Kathy Paterson cooking NZ
To create a strong community around food we all need to be cooking and eating New Zealand’s best produce
If travelling overseas restores your mind and body, it also reminds you of the quality of our produce and the passion, creativity and skill of our food producers, chefs and writers. Last month at the Eat New Zealand Symposium (part of the programme during Wellington on a Plate), we heard from some of our best local food thinkers as well as Ben Shewry, our most famous cooking New Zealander and owner/chef of Attica restaurant in Melbourne, number 32 in the World’s Top 100 Restaurants. In their words “Eat New Zealand” is all about creating a strong community around food: what we grow, what we know, what we eat, and what we create or plate, to push ourselves to the next level. To take our food to the world — New Zealand as a food destination.
Restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Gold, was also on the programme. I met Jonathan a few days earlier, at a showing of City of Gold, a film that follows Jonathan as he explores the culinary culture of Los Angeles. A deep thinker, Jonathan is famed for championing small restaurants in little communities and his no-froufrou writing, which I find refreshing.
A successful sponge is all about the folding in of the dry ingredients and melted butter. After you have beaten as much air as possible into your egg and sugar mixture, gently and carefully fold in the dry ingredients, trying to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.
Serves 8 Dried apricot puree 115g Central Otago dried apricots, soaked overnight or for a few hours in enough cold water to just cover 2 strips orange or lemon
rind Runny honey, to sweeten Sponge 3 eggs, separated
½ cup caster sugar ½ cup plain flour ¼ cup cornflour 1 tsp custard powder 1 tsp baking powder 25g butter, melted To serve 400-500ml cream,
whipped Icing sugar for dusting Edible flower petals, to
finish 1 Place soaked apricots with any soaking liquid in a small saucepan with the orange or lemon rind and place over low heat. Cook until the apricots are soft and pulpy. Rub through a non-metallic sieve to give you a puree and sweeten to taste with honey. Set aside to cool. 2 Make the sponge: Heat the oven to 190C. Grease 2 x 16cm round tins and line the base of each with baking paper. Dust the inside of the tins with flour, tapping out the excess. 3 Place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat with a pinch of salt until foamy. Gradually add the caster sugar and beat until thick. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, and continue beating until the mixture is very pale and fluffy. You should be able to draw the letter “M” in the mixture as it falls off the beaters, in an unbroken trail. 4 Sift the flour, cornflour, custard powder and baking powder together, then sift them again on to the egg mixture and carefully fold in with a large spoon or spatula. Lastly fold in the melted butter. 5 Using the spatula to help you, carefully place the mixture in the tins. Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the sponges spring back when lightly touched. Leave in the tins for 5 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool. 6 Slice the cooled sponges in half horizontally. Layer the base of one sponge with cream and dollop with some apricot puree. Top with the other half. Top that with more cream and apricot puree, then the other base, followed by the remaining cream and apricot puree and the last layer of sponge. Dust with icing sugar and decorate with edible flower petals.
Sponge cake with dried apricot puree, whipped cream and edible flowers