harrysnapperorgans

I've always wanted to try smoking or even just cooking trout. But it's a protected species here in NZ, and the only way to get hold of it is to either catch it yourself, or to be given it directly off the person who did. There is no commercial fishery and unless you live near a good trout river, there is no way to get it.

I agree. I cooked snapper tonight in my $4 thrift store cast iron pan, and it didn't stick at all. From when I put it in to when I took it out, if I gave the pan a tiny shake, the fish would slide easily.

We had pan fried snapper on roast vegetables and salad greens with a lemon vinaigrette. Terrible laptop photo, but you get the idea. It was very tasty (my wife looks pretty happy!) I brought a whole fish for a change, filleted it myself (that was a first) and I'm going to make stock with the carcass. The fish could have been better - I was trying to get the skin really crispy, but the fillets weren't very thick, and I didn't want to overcook the fish, so I took it off the heat before the skin got to where I wanted it. But the fish was cooked well. Next time I'll know that to get cripsy skin, I need to get hold of thicker fillets.

Well, I've never cooked Sous vide, and only eaten sous vide a couple of times, sous vide beef only once. That time, I was not impressed. The meal was a sous vide Fillet steak on a horseradish, potato and parmesan mash. The meat was perfectly, uniformly pink inside, right out to the edges, which was nice. It had been seared, but there was very little texture and caramelization on the outside. And I love those meaty caramelized textures! I was also surprised by how cold it was - it was only just warm. Yes, the cooking was very, very even inside, but I felt like it had been done like that for the ease of cooking, not the sous vide texture. Imagine how easy it would be to do dozens of sous vide steaks in a restaurant - you could sous vide some to rare, some to medium, during the day, then toss them in a hot pan for 30 seconds a side for a token sear before plating. You wouldn't even need a skilled chef on the meat station, any muppet could do it. (even me, probably) I can see how sous vide meat would be great for doing braises and meats that need long, gentle cooking, but I think with a quality piece of meat like a fillet steak, I'd rather it done the old school way, a super hot pan, 2 minutes a side.

I remember living in Canada, and eating the US and Canada lamb, and finding it rather average. Then one time we splurged on a leg of premium NZ lamb, and after the first bite, we were all like ah, that's more like it! The taste of home! Due to the abundance of lamb here, I eat a quite a bit of it. In fact, a couple of years ago I rented a house with some land, and a rather than mow the grass all the time, I bought four lambs. 2 of them met their fate as lambs, the other two became mutton. All were delicious, and it was fun cooking with all the different parts of the beast.

I've always liked cooking with gas better - it seems so much more responsive to heat changes. My electric cook top at home is just awful. It never gets hot enough to really sear a steak, it's uneven and it takes a very long time to adjust if you turn the heat down.

Ann_T, your food over the last few pages looks AM-A-ZING, and Robirdstx, I could totally go for your snapper, simple, but perfectly cooked. I made a chicken pot pie, which is something I've been trying to get right. I've found in the past that the flavor of the veggies and even the chicken gets lost in the sauce, so this time I tried doing things a little different, and instead of using stock or a cream sauce, I just added water and a tablespoon of tomato paste to my sautéed veg and chicken and simmered it down. It worked really, really well, the veg and chicken were the stars, and the sauce was more of a texture than a major component. bad webcam pic: Earlier in the week, mushroom rissotto with roast chicken legs:

great pav, leslie. It's not easy to get it that perfect!

I haven't really cut down on food items, apart from brought lunches. I am buying whole chickens and cutting them up, instead of paying for already cut-up chicken. But I've canceled our home phone line, and cable TV.

When I was studying performance guitar at university, I badly sliced my middle finger of my left hand dicing potatoes. I was only about a week out from my final exam. I had expected a solid B, maybe even an A. I spent a huge amount of time re-learning pieces using only 3 fingers, and I got 30% in the exam. Along with the rest of my course work for the year, I barely scraped through with a C. I've been much more carefully since.

Enjoying the blog Leslie! I live in Newlands, and work just a block back from Moore Wilsons - which is often just too tempting, I'm afraid. Sadly, even though there are some wonderful markets around, I work Sundays (I'm a pastor at Wellington Elim church), and so don't get a chance to go.

Great start, Leslie. I'm looking forward to this blog. As a fellow Wellington-ian, I'm looking forward to picking up some tips on local food sources.

