Queenstown Supermarket - McKibbon's of Royalburn

January 3, 2016March 15, 2020

Blueskin Bay Honey with David Milne

Imagine having your own beehives surrounded by wild Manuka and Kanuka trees bordering the sea. Imagine having a guy managing these hives for you, someone who’s worked with bees for years and who knows how to keep your hives as single origin or a mix of wildflowers, as you like. Imagine the unusual flavours you’d get from your special part of the world, where Manuka flowers are transformed into an unblended natural honey which pops with notes of lemon, passionfruit and maple syrup. And best of all, imagine that this comes delivered to you in a glass jar, ready to amaze your tastebuds and heal your soul any time of the day.

I’ve wanted to keep bees for years. Every time I get close to the idea, I think of the hard work of establishing and keeping bees, of managing their environment and of the processing to keep the honey and hive in tact… and so I put it off. Bummer, because I don’t much like most of the honey I get in plastic containers or the way they all start to taste the same. I do however like the variety of good honey made available at the local stands you come across on road trips, special for the moment but not something I have access to all the time. And then I come across Manuka Honey from Blueskin Bay just north of Dunedin. I can tell immediately that this honey is special, that it’s been curated to maintain a single origin species flavour and that it’s been extremely well delivered (unheated, hasn’t been blended, not creamed, glass jar). So I call David Milne to ask how he did it.

David grew up around Dunedin appreciating local flavours fused with the mediterranean style cooking of his grandmother who was born in Lebanon. At Otago University, David studied a wide range of subjects from art to law but his food learning took place in Madison, Wisconsin where a girl he’d met from that American midwest town introduced him to the culinary culture of the region. Out in the huge fields around the town David learned to raise bees making pasture honey, hawthorn and willow honey, clover, borage, buckwheat honey to name a few. The potlucks, food co-ops and quality produce of the region was an inspiration to David who wanted to blend his growing interest in food and previous education together to make a brand back in NZ that would reflect these values and ideas.

In particular, David wanted to develop a product that would reflect a way of living a life of pleasure but with balance. Back home in Dunedin, being surrounded by an environment rich with natural resources, David decided to create honey starting with local queen bees that he could build hives focusing on three main sources, Manuka, Kanuka and wild flowers. The core concept being to create an amazing food experience that would be organically created, extremely local, largely untouched in terms of processing and memorable flavours, and to achieve all of this in balance with nature and his community. Having tasted this stuff and spoken to the man, I’d say he’s nailed it. One taste of the manuka in particular made me think I’d never tasted manuka honey before. In comparison to the average manuka or closely related blends, Blueskin Bay’s manuka had a fruity floral clarity, a natural grain mouth feel and a delightful finish all by itself. Imagine then, adding this to say a meat marinade, a dressing with a bit of vinegar or a glaze over muffins. Beautiful.

There’s heaps to be said about the health aspects too and I found David particularly frank and helpful in this aspect. As an apiculture assessor at Lincoln University, he’s not one to hype Manuka factors and stuff like that. Instead, he focuses on the fact that if you eat locally produced honey, made by healthy bees flying around your own region taking in the flora of the region and creating a food from it, then you will be adding a nutritionally fitting element to your diet that your DNA is accustomed to, which for many people will also keep allergies down. There are other anti bacterial benefits to Manuka honey, but these are largely external applications and rarely seen as internal (ingested) benefits. What Blueskin does best, I think, is to manage the hives of my dreams with skill, local knowledge and an organic process which creates a truly outstanding honey which I can enjoy without all that work. But just in case I ever do want to have my own hive, David will rent me one and help me manage it. How cool is that!

January 2, 2016March 15, 2020

Goodies on the Gorge

(2020 update: Goodies on the Gorge has been sold and is now trading as Double Rock)

At the age of 11, David White found himself wandering the summer fields of Yorkshire with not much to do. His father had recently been made redundant and so their low cost holiday consisted simply of a caravan parked in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, a perfect escape from the heavy industrial city of Leeds for two weeks. As David followed his fancy through the trees and paddocks, he came upon a kind of ‘Darling Buds of May’ farm, complete with two wonderful old ladies, their cow Daisy and heaps to do for a young boy. David learned to milk the cow, feed turkeys, stook hay in old fashioned ricks, all accompanied with home made lemonade and cakes for afternoon tea in the middle of an orchard. At this point he fell in love with the land and its culture.

From here on, David had always wanted to farm a plot of land but this seemed out of reach in the UK. So, 44 years ago David the young man, emigrated to North Canterbury and bought a small one acre plot. He worked in advertising while studying at night about soil science and horticulture from a professor at Lincoln College. His experiences as a child drew him to more organic methods and so it became natural for David to collect seaweed from nearby beaches to fertilize his land. 15 years on, the restless farmer moved to Dunedin and in turn bought two much larger plots including a farm in Strath Taieri and at Blueskin Bay where he continued working in marketing whilst farming sheep and cattle and a wide variety of plants, again, following his fancy.

Continuing to follow his heart, David met Jeni in 2001 and on a whim, they looked around Cromwell for some land to buy. Jeni had deep family connections in Otago and so with spade in tow, David looked at various places until he shovelled up a better looking clump of soil at what is now Goodies from the Gorge. The land had laid fallow for a long time, being fed only by years of natural weathering, decaying foliage, and subsequently growing richer with nutrients. The plot also had beautifully established European Plum and Cherry Plum trees with a rolling aspect a few hundred meters into the Kawarau Gorge on the road to Queenstown. At the time, the land looked “like an absolute wilderness”, but David saw through the thick briar, broken trees, and long grass and knew this was the place. At the young age of 60 then, he started building retaining walls, laid irrigation pipes, built a foundation on which to place a house rescued from Christchurch well prior to the earthquake.

