Food
Delicious cutting-edge Maori food at Creative Matakana provided inspiration for a meal to celebrate Matariki.
An inspired meal to celebrate
Matariki.
Talented tutors from around New Zealand recently gathered in the small town of Matakana, an hour north of Auckland, to stage a new event on the arts and culinary calendar. Creative Matakana was a week of workshops covering textiles, fiction writing, glass kiln work, sculpture and flax weaving and events such as walks, parties and social gatherings. Because wine and food have been central to placing Matakana on the map, a series of lunches showcased local artisan products, wines, beers and ciders. Four top chefs cooked locally sourced and foraged food for an audience of foodies who journeyed from as far away as Wanaka. Fleur Sullivan, one of New Zealand’s revered food heroes closed her restaurant Fleur’s Place in Moeraki for the week, throwing herself into the celebrations and charming her dining companions with countless foodie tales.
The event also gave local producers the opportunity to reach an audience far from Matakana. Chef Ben Bayly, who presides over The Grove, Baduzzi and The Grounds, forged bonds with local chocolate maker Nicolas Bonnaud and the folk at the Whangaripo Buffalo farm, and he’s now working their products into his Auckland menus. Giulio Sturla came from his award-winning Roots Restaurant in Lyttelton to cook using local seafood, foraged greens, vegetables and fruits. He wondered why he’d never visited the subtropical north before and vowed he’d be back soon.
Dariush Lolaiy of Cazador restaurant was
celebrating being named Metro magazine’s best chef in Auckland and, with his wife, Rebecca Smidt, cooked up a feast of duck, local bacon, sausages, greens and figs to match a line-up of freshly brewed beers at the Sawmill Brewery. Duck-shooting season had just begun, so Lolaiy brought a couple of dead ducks to show his audience how to pluck, gut and portion the birds.
Rising Maori chef Monique Fiso arrived from her home in Wellington and immediately set to digging and firing up the pit for her hangi. Local oysters, watercress, greens, sweet kumara and puha took pride of place on the menu beside Cloudy Bay clams and pork.
Guests initially had no inkling that the flax baskets that went into the hangi had been woven by Fiso or that she had got up at 3 o’clock on the morning of the lunch to light the firepit or that her dessert – a burnt sugar hangi pudding with kanga wai (fermented corn) ice cream and local rhubarb and apple – was a play on the traditional and more mundane steamed pudding. But they were quickly won over by this delicious cutting-edge Maori food.
This was also a reminder that Matariki was imminent. One of the most important dates on the Maori calendar (this year on June
25) is when the Matariki (or Pleiades/Subaru) group of stars rises to twinkle in the winter sky just before dawn, signalling the Maori New
Year. Traditionally, it was a time for remembering the dead and celebrating new life.
In the 21st century, observing Matariki has become popular again and is a time to focus on whanau and whakapapa and make plans for the coming year. It’s also time to feast and to stage ceremonial offerings to the land-based gods Rongo, Uenuku and Whiro to help ensure good crops for the coming year.
TO HONOUR MATARIKI, I asked Fiso what I should choose to cook for my celebratory feast, and we discussed the place that pork and kumara hold in her world. At her suggestion, I chose a pork shoulder, which is a tasty yet relatively inexpensive cut of meat, and decided to stuff it with apples and fresh kawakawa. To accompany that, there had to be a kumara dish, and being the chef she is, Fiso suggested a creamy gratin. “That’s makes it a truly delicious gratin,” she said, “as everything tastes better with cream and butter.”
PORK SHOULDER ROASTED WITH APPLE AND KAWAKAWA STUFFING
1.5kg fresh New Zealand boned pork shoulder salt and pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1 shallot, chopped
2 apples (braeburn) peeled and sliced
2 tbsp fresh kawakawa leaves, finely sliced large bunch of watercress
Rub the surface and the skin of the pork with salt, pepper and one tablespoon of the oil and put aside while you make the stuffing. In a small pan, heat the remaining oil and butter and toss the shallot in over gentle heat to soften. Add the apple slices and continue cooking, stirring frequently until soft. Stir through the sliced kawakawa leaves, adding salt and pepper to taste.
Preheat the oven to 190°C. Lay the pork skin side down on a clean bench and spread the apple stuffing over the meat surface. Tie this up securely so the meat folds around with the skin side up.
Place in a small roasting pan and roast for about an hour. Near the end of the cooking time, turn the grill on, placing the roast fairly close to it so the skin crackles and blisters. Watch very carefully so it does not burn.
To serve, remove the crackling and cut into chunky pieces. Slice the pork and serve with stuffing, fresh watercress and the following kumara gratin.
Serves 6 with plenty left over for sandwiches.
Wine match: pinot noir.
KUMARA GRATIN WITH HOROPITO PEPPER AND CHEESE
2 tbsp butter
200ml milk
300ml cream
1 bay leaf salt and black pepper 1.5kg red-skinned kumara 2 pinches horopito pepper 50g parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Butter an ovenproof dish, about 30cm x 20cm x 6cm.
Bring the milk, cream, bay leaf to the boil in a saucepan. Simmer for a few minutes, then remove from the heat and season with salt and pepper.
Finely slice the kumara and layer this in the gratin dish in neat layers. Cover with the hot cream and horopito and shake to evenly distribute the liquid. Sprinkle with parmesan, cover with tinfoil and bake for 50 minutes or until the kumara are tender when a skewer is pushed into them.
Serves 6.