FOOD OUR FAVE CHEFS HATE
We dish ont he ingredients they can’t stomach
People who work with food generally love the ingredients they cook with. Chefs provide us with inspiration to try new flavours or cook a familiar thing a different way. But not all ingredients are loved by all!
Lurking in every chef’s pantry is a food they just won’t use under any circumstances – a loathed ingredient that might appear in their restaurant or recipe books but never on their own plate.
We asked six top New Zealand chefs to let us into their store cupboard and tell us their most-hated ingredient.
NADIA LIM
Dietitian, 2011 Master Chef NZ winner, cookbook author and founder of My Food Bag.
DISLIKES: GLACÉ CHERRIES
“I was actually struggling to think of an ingredient I hate, so I asked my husband Carlos. He thought for a while and then suddenly jumped up and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes, you hate those cherries!’ He’s right, I hate glacé cherries. They are so sickly sweet, taste nothing like cherries and stain your tongue bright red or green. However, I still have fond memories of them because my dear nan always had a packet in her fridge for making fruit cake. So it’s a weird love/hate kind of relationship. I thinkk they they’rere awful, yet they bring good memories. Hah!”
PETER GORDON
London-based Kiwi chef, cookbook author and founder of many restaurants including The Sugar Club at SkyCity Auckland.
DISLIKES: BRUSSELS SPROUTS
“My dislike of them comes from a childhood of being served Brussels sprouts that had been cooked for an hour or more (I kid you not). It’s a long (yet simple) story that involves Sunday roasts and … overcooking. Anyway, to me they still have a hint of being the kidney of the vegetable world, which comes from cooking too long (try it – you’ll never want one again), but every year I cook them in ways that slowly have me changing my mind. These days, I almost like them shredded raw, tossed with a nam jim-type dressing; quicklykly wok-fried (sliced) with heap seaps of chilli and ginger; or deep-fried whole but splitt with an X and dipped in smoked paprika aioli. Inn fact in ways where theyey are
nothing like my y childhood memories.”
MICHAEL VAN DE ELZEN
Longtime restaurateur, host of TV’s FoodTruck series and cookbook author.
DISLIKES: CRAB
“Funny, I know! A chef that doesn’t like this wonderful and very much prized ingredient. It goes back to my childhood – I was about six or seven and Mum decided to go experimental on us. A whole crab was the order of the night. With the family eagerr to jump into this huge crab, things hings quickly turned pear-shaped.. The crab was bad and the meat was disgusting, not to mention the many trips to the toilet. It put ut me off crab for life. Poor Mum, it was back to cooked chook from that day forward! The funny thing is that crab is my wife Bee’s favourite ingredient in the world and I’m often cruelly met by a crab in our fridge! Also, if there’s a dish that’s been one of my more successful, it’s the crab linguine with Pernod cream and ricotta cream that we served at my old restaurant Molten for many years.”
SIMON GAULT
Former MasterChefNZ judge, owner of Giraffe restaurant in Auckland and host of the recent TV series WhyAreWeFat?.
DISLIKES: KALE
“Isn’t life too short to be eating something you don’t like? I don’t know if it’s the kale or the kale trend and people involved in it that I hate. The kale crowd used to pride themselves on not fitting in, but now they are becoming mainstream. They only seem to like eating kale if it’s in liquid form, shoved in a smoothie. I really have to wonder who can stomach a green smoothie filled with kale. They must be superhuman. Kale chips taste more like last week’s cut grass unless they are smothered in something spicy and salty to rescueescue them. It’s an incredibly nutrient-utrient-dense superfood and we’ree all trying to be a little more healthylthy as the second fattest nationn in the world, so I guess we shouldd give it a little loving. The trickck with kale is don’t put it in smoothies.othies. Another good tip is to get ridd of the stems as they’re woody andnd kind of bitter. Use kale in a salad but first massage it with lovelyely olive oil, lemon juice or a goodod vinegar. Don’t cook it unlesss you are going to put it underneathh a nice piece of meat or fish withh some olive oil, garlic and onion,n, and let it all braise soo it absorbs the juices. Then it becomebecomes lovelyvely and soft, and quiteuite delicious. . BBut then again,n, why not just doo thathat with spinach,nach, which I lovlove.” ve.”
AL BROWN
Famous for his restaurants Depot, Federal Delicatessen and Best Ugly Bagels, TV chef, cookbook author.
DISLIKES: CELERY
“I loathe raw celery; the taste and texture give me the creeps. How people can smother long sticks of it with peanut butter and cottage cheese is beyond me. I even pick it out of a salad like a child and leave it on the corner of my plate or toss it in the garden if eating outdoors. Cooked? No problem, actually quite enjoy it. Go fifigure!”
JO SEAGAR
Cookbook author, Australian Women’s Weekly columnist and cook.
DISLIKES: POMEGRANATE MOLASSES
“My most-hated ingredient is seeing pomegranate molasses added to a recipe – sometimes I’m sure just for the hell of it. Just seeing it listed has me turning to a new recipe. It’s not that I don’t actually quite like the taste of the stuff, but it just annoys me in a list of ingredients because they’ve put it in there to make it sound poncey or to deem the recipe difficult. ‘Don’t try this at home if you’re not a real chef’ kind of thing. Pomegranate fruit, those gorgeous little jewel-like bubbles that squish on the roof of your mouth, are one of my favourite things and I have been known to sit in a restaurant and fiddle away extracting them while everyone else is into chocolate puds. The molasses is the fruit simmered down for hours and strained, a bit like jam, but why would you? Just add a splash of balsamic for the same effect. I go to Morocco every year and take foodie tours and know a number of Moroccan chefs, and no-one can really explain why they use this stuff. For me, it’s like an added extra, it doesn’t really sweeten the finished recipe or anything. I love short, easy, simple recipes and if the list of ingredients is too long, I’m out of there pronto.”