David had read an article in the Otago Southland Farmer about blueberries and knew the climate and soil at Goodies would be perfect. He and Jeni travelled to England to visit the oldest blueberry farm in the UK, then to Australia, speaking with farmers to better understand this little blue wonder. He also thought that after a few years and growing to 2 meters in height, blueberries would be the perfect plant to harvest for a 70 year old. A little while later, a friend from Nelson asked if David would rescue some of his family’s 60 year old raspberry plants, of which only twelve were left. Six survived and this rare old breed yielded a bright sweet flavour which David has now cultivated into a large crop featuring regularly on menus at resorts like Blanket Bay, Matakauri Lodge and many high quality restaurants.

David’s fancy has served him well as he continued to grow the Goodies repertoire by adding two varieties of boysenberry, a red, black and a luminous white currant, figs, pears, black doris plums, elder flowers (for their own cordial), quince and many interesting and more unusual vegetables including elephant garlic, sugar snap peas and rouge pumpkins. The list goes on, as does David’s curiosity and ingenuity. He remains deeply committed to organic methods which includes getting horse manure from a local friend who runs dressage horses, and grape pressings from a local winery – which helps boost the pH acidity balance for his blueberries. He and Jeni often work up to 15 hour days picking berries and maintaining irrigation while Jeni meticulously packs the berries and prepares vegetables to classical music and packs for daily couriers for which they often need to be up by 5:30am. This hard working couple could run circles around the average IT hipster.

Before leaving Goodies from the Gorge, Jeni loads me up with a few of her famous jars of goodies, including a tomatillo salsa – the best I’ve had outside of California – a cherry jam, a jar of raspberry preserve and a few heads of elephant garlic; all side projects from the farm which also comes from her passion for food (and her catering background). As I wander towards my car, I pass a local chef showing his family around the blueberries, all of them sampling and smiling along the way. And then there’s David, tinkering under the rotary hoe attached to the tractor. He emerges to say goodbye and tells me he’s always appreciated Nathan and Angela’s approach to selling his berries at the Raeward Fresh. “They don’t haggle us down on price” he tells me, and that he thinks they’re one of the few places in the region that really understand the price of growing the highest quality food possible. That there’s a cost to completely organic, grown with craft, with hand-picked berries that taste just like summer should…

David will keep working to produce these berries until it starts to get cold and he and Jeni will take a break, maybe to Italy, or France, or both. They’ll return a few weeks later and prune the berry bushes and fruit trees, turn the soil and get rid of the remaining weeds, fix a hundred things by hand and get ready for a new season. I think the land likes David and Jeni. It responds well to their care, and to what they choose to plant and tend. On my way home, I pop a huge red raspberry into my mouth. It taste like a warm summers day and reminds me of my own childhood. I’m grateful for people like these guys, and for their ability to put summer in a punnet.

September 9, 2015March 15, 2020

Zoe’s Gardens with Kelvin Speirs

Kelvin Speirs has a knack for managing abundance. Like most gardeners, he has to find creative ways to put a glut of beetroot, or zucchini, or red peppers to good use when they all come ready to harvest at once. Kelvin will trundle off to the Thorndon Markets with some of his fresh produce each week, offer local chefs in the Napier and Hasting region some of his specialty corn salad or baby kale, yet even still he’ll have kilos upon kilos of organically grown tomatoes, red onions and myriad other vegetables looking for good homes. So, Kelvin properly prepares his abundant veg for jarring, adding twists of flavour from the Mediterranean to the Manuwatu. The result is a bevy of fantastic relishes and jams that all come from Kelvin’s own beautifully managed gardens. His latest offerings include:

Caramelised Onion
Spiced Tomato Jam
Gherkin Relish
Pepper Relish
Beetroot Relish
Zucchini Relish

Brinjal Chutney

Growing up in the Manuwatu, Kelvin didn’t have much to do with food besides growing and selling potatoes as a kid. However, after spending 12 years in local council and community development work, Kelvin did start focusing on creating means for the region’s food abundance to connect with the local economy. He developed cooking courses as well as other proposals that would marry, say, the area’s budding wine and market garden businesses to put the Wairarapa on the Kiwi food scene map. After the National Government came to power many of these local plans were either scrapped or shifted to the hub of Wellington, so Kelvin had to find other outlets for his growing community focused connection to food.

Not easily disheartened, Kelvin scaled down his regional food plans into a micro version, starting a bed and breakfast in Greytown that grew lots of interesting veg around the property to share with the guests. Kelvin quickly learnt heaps about gardening situated in such a beautiful growing climate. His gardens thrived and Kelvin decided to move to Hawkes Bay to expand his gardening ventures. Along the way he met a couple of sisters who came from the Mediterranean and who had developed a line of preserves and sauces, but who were struggling to sell their offerings to the Kiwi palette. Kelvin bought the business and started adjusting the recipes to lean more towards New Zealand foodie trends.

The results are very Kiwi 2015; perfectly grown organic vegetables which maintain their fresh flavours in the jar, paired with Brinjal spices or sweetly caramelised onions, flavour notes which hark of other lands and places but which New Zealanders are increasingly becoming accustomed to. Kelvin created a new brand, Zoe’s Gardens, adding the jams, preserves and relishes to his Farmers Market adventures as well as offering the range to local chefs / foodies. This organic journey from garden to jar to market eventually led to Zoe’s Garden goods being available for us at Raeward Fresh. Kelvin has had to work very hard to keep up with demand. If, for instance, you were to try some of some of his beetroot chutney on a slice of dark bread with cured salmon, you would understand why these jars of deliciousness are selling as quickly as he can make them!