I've been buying whole chickens and cutting them up recently- it's cheap, and also will force me to use up all the bits, improving my skills, and hopefully add variety to our meals. So tonight, I Break Down or Just Cut It Up an organic chicken and used the neck, back and various carcass bits to make stock. I then used some stock to make a mushroom risotto - I've never made 'proper' risotto before and it was incredible, so tasty. One of those things where humble ingredients are taken to astounding heights. And really, it's not hard to make, you just have to look after it, and not rush it. I served that with the chicken's legs, thighs and wings, fried very slowly in butter, and some steamed carrots and broccoli. There's no photos, simply because it looked and smelled soo good that we couldn't wait to start! There was some stock left, so I'm going to make a little pot of chicken+veg soup for tomorrow, and I've got the chicken breasts in the freezer to use up later in the week.

I say break down, because I learned how to do it from a YouTube tutorial video, titled 'How to Break Down a Chicken'.

one of my nightmare foods are oysters - never again! I also don't really like pesto, I detest blue cheese, sour cream and other products that remind me highly of rotten milk. And canned olives, in that ghastly brine . . . but I like olive oil and even extra virgin olive oil.

I have a small pair of spring loaded pliers that I used to use as a photocopier technician to repair spring loaded tension clutches. After a fling with the dishwasher, they now have been repurposed as fish pliers.

I made pork chops with a mushroom & balsamic pan sauce roast potatoes and sweet potatoes and brocolli. Was pretty tasty, although the pork rind didn't render down very much, I need to work on that . . .

I broke down a whole organic chicken, and roasted the pieces with a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes, a smashed up bulb of garlic and half a dozen nice heritage tomatoes too. Always creates a amazing sweet tomato broth. Great with rice.

Here in New Zealand, eggs are kept on room-temp shelves and the supermarket, not the chiller. I keep my eggs on the counter at home. But I don't buy them in bulk, so they don't get a chance to get old.

I have about 25.

Eggs Benedict, for 18 people, in a small, not very well equipped kitchen that was way too hot. The meal was beautiful though, and good friend and conversation.

I'm not sure about food, but with any skill set, starting young is a major advantage. Case in point: In my professional life, I'm a musician. I didn't touch a guitar until I was 14, didn't know anything at all about production, performance or leading a band until my late teens/early twenties. Finally, after 10 years of hard slog, music is paying the bills. My son Joel is 3. As a baby, he loved hitting objects, so I brought him drumsticks and a decent drum kit before he turned two. He plays drums for 2-3 hours a day, just purely because he loves it, and my wife and I encourage him in it. He's learned a love and passion for music at a young age. If he does choose to follow in my footsteps, he'll have a major leg up on me. When he's my age, he will have been playing drums for 22 years! The same applies to food, I think. I cook with Joel, (who loves it nearly as much as drumming) and ask him questions while I do. He'll grow up a pretty good cook, and hopefully will enjoy it and surpass my skills (that wouldn't be hard) So I don't think you need to grow up around good food, but it's gotta help, right?

I've found that parboiling the potatoes first consistently results in a thicker, crispier crust. I like to boil them with plenty of pink mineral salt, a stick or two of rosemary, a few cloves of garlic, and a whole lemon. This starts the flavors going. Then I toss the spuds in hot extra virgin olive oil (or duck fat if I can get hold of it), season recklessly with salt and black pepper and add the rosemary, garlic and lemon to the tray as well. I save a little of the starchy lemon-garlic flavored potato water and use some of it in gravy or a pan sauce. I did roast potatoes for 21 people on Christmas day and I think I got close to 21 complements on them.

My mum brought a turkey, but it's not large and there are a fair few people coming (20+), so I'm planning on getting a leg of lamb as well. Both meats will be roasted, with appropriate herbs, nothing fancy. I'll also do roast potatoes, a salad of roast vegetables, a green salad, and some really nice fresh bread. Obviously, it's high summer here in New Zealand, and we will be eating at the family beach house, so if it was up to me, I'd be doing seafood - mussels, scallops wrapped in bacon, and maybe some snapper on the BBQ. But the family want something more traditional. For dessert, my own invention, 'Moufle', Pavalova, and Christmasy cherry icecream. This year, I'm taking charge of cooking, and my 13 year old sister will be sous chef. I'm looking forward to it.

I work with a guy who's also become a good friend, and cooking is not a skill he has - a recent time he made oven chips that were a pile of greasy soggy garbage - instead of spreading them out on a tray, he had just dumped them in a small dish, they must have been a few inches deep, and he must have added a LOT of oil. They were served with a slightly cold and pretty revolting (microwaved) steak and cheese pie. Another time he made rice, with sweet chili sauce - on toast. Terrible, awful, horrible. But a good friend anyway.