Now, I have nothing against farmers of any kind, but would we all be so happy if our own market was suddenly flooded with cheap food from the US? I only ask this with dire hesitation because of a few things I've been following in the news lately.

One of those things is the concessions that the US is likely to expect us to make to enable this FTA. They take issue with:

• Restrictions on GM crops;
• Our current pathetically weak labelling scheme for GM products (informing consumers is a barrier to trade!);
• Import restrictions on potentially diseased food (stopping people from getting BSE is a barrier to trade!);
• Sane copyright law which recognises the rights of customers;
• Voluntary local content quotas for TV and radio (customer preferences are a barrier to trade!);
• The Overseas Investment Act (requiring that investment actually be beneficial is a barrier to trade!);
• Pharmac.

(Hat Tip: Idiot/Savant - quoted in full, even the non-food related stuff)

But it gets better. For the past few weeks I've been watching with growing disquiet the American FDA (Food and Drug Administration) pushing to have all salad greens and other veges that might carry bugs or other harmful living things like bacteria "pasteurised". As far as labelling that the food has been "pasteurised", they want to place only this innocuous symbol on the produce packaging:
What they don't want people to know is that "pasteurisation" is a synonym for "irradiation". Is that what this image suggests to you? Kirk James Murphy, MD, gives a concise scientific rundown of how NOT GOOD it would be to expose food to massive doses of radiation, while Jeff Fenske sums it up in a few short sentences. Butnerblogspot gives us a rundown on how the FDA plan to pull the wool over the American public's eyes regarding the "Irradiation/Pasteurisation" sham.

I shook my head and wondered where it was going to end when I first read these stories, but it wasn't something that I, all the way over here in clean green New Zealand, might ever have to worry about.

Until now. And so, as I was saying, there is no better time to think very hard about how much effort you might want to go to to know that the food you're buying isn't going to be poisoned or irradiated or whatever else might be happening to it out there before it gets to you.

At least my lettuce will only be irradiated if I microwave it.

Lemon-Garlic Chicken

This meal follows on from an absolute travesty that was committed against a poor innocent chicken the night before. I do like to branch out and try new things, and after seeing a few recipes for Poached Chicken and scoffing at it, I suddenly had a change of heart and decided to try it out.

What a terrible idea. My heartfelt apologies go out to Liz E. Bear and Dessert Chef C for that one. I think I need to research the concept a bit more thoroughly. Suffice to say that if anyone ever tells me that they like their chicken rubbery, I'll know exactly what to cook for them. I'm sure that it all comes down to technique, but it'll be a while before I give that one another crack.

Thankfully, I had jointed off the legs, thighs and wings and put them aside for another meal, and my spur-of-the-moment Lemon-Garlic Roast Chicken Pieces more than made up for the previous night's sad debacle. I dare say this one will make it up there with Slow-Cooked Paprika Chicken and Zesty Crumbed Chicken, except that its quicker and easier than both of them.

Lemon-Garlic Roast Chicken Portions

(Serves 4)

In a pestle or large bowl, grind up the following to make a rough paste:
Zest and Juice of 1/2 a Lemon;
6 Cloves of NZ Garlic;
2T Soy Sauce;
Freshly Ground Salt and Pepper.
Score the Chicken pieces (I had 2 Leg quarters and 2 wings - increase your quantities accordingly to serve more) and press the garlic mixture into the skin and meat. Place the dressed chicken in a bowl with some olive oil and sprinkle with semolina flour. Toss gently until coated.
Place in the oven at 220C, on a rack to allow the fat to drain, and cook for 1 hour, turning twice in that time. Baste if the chicken looks like it might be crying out. I used my oven's Pizza setting, which gently grills the chicken from above while the bottom element does most of the work from below.
Serve with roasted onions and kumera and steamed veges fresh from the local market.

Apology and Update

Sloppy stuff Dan! To put up a link and not check it, I ought to be ashamed.

Anyway, Whiteboard Guy Video Link is here.

I also updated yesterday's post with the correct link.

Take the 5 minutes to watch it. It's well worth the time.

Plantings

I promise, this isn't a rant. When we hear the arguments on either side of the Climate Change fence, there are two voices: The believers and the deniers. Those who believe that Climate Change is real and happening say Yes, we (people) have some degree of responsibility for this and we can do something to make it better. The deniers say Climate Change is a natural process that the planet goes through every so often and is absolutely unaffected by the amount of carbon that has been released into the atmosphere over the past hundred years. The deniers invariably fail to account for the fact that the "normal" changes to our planet's boisphere have taken place over the past 100 years, since the start of the Oil Age, rather than over the thousands of years that these processes usually take.

OK, so it's pretty obvious where I sit. But here's the thing: When faced with the prospect of a looming crisis that may or may not be real, and which may or may not be affected by what we do, there are two things that we can choose to do:

SOMETHING

or

NOTHING.