This morning, I tried Zoe’s Garden beetroot relish on a piece of The Breadman’s Casava bread. The relish is a bright fresh red with a bright fresh flavour to match. Kelvin’s pickling techniques tone down the beet’s earthy notes, leaving all the lovely piquant strength of this healthy root veg. I also had some Breadman’s Pumpkin Snackers left over from a weekend do, and tried Zoe’s Garden’s Caramelised Onions straight up on these (since I didn’t have a steak or pork roast to hand over breakfast). The red onions were beautifully sweet and rich, brought to new depths by the combination of mustard seeds, ginger and rosemary in the jar.

It’s cool to see how all of Kelvin’s experiences throughout the years have woven together, making their way into these relishes, jams and chutneys. We’re so glad at Raeward Fresh to share his story in a jar.

September 5, 2015March 15, 2020

Paneton Bakery with Dominique Colombié

Dominique Colombié grew up in the South-west of France where baking is a sacred art. His father ran a patisserie and taught Dominique how to bake using classic French techniques. This meant using a simple list of high quality ingredients – including local butter which is a wondrous thing in France – and a patient hand with the dough. The Colombié kitchen table had the freshest croissants, tarts and breads which Dominique grew up appreciating and sharing with his village. After some years, Dominique went on to learn modern baking and production techniques as well, in order to take his special family traditions into the next millennia. With all of his quiver full of knowledge, both old and new, Dominique ventured into the wide world to see where he could bring his skills.

It was during a visit to New Zealand in 1982 with his wife Celia that the pair noticed this country didn’t have access to the kinds of croissants and quiches Dominique had grown up with. They decided to return and change all that. In 1986 Dominique and Celia started La Tarterie, in Auckland, which had queues of people lining Khyber Pass waiting for their very own taste of France. Dominique kept all of his family traditions in place, exchanging only French butter for New Zealand butter. Not skimping on ingredients or process, his croissants and quiches became legendary in the area. So the Colombié’s decided to expand.

Dominique and Celia sold their successful cafe and started a new bakery called Paneton. The name refers to the classic willow bread proofing baskets which are lined with a special linen. This reference to classic technique was to be bridged with new methods of production, such as pasteurization and flash freezing technology. These contemporary skills allowed the ideas that Dominique, Celia, and now their daughter Madeleine too, had around their own kitchen table to be shared with the rest of the country. Dominique wanted to give the same kind of experience they and their local customers had (of waking to the smell of fresh pastry baking in a nearby oven) to, say, the farmer out on the rugged West Coast or the Southlander who didn’t have a great cafe within brunch distance.

It is the latest in flash freezing technology that enables Paneton Bakery to create croissants, danishes and pain au chocolat that can be kept in the freezer until needed, and then still come out of the oven as good as at the bakery. If you’ve been to a good French patisserie and had great croissants, you’ll know this is quite a thing. Dominique explains that the trick is he decided to offer his pastry to the customer at the stage where people will need to proof their pastries at home before baking. You can buy frozen, pre-proofed croissants a dime a dozen but it’s not the same thing, both in terms of the baking experience and the end result. This was important to Dominique because the main idea was to share the experience of making and enjoying great pastry while Paneton did all the hard work in between. To proof your croissants, you simply put them in a closed oven the night before. When you wake up, take them out. Give them a little egg wash while you preheat the oven to 180˚C and then bake for 12-15 minutes. My Paneton pastries had a lovely curved shape, a beautiful rise and were as flakey as – as they are in Paris!

My only complaint was that the danish needed more of Dominique’s home made custard or hand sliced apricots. Paneton makes everything fresh and, even after being frozen, you can tell it’s good stuff… and you will want more. Dominique tells me that to keep the price point affordable to as many people as possible they’ve decided to have a petit amount (that is, just the right amount) of fillings for the waistline. You can add a bit of glaze (say, melted apricot jam) or a few fresh berries for yourself to these danishes and they’ll be even more fabulous. I’m looking forward to getting their new flakey pastry and making some quince & rhubarb tarts with fresh ingredients from my little garden outside. At Raeward Fresh we’re grateful that the Colombié’s have shared their traditions and innovations with the rest of us via Paneton. We’re looking forward to what comes next from their kitchen table to ours.

Recipe: Paneton’s apple galette

Ingredients:
300 grams of Paneton Flakey Puff Pastry
2 large apples
Apricot jam
Icing sugar for dusting
Method:
• Unroll the Paneton Flakey puff pastry as per instructions on the packet
• Cut 4 rectangles from the pastry
• Peel, core and finely slice the apples
• lightly score (don’t slice through) the edges of the pastry making a 2cm border. This will allow the outer edge of the galette to puff up around the apples. You could also fold the out edge over the apples at the end for a different effect.
• Place apple slices onto each rectangle (you can also place a wash of custard underneath if you like
• Sprinkle with caster sugar
• Gently wash the edges of the pastry with a beaten egg
• Bake your galettes in a pre-heated oven at 200˚C for 15 minutes or until golden brown
• Wash with melted apricot jam and dust with a bit of icing sugar
To serve, add a bit of your favourite vanilla ice cream.
Tip: you can use any left over pastry strips to make canapés or snacks like cheese straws.

