Jewish festivals like the Sabbath (barring Passover) are celebrated by breaking challah bread after the benedictions and before eating the festive meal. Instead of being plaited, on Rosh Hashanah the challah bread is baked round. The round challah is symbolic of continuity or the cycle of life and, as we
Making chutneys and preserving garden produce is a childhood memory of mine from the 1960s and 1970s. I remember Mum with her store cupboard shelves stacked to the ceiling with bottled fruits, veg, relishes, pickles and chutneys. Of course, those were the days when Auckland was crisscrossed with quarter-acre sections
Aioli is literally translated as garlic and oil. It is a dip or condiment offered to accompany tapas, antipasti or breads. Simply, aioli is egg yolks emulsified with oil and infused with simple flavours, such as lemon juice, crushed garlic, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper (you can add whatever
Last week you were served up scrumptious oven-fresh Viennese breakfast rolls; this week, we have the perfect breakfast topping with which to embellish those rolls. Eggs Benedict is a very classy cholesterol-rich brunch treat dating back to the middle of the 19th century. The original recipe appears in the cookbook
If you’re going to have a plated and fancy breakfast with eggs Benedict and Hollandaise sauce, good breakfast rolls are a must. The Viennese are renowned for their pastries and breads and the Viennese breakfast roll is up there with the best of their breads. This is a recipe
Salt is the magic ingredient that enhances the taste of almost everything. Without salt most foods will seem bland or uninteresting. In the days of antiquity Roman legionaries received their salaries in salt. The term salary (pay) comes from the Latin word sal or salt. Salt was used for preserving
The plain butter croissant we enjoy with our morning coffee is widely acclaimed as a French national food treasure, but it actually has its roots in the Austrian capital of Vienna and only migrated to Paris in the first quarter of the 19th century. They are relatively easy to make,
It’s stone fruit season here in the Middle East, and pairing sweet with tart, using an almond cream body, is a very tasty option. Baked almond cream (frangipane) is simple to make and consists of almond flour, butter, sugar and eggs. It can be topped with any manner of
Skirt steak is a little-known, unattractive, ribbon-like cut of meat, seldom if ever found on the menus of well-to-do establishments. It comes as a long, thin strip of meat with a sort of pleated appearance, like a wrap-around skirt. What the steak lacks in charm and presentation it makes up
Buffalo wings have nothing to do with the bovine herds that once grazed the Great Plains of the North American continent and everything to do with the city of Buffalo in up-state New York. Apparently they first appeared at the Anchor bar in Buffalo circa 1964, when the owner cooked
Churros are a easy deep-fried dessert and popular around much of the globe. They were introduced to South America from Spain and Portugal by the Conquistadors some 600 years ago. Churros are basically a choux pastry dough (used to make eclairs), without eggs, piped through a toothed piping bag nozzle
This is further to the antipasto platter described last week. Zucchini (courgettes) comes in all shapes, sizes and colours. Zucchini is a marrow that is picked at a very young age. Personally I am not so enamoured with the flavour of zucchini. Being quite bland, it is really a sort
Antipasto literally means before the meal, referring to a dish or dishes that are designed to open up one’s appetite and are served before the main dish. In French it’s is called the entrée (entry dish) and in English it is usually referred to as an appetiser, starter
One day a butcher, one day a pasta man, a baker, a pastry chef and, yes, one day a chocolatier. Trying to mix things up and keep life interesting, I made chocolate pralines to decorate a coffee granita dessert (summer here). Pralines are straightforward if you have the right equipment
More often than not, the simplest recipes are the tastiest. The flavours in these simple creations are of the natural ingredients without all the fancy fanfare of what baking and cooking has become today. This recipe is from a 1970s cookbook: the creations appear dated and there was never any
Light, refreshing, cleansing, tasty and enjoyable. Sorbet is a light dessert to lick the heat, a refreshing intermission between courses to cleanse the palate and, more often than not, enjoyable to boot. Most people wouldn’t know Antonio Latini from a bar of soap. Latini, the Italian 17th-century chef of