This is a complex argument which is best summed up by WhiteBoard Guy, [EDIT - THIS LINK SHOULD NOW WORK] but the basic answer is this: If we do nothing about it, we deserve what we get. If we do something about it, it can only be better than if we do nothing. And if nothing happens, we've still done something good.

So we're doing something. We're getting things growing in the ground, which is an awfully good place for that to happen. And rather than bang on about Climate Change any more, I thought I'd just take you on a quick tour through our very early Spring Garden.

Tomato shoots coming up

The sole surviving Brocolli

The Potato seedling goes wild

Strawberry seedling - this is one we bought, mind you...

And below, the only thing I've ever managed to keep alive for years on end, I think because they're just glorified weeds that you can eat: my herbs.

Mint

Oregano

Sage

Bacon & Leek Risotto

Where does the time go? Every time I turn around it seems to be a bit later than it was before. Of course, maybe if I just stopped turning around, I'd save a bit of time and not be quite so dizzy.

Yes, Spring is upon us, and there seems to be a million things to do. Suddenly the days have gone by and I haven't posted on my blog since Friday! I can see this is going to become more frequent as the days get longer and the appeal of sitting at the computer is overridden by the desire to sit out on the deck with a glass of wine instead. Everything in moderation, I say. The garden is also going to take up more time now that the Spring growth is getting underway. Ah, how I wish that weeds were a part of my culinary repertoire. Alas, they are not, so I must weed and find things that are edible and beautiful to grow. Keep an eye out here for lovely green pictures of the few wonderful things that are indeed cropping up in pots and piles of compost around our place.

Anyway, I know why you're here. You expect me to get your mouth watering with more delicious recipes and foodie photos. Ah well, I won't disappoint. My topic today: Risotto. Mmmmm.

The risotto I'm going to post today is, IMHO, the best I've ever made. OK, so I've made about 3 (here, here and here), but with this one I really nailed something. It would probably be helpful if I could remember what that something was by the end of the post. I suspect it has something to do with practice, but I'll keep on believing it's a kind of magic.

Other Risotto news:

• I had the Bier Stick Risotto for lunch today, out of the freezer.
• Connie Clarkson on Radio NZ today did a recipe for Asparagus Risotto (Audio link here until approx Oct 1 2008).
• And I had a Risotto Post all lined up ready for the writing and the publishing. Coincidence? Probably.

Hmm, somehow I thought there was more to that. Well, onto the good stuff...

Bacon and Leek Risotto

(Serves 4)

Trim the fat from 4 bacon rashers and put these into a pan. Heat moderately to grease the pan (and keep looking while you're cooking!)

While the fat is crackling, slice up a leek into rings, dice an onion and slice a carrot. Remove the crispy fat from the pan and add the veges. Sweat them in the bacon fat until they just start to soften. (Sounds a bit too healthy, I know, but if you feel you're not getting your share, just have ice cream with extra ice cream afterwards - No, National Heart Foundation, I didn't really say that...). Remove the veges from the pan and add a splash of olive oil to reheat.

When your significant other isn't looking, eat the bacon crackling and slip little bits to your almost 2-year old, who also really likes it (No, NHF, I didn't really say that either).

Chop the bacon into bite-size pieces and add to the hot oil. Brown the bacon and then add 2T of concentrated tomato paste and mix through well. Turn the heat down a little if it seems that the tomato paste might burn. When the liquid has absorbed (1-2 mins) return the veges to the pan. Mix through thoroughly and allow to sweat for a couple more minutes.

Warm up 1C of vege stock or beef stock.
Add 1 Cup of Aborio rice to the pan and mix well. The rice will crackle, but don't let it burn. This will crisp the rice slightly and get a lot of heat through it before you start to add the liquids.

Add 1/2C of white wine to the pan. Allow the alcohol to burn off and the liquid to be absorbed before starting with the stock. I would make wine recommendations here, but it would be a load of bull. If there's wine in the fridge, it'll get used. Assuming I don't have to moisten my own throat first, because that's important when you have to stand over a hot stove for half an hour cooking dinner.

I don't know who said that Risotto was easy, because it's not. It's one of the most demanding dishes I know how to cook. Give me a roast or a stew any day, thanks. But I digress.

Start adding the stock a ladelful (about 1/4C) at a time, and let it absorb into the rice before adding the next quantity. Continue with this until you have used up all your stock AND the rice is cooked - about 17 minutes. If the rice is not cooked when you run out of stock, just use water. During this time, you MUST keep stirring the pan. This is why it's a pain to make, because you simply cannot walk away from the stove. Not that I'm trying to discourage you from cooking risotto. If it wasn't so darned delicious, I wouldn't keep coming back to it.
Remove the cooked risotto from the heat and add 1/4C grated fresh parmesan and 25g of butter. Stir these through the pan and dish immediately, with more freshly grated parmesan, extra virgin olive oil and freshly ground black pepper.