September 4, 2015March 15, 2020

Dr Feelgood Frozen Pops with Craig Jackson

Craig Jackson is quite a character. A quintessentially Kiwi character in many regards but, this being 2015, he’s one of the well travelled, highly skilled, creative and entrepreneurial breed of quintessential Kiwi’s. At 52 years old Craig is making a career transition into the kind of job you dream of having as a kid. Here’s how it happened…

Craig worked in the film industry (mostly as an editor) for 25 years before he got tired of selling other people’s stuff. He learnt heaps in advertising boardrooms around the country, especially about peoples needs and wants, and he watched NZ food culture transform from the time of his childhood, this island nation morphing into an amazing country packed with food entrepreneurs championed by an eager and increasingly informed public at farmers markets, small stores and larger retail venues. He observed that something was calling out the pioneering character and substance of Kiwi ingenuity in the agricultural and culinary scene over the last 20 years, and Craig also felt this shift within himself. Perhaps it was triggered during his first adventurous sushi experience in 1980s Auckland or on one of the many trips he took overseas where he would come across stunning cafes or restaurants? Or, maybe like many people, this “knowing” simply lay dormant until Craig could take the space to sit down and figure out what was in his own heart.

So, upon leaving the film & TV industry (where his wife Melanie still works as a director) Craig knew he wanted to do something with food. He wanted to do something that made the most of New Zealander’s love for wholesome ingredients and had a hunch that he’d find a niche with a new twist on an old theme. He began by experimenting with kefir – a healthy, fermented milk drink made with ‘kefir’ grains – and tested numerous varieties on his family. The experimentation went well, but the process stalled when he couldn’t figure out how to get it fresh to people due to shelf life issues with his live cultures. On the night he finally gave up on his kefir trials, Craig found an old popsicle making machine online (googling his way out of grief) and thought, “Yeah, that could work.” He got immediate and joyful encouragement from his kids who were way over kefir testing. Craig bought the machine, plonked it on the kitchen table and started playing with various ingredient combinations. His business plan: It’s gotta be fun and stay that way if I’m to stay in business. (Actually, Craig wrote up a proper business plan based on core values he’d learnt during his time in film – namely, stay nimble, smart, creative, and have fun. He coincidentally received an email from ANZ asking for submissions for their business plan competition so tossed them his. He got 3rd place out of 400 submissions).

So, with popsicle machine placed firmly in the middle of the kitchen, Craig (and kids, friends, neighbours and anyone else fortunate enough to pop by) went to work on the creation of ice blocks. In Craig’s mind, this meant ice blocks that capitalized on all the years of his food culture experience around the world blended with a solid contemporary Kiwi food aesthetic. Which goes a long way to explain the strangely natural yet kooky flavours they came up with (15 originally, but 6 being being produced as of January with more coming online soon). Have a look below to see what I mean:So, with popsicle machine placed firmly in the middle of the kitchen, Craig (and kids, friends, neighbours and anyone else fortunate enough to pop by) went to work on the creation of ice blocks. In Craig’s mind, this meant ice blocks that capitalized on all the years of his food culture experience around the world blended with a solid contemporary Kiwi food aesthetic. Which goes a long way to explain the strangely natural yet kooky flavours they came up with (15 originally, but 6 being being produced as of January with more coming online soon). Have a look below to see what I mean:

A Flat White ice block made from freshly brewed coffee and good ole kiwi milk, sweetened using organic coconut sugar? Is that not quintessentially modern Kiwi? Or Granny Smith Apple with lime and mint? Feels like it’s been around for ages and yet it’s as hip as ice blocks get, especially the Salted Caramel and Apple – awesome. All these ideas forged in a kitchen a few kilometres north of Auckland on a ten acre block. The old horse stable on their property is now the proper commercial kitchen/factory/headquarters of Dr Feelgood Handcrafted Frozen Pops. The name came from Melanie who one day just said “Dr. Feelgood”. That easy, that cool.

Craig spent this past year getting flavours and techniques perfected. He connected with some brilliant NZ food companies to help him sort out ingredients and ramp up to market-level production. Next, he went to work on the brand. Craig and Melanie did a lot of the groundwork and a friend of theirs, Todd Young, at Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney, did the finishing design work. They didn’t want to create plastic bags which don’t biodegrade, so they went with Interpac to create a zero waste cardboard box. With that sorted, Craig thought he’d begin selling in Auckland and then see how far his ice blocks would go. Instead, he happened to have some extra product when he went to Wellington for the ANZ business plan competition. Moore Wilson and other stores in the area loved them. Since then it’s been a constant stream of, in Craig’s own words, “Every bastard said yes!” – in contrast to the title of Jeff Ross’ biography about vodka brand 41˚ Below, Every Bastard Said No.

It’s been way fun for Craig so far. Solar powered bicycle ice block stands and showing up at events with a freezer full of pops. Keeping up with demand has meant some hiring, but basically, it’s harvesting mint on the property and then into the old stable to make another batch of Raspberry Lime and Coconut, or Chocolate made with Raw Cacao (not cocoa), or Lemon with Manuka Honey & Ginger (a great winter ice block for those sore throats). At the end of the day, for Craig, it’s about creating guilt free treats that feel very, very good. At Raeward Fresh, we think the way Craig has combined new Kiwi cool with outstanding flavour combos is sweet as indeed. We’re all for championing his new adventure in handcrafted goodness.

August 11, 2015March 15, 2020

Akaroa Salmon with Tom & Duncan Bates

Duncan Bates and his father Tom are classic farmers. They care for their stock, they love the land (and sea) and they have an innate ability to solve problems with very practical solutions. Farming is in their blood and therefore their hearts. In listening to their story, you get the sense that they have a deep affinity with the environment, something shows up in the final flavour of their produce – farming at it’s best.

Tom Bates was running sheep and cattle in Canterbury back in the early ’80s when he went on a fishing trip around Stewart Island. The salmon farm in the area intrigued him and his entrepreneurial side got to work doing research to map weather patterns, look for coastal shelter and locate nutrient flows. Tom was further motivated by the fact that land based farming was becoming more and more limited in NZ. Farms were becoming small, low-cost production units (storing and not finishing stock) for larger companies. Tom wanted to diversify and use the families farming skills in a new way. Duncan was just coming out of Uni (Agriculture) at the time and, in the same way that a farmer would identify good pasture, the two of them looked around the coast to see what would suit ocean farming. During the search, they found that Akaroa harbour was nicely protected from southerly winds but the marine infrastructure was in decline and being extremely underutilized. With an intelligent research base coupled with down to earth Kiwi sensibilities, Tom and Duncan formed a marine farming plan which they submitted to the local council.

After lots more learning and even more hard work, Tom and Duncan put 10,000 salmon hatchlings into their Akaraoa facility. The Stewart Island crew were developing a ‘salmon ranch’ just inland from the harbour where they would hatch salmon in the rivers and release them into the ocean, hoping they would follow their migratory path and return as fully wild salmon. They didn’t get the results they were hoping for but they did kindly give the Bates 10,000 hatchlings to start of with. A year later (1987), the council returned to see the development and granted them the second only salmon fishing license in the country at the time. Tom and Duncan had successfully translated their land farming skills to the sea.

Some of their carry-over farming skills can be seen in managing Akaroa Salmon’s growth. For instance, how do you split of pen of 10,000 hatchings as they grow to maturity? Tom and Duncan looked around to see what other salmon farms were doing as well as taking their own environment into consideration. Ingeniously, they ended up sewing a ‘V’ into the facility so that fish could swim into other pens in the harbour of their own accord as they grew. Another, this time land-based, approach they adapted to the sea was letting the animals live as naturally as possible. Duncan tells me that salmon want to be left alone and not managed too much, and also, that they need as much space as you can give them while eating feed that is the same as in the wild. Accordingly, Akaroa has fewer fish in their pens than most salmon farms and have developed a feed made of high quality fish. Tom and Duncan have created an organic space simply by being practical and paying attention to the ecosystem they farm in, finding systems that suit the environment. The results, in terms of flavour and quality are pretty amazing. Most farmed salmon have an oil content of around 30% and, while the omegas in salmon oil are really healthy, too much of it in a fish can leave an oily after taste and drown out the real flavour qualities. Wild Pacific Salmon in the U.S. West Coast comes in at around 11% oil content and Akaroa Pacific Salmon is 10%. Damn!

As small, specialized producers they decided to find a market connection that best suited their salmon. True to Tom’s love of people, he jumped in the car and started visiting chefs around the country. One of his first stops brought him to a young Simon Gault who was just starting out at the Auckland Viaduct. Simon said to send him some fish and if he liked it, he’d keep ordering – and if not, he’d simply send it back. He kept ordering, as did many other chefs around the country, who are now the primary buyers of Akaroa Salmon. You won’t find Tom and Duncan’s salmon in supermarkets and we feel privileged to have it at Raeward Fresh. Duncan’s criteria for our rare and special retail situation is that the fish is fresh as, meaning it comes out of the harbour and into the store in 24 hours and is ordered regularly to stay that fresh.

Akaroa has become a vertically integrated business by both ingenuity and necessity. They process 250 tons of salmon a year in such a way that it’s out of the harbour and into restaurants (or our store) within one day. They manage both the fresh and cool-storage chain to ensure speed and quality. Other salmon farmers in the country are doing around 7000 tons per year and, while the product is okay, you can really taste the difference in Akaroa’s artisanal approach. In the 26 years since they started, Duncan has taken over the salmon farm and Tom has sold the sheep and cattle business. They both brainstorm the management and development of the farm, just like they always have, but with a view to keeping the place as natural and as beneficial as possible. Their entire team embraces the story and are glad to keep it humming along.

I think the privilege for us as foodies today is that we get to enjoy the level of quality Akaroa is producing in our very own homes. Sure, some people have the skills and time to head out to sea to hook (or mates who will bring over) a fantastic fresh-caught catch, or they can could walk down to their local wharf and buy the catch of the day. For the rest of us however, I’m really glad Tom, Duncan & Co. have put their heart and farming skills into bringing such beautifully raised Pacific Salmon fresh to our tables.

Recipe: Akaroa Salmon with an Asian twist…

Ingredients:
Sauce:
2 x sachets of miso soup paste
2 x tbsp. soy sauce
2 x tbsp. brown sugar
2 x tbsp. sesame oil
2-3tbsp. warm water
Akaroa Salmon
Method:
• Heat oven to 180
• Whisk the ingredients to make your sauce
• Lay the Salmon fillets (or whole side) on baking paper in an oven dish and pour over the sauce.
• Bake for approx 10 mins or until the salmon is cooked through to your liking.
• Serve over rice with the remaining sauce drizzled over and some steamed bok choy.
Note: sauce is enough for 2- 3 portions, just double for more

August 5, 2015March 15, 2020

Fix & Fogg Peanut Butter with Roman & Andrea Jewell

I love how artisanal practices are being reapplied to today’s necessities. Artisan bread, jams, cheese, beer, chocolate (a necessity for me at least) are all enriching daily life. Somehow in the madness of mechanized food production – or maybe because of it – there emerged neo-pioneers who took food providence, flavour and lifestyle back into consideration and re-imagined a better staple. Thanks to the clever craft of Roman and Andrea Jewell, we can now also add Fix & Fogg Peanut Butter to the growing list of artisanal comebacks.

The Jewell’s have an interesting history which has already been well documented (check out the article in The Dominion Post) but what strikes me in particular is why they focused their formidable powers on the proper making of peanut butter – a peanut butter so extraordinary that, as an American, I’d have to say it’s the best I’ve ever had. EVER! There are a few reasons Fix & Fogg exists today. Both lawyers by trade, Roman in particular wanted to be able to step back at the end of each day and see something tangible, something beautifully made by his own hands. Roman tells me that while both Andrea and him have always loved peanut butter, they saw a gap between the rare ‘make-your-own-nut-butter’ options at the odd health food store (more prevalent in the U.S. than here in NZ) and the overly sweetened, salted and preservative-filled versions pumped out by large manufacturers. This gap called out to the couple who chose to take their inner foodie to the next level, by applying their analytical skills and intelligent creativity to the entire nut butter process.

The folks at Fix & Fogg love their job. Roman is stoked that his day now consists of roasting batches of the Runner Hi-Oleic peanut variety (high in monounsaturated fat = really heart healthy), getting the colour and flavour just right because the darker the roast, the tastier the peanut butter and the less salt needed in the product. He really enjoys hand sifting the crushed nuts to get the perfectly sized crunchy bits into Fix & Fogg’s “Crunchy” version (ideal for people like me who like their peanut butter stupendously crunchy!) Roman and fellow F&F’er, Tom Brooks, are also glad to innovate their way through the peanut-butter-making-day solving problems, such as when air bubbles appear in the jars (which they hand fill) which gets sorted out by repurposing one of those fat reducing bum wiggling machines into the newly commissioned Fix & Fogg Jar Oscillator. The finer details of making your own stuff really matters to Roman, like choosing ‘soft shoulder’ jars, so peanut butter doesn’t get annoyingly stuck inside the lip when you’re trying to extract the last delicious bits. And Andrea, who still practices law part-time, comes up with all kinds of kooky / awesome recipes to share on their Facebook page, at the markets they attend and at the Jewell breakfast table (see below).

Finally, Roman – whose business card now reads: “Master Grinder” – finds fulfillment in selecting certain stores around the country that intentionally sell small quantities (keeping the peanut butter fresh) to food enthusiasts throughout NZ. A strategy which he tells me consists of calling friends in, say, Queenstown, and asking where they go to buy the really good stuff. This is why you can now find this fine peanut butter, in “Smooth” or “Crunchy” variations at Raeward Fresh.

Like many of the local artisans the Raeward Fresh works with every day, the Jewells have looked conscientiously at their lifestyle and the food they consume and decided to simply make a better thing. You’d be surprised, I think, at all the things you can make with this one extraordinarily better peanut butter thing. To illustrate the point, I’ve been ‘researching’ various ways to appreciate Fix & Fogg’s efforts this week. So far, I’ve come up with:
• Fix & Fogg Quick Pud: a tbsp of F&F Crunchy, a tbsp of Dolce Leche (also at Raeward Fresh), a dash of raw cocoa nibs and a couple of spoonfuls of greek yogurt. Amazingly moor’ish.

• Fix & Fogg with Vipers Bugloss Honey: Simply dip your spoon in the honey, then into the F&F Crunchy jar… repeat… This means you can’t share the jar with others but, oh well.

• Fix & Fogg “Crunchy” banana toasty with Provisions Cherry Vanilla Jam: enough said.

• Fix & Fogg on Fruit toast: The European Bakery in Queenstown makes a lovely fig, apricot and walnut sourdough loaf which, when dashed with a bit of danish butter and good spread of F&F, comes alive in the morning before a hard day of food blogging.

• Fix & Fogg Quick Reeses Cup (sans the cup): A small piece of chocolate fudge nicked from the Glenorchy Trading Post (which makes the best fresh chocolate fudge in the region) and a teaspoon of F&F Smooth taken all at once or in nibbles of both fudge and peanut butter at a time.I could go on, and have been, but we’ll finish here with two recipes which Andrea kindly shared with us.

Fix & Fogg Winter Porridge
(serves 2)
1 cup ground oats
2 cups water
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 dessert spoon F&F peanut butter (smooth or super crunchy) + 2 teaspoons for topping
1 dessert spoon chia seeds
1 apple – 1/2 grated, 1/2 chopped
approx. 5 pitted dried dates – sliced
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
honey to taste• Combine oats and water in a pot and simmer over a medium heat.

• Just before the oats are fully puffed into porridge, stir in the remaining ingredients, reserving the chopped apple, some dates, chia seeds, and peanut butter.

• Divide into bowls and scatter with remaining ingredients. Enjoy on a cold winter’s morning!

Fix and Fogg peanut butter and ‘caramel’ slice

For the base:
1 cup raw hazelnuts
1 cup desiccated coconut
½ cup almond meal
½ cup Fix and Fogg Super Crunchy or Smooth Peanut Butter
100g unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
Agave, rice malt syrup, or honey – sweeten to tasteFor the ‘caramel’:
2 cups pitted dates
¼ cup Fix and Fogg Smooth Peanut Butter
¼ cup coconut cream
½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped
soaking water as needed
For the chocolate:
¼ cup coconut oil
¼ cup cacao butter
½ cup cacao or cocoa powder
Agave, rice malt syrup, or honey – sweeten to taste
• Start with a 20cm square tray.
• Soak the dates in warm water. Leave for at least 15 minutes while you prepare the base.
• Whiz up the nuts in a food processor until semi fine. Add the remaining base ingredients and whiz again to combine. Press into a lined and greased tray. Bake for 8-12 minutes at 160˚C until starting to turn golden. Remove and allow to cool completely.
• Drain dates, reserving the soaking water. Add dates to a food processor along with all other caramel ingredients, except for soaking water. Blend on high until dates are smooth. Add soaking water, 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixture is a smooth paste. Not too runny or it won’t set. Spoon mix on top of the nut base.
• Melt coconut oil and cacao butter in saucepan and then stir in the cacao/ cocoa powder, and sweetener if you need it. Pour over the caramel and refrigerate until set. Slice at room temperature, and then keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

July 10, 2015March 15, 2020

Cannonhill Gourmet with Tony & Karen Elliott

Tony & Karen Elliott are farmers market experts. Seems they’ve learned exactly what people want in say an aioli or chutney, by offering samples and selling small batches of their creations to discerning foodies before putting a proper label on a pottle. Starting off at the Riccarton Rotary Market, doing AMP shows and traveling around the South Island has given the Elliots the perfect feedback loop on which to base their budding business. The result of this ‘market research’ is now available at a Raeward Fresh store near you (if you’re in Christchurch or Queenstown) under the label of Cannonhill Gourmet.

Tony Elliot started off as a chef, working in NZ an Australia in places like Restaurant 41 in Sydney and Darling Street Thai. He followed his interest in Asian and Middle Eastern food before returning to NZ where he met Karen, who hails from Geraldine – also a growing food hub. The shift from working in a restaurant kitchen to running their own business happened up in Port Douglas where Tony was doing a stint and met a woman who made the most wonderful Thai curry pastes and blends for the local market. Seeing her follow her heart in this way reminded Tony of his childhood attempts at roadside fruit or lemonade stands and a passion buried for lack of parental encouragement. This time however, he decided to have a go with his grown-up cooking experiences.

The next step was to try out a few dishes at The Wild Food festival where Tony reckons they were the only stall to loose money. He thinks it could have been the hot beer soup and Maori bread served at the height of summer, but who’s to judge? The Elliotts persisted though and made a whopping $80 at the next market which gave just enough courage to beg, borrow and steal their way to each successive market until they got some steam going.

Tony has a good palette for taking inspirations from chef’s he’s worked with overseas (or cookbooks he’s enjoyed) and adapting them to a shifting kiwi tastebud. Products like Wasabi Mayo or Chili Hummus (the hummus was Karen’s suggestion) are the results of Tony tweaking foods he’s tried around the show and making them work using local ingredients and pairing well with dishes you might cook any day of the week. In fact, Cannonhill Gourmet’s website has a lot of great tips for matching their many products to your meals. For instance, their Saffron & Dill Mustard & Mayonnaise goes great with avocado, bacon and robust lettuce – a perfect sandwich in the making! Have a look for yourself and see what you can come up with.

If you follow this blog, you may notice a bit of a formula developing for these boutique suppliers of fantastic food creations. These micro manufacturers seem to be meeting the shifting desires of the New Zealand food landscape. A place where people would now consider using wasabi mayo in a salad dressing or over some baked salmon. People like Cannonhill Gourmet are:
• passionate about diverse food and experiences
• they source the best NZ has to offer in the way of ingredients
• they find a way to connect locally with people who appreciate their food
• they slowly expand to offer this local experience within the region or country
They remain grounded and well connected to their own suppliers and consistently offer an outstanding product thanks to their ingenuity and No 8 wire creative problem solving.

You can taste this entire process in the unique flavors and quality of their spreads and oils. We suggest you pop in to Raeward Fresh and get some of their rich Smoked Aioli to have with a your 3 Bean and Lamb salad (a recipe of their site, or try s bit of the Lemon & Passionfruit curd over your next pav.

3 Bean & Lamb Salad with Yoghurt Aioli

Tony & Karen kindly shared one of their recipes with us. Have a go and enjoy!
Time 20 min
Serves 4
Ingredients
300grms green beans
300grms butter beans
1 tin pre cooked haricot /cannelloni beans
½ red onion sliced thinly
Salt & Pepper
Juice of 2 lemons
4 Tbsp Olive oil

Lamb
Here you can use any lamb cut you like, rump, leg, loin, shoulder. The recipe for the slow roasted lamb leg would work well here.
4 spoons Cannon Hill Aioli
3 spoonfuls natural yoghurt
1 Tbsp chopped mint
Method
Blanch the beans in boiling salted water and refresh in cold water. Split the beans in ½ down the middle length ways and place in a bowl with the drained tinned beans. Season with salt and pepper, place in the shaved onion, Italian parsley, lemon juice and olive oil and gently mix together.
Mix the Cannon hill Aioli with the yoghurt and the chopped mint and place to one side.
On a plate in the middle place the bean salad top with the warm lamb and spoon on the dressing, serve.
works well with:
Cannon Hill Smoked Paprika Relish
Cannon Hill Baba Ganoush
Cannon Hill Tzatziki
Cannon Hill Hummus Range

June 9, 2015March 15, 2020

Leelands Lamb

It’s a real privilege to connect with the people who grow what we eat. Getting out to farmer’s markets or dealing directly with the suppliers of our meat, produce and dairy seems part of our cultural longing to move away from industrialized food. At Raeward Fresh Queenstown (formerly Mediterranean Market) it makes us happy to help shrink the distance between the regions best food producers and people eager to get closer to the source of what they cook every day.

Growing up on a farm in Southland, Raeward Fresh co-owner Angela and her four sisters instinctively knew what ‘farm to table’ meant. They enjoyed the buttery flavour of home grown and home-killed lamb as a staple part of their diet. It’s the kind of privilege that Director Niki Caro parodied in her brilliant Kiwi film Whale Rider, where the local kids bemoaned the fact that they had to eat lobster all the time – Angela was similarly spoiled with the extraordinary quality of lamb that New Zealand naturally produces. Being that close to the land she also knew exactly where the meat came from, what it was fed on, and how it was treated through the whole process. Today, it’s this same appreciation for home grown quality that she now brings to purchasing lamb (and everything else) for Raeward Fresh.

About 16 years ago, Angela met Bill and Sue French of Leelands Lamb. Angela was really impressed with Bill’s persistence at local farmer’s markets and loved the reminiscent flavour of his lamb. They’ve been working together ever since, and it’s not hard to see why. Bill’s a big guy, about 6’4″, with a killer handshake and a passion for the farm. This hard working, ex-rugby player (Drummond, Waimati, Lincoln, South Canterbury, Fielding, Central Pirates…), has a clear vision for producing export quality lamb and making it available to discerning chefs and foodies here in NZ. According to Bill, most of the top product heads straight overseas, making it very difficult for the average chef or food enthusiast to obtain high quality lamb that’s traceable, sustainably managed, and well cared for in the processing phase. Through Raeward Fresh, Angela and Bill have been able to make back-in-the-day quality meat an accessible everyday menu option for Queenstown locals.

While visiting their farm, I appreciated seeing how Bill and Sue embody their vision. Cooking up Panko crumbed thick flank steaks for our lunch, Sue explained how her lifestyle mirrors that of many of their customers. She has a passion for quality food but hasn’t got all day to cook. She runs a coffee cart business as one of four or five projects on the go (including helping to run Leelands) and her busy life requires that she uses amazing ingredients to create simple but memorable meals for her family. For his part, Bill (who was already into a bowl of Sue’s creamy pumpkin soup in anticipation of the main course) combines old-school farming techniques with an innovative approach to working with butchers and chefs so he can produce the perfect cut of meat for his family, or for the top chefs at Blanket Bay. Together, they run a down to earth business primed to meet 21st century Kiwi food culture.

Bill’s strategy to give New Zealander’s access to great lamb is straightforward.

Firstly, good quality meat must be traceable and well cared for. Bill’s out most days on the quad bike with his gentle collie Jess in tow, keeping track of where his flock are and how they’re doing. Leelands sheep graze on rich grassy pastures on the outskirts of Invercargill, well protected from wind, rain and the occasional snow by lovely groves of pine, birch and macrocarpa.
The farm must operate in a sustainable way. Bill only uses natural rock fertilizers and carefully manages the ratio of sheep to pasture so that the land flourishes alongside of the animals.
The best tasting meat has as much to do with animal welfare as anything else. The general practice is that sheep are often trucked for hours from the farm to the meat works. On top of this, the sheep may be off feed in the final days or stressed by dogs in the roundups. These experiences release a lactic acid which toughens the meat. It’s not necessarily cruel treatment, but it does effect the sheep, and therefore the resulting product. On Bill’s farm, the stress is kept to a minimum by keeping the dogs away in the final days. The sheep are well fed in their usual fields right up to the day they’re processed, which happens around the corner at the local abattoir.

Bill and Sue noticed years ago that most people come across a leg of lamb and think, “Too pricey and too much trouble to cook the whole thing”. They also met a lot of chefs who didn’t have the time to process a full leg and therefore weren’t always getting the best out of what they were buying. Angela and her team brought their retail and promotional expertise to the problem, helping Bill devise what he now calls “value added convenience cuts”. The “value added” comes from his butcher’s expertise at identifying super useful smaller cuts, from the leg or shoulder for example. “Convenience” happens as the cut is just the right size for a chef or home cook, who can now take that perfect thick flank mini-roast (which serves around 4 people) and slow cook it as is, or slice it into succulent steaks seared to perfection in minutes (see recipe below).

To create the special cuts Leelands is now known for, Bill’s long-term partners Richard, Les and Craig at Isla Bank Butchery age the meat for four days before butchering. Leelands’ Deb O’Kane then packages each cut, ensuring it travels to Raeward Fresh in perfect shape. The whole process, from farm to market, has been well considered resulting in an impressive offering in the Raeward Fresh meat section (and on Leelands web site if you’d like to buy a half or whole lamb).
(Sue kindly wrote out a list of Leelands unique cuts adding cooking suggestions for each one, you can find them by scrolling past the recipes)

For lamb dishes that only take a few minutes to prepare but draw a smile of down-home contentment, we’d like to share a couple of recipes we’ve cooked up this week – one on the farm down south with Sue, and next week we’ll post the other cooked at the shop’s Queenstown kitchen with Anne.

Panko Crumbed Thick Flank Lamb Steaks with Sue’s Slaw
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 Leelands Thick Flank Mini Roast (sliced into four steaks)
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
1 tablespoon coconut oil
season with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste, if you like

Method:
it’s this easy…
• Let the mini roast come to room temperature and slice evenly into four steaks.
• Press each steak into the Panko crumbs coating both sides and the edges
• Bring a cast iron (heavy-bottomed) pan to medium high heat and melt the coconut oil. Cook the steaks for 5 minutes on one side, then 3 on the other.
• Rest for 3-5 minutes before serving
• Enjoy eating your steaks straight up or, as Sue likes to do, add a drizzle of your favourite balsamic glaze.Sue’s Slaw
Simply throw together some thinly sliced cabbage, fennel bulb and red capsicum in a bowl. Drizzle in a little good quality extra virgin olive oil and a dash of white balsamic vinegar or lemon juice. Toss through half a cup of sunflower seeds and add salt and pepper to taste – and you have a crunchy side dish to perfectly complement your tender lamb steak.

Nutritional advice from Kim Malcolm – Coconut Oil – Yes it’s good for you!
Like many people today, Sue cooked her meat in coconut oil. We asked our nutritionist if this is actually a good idea. Here’s her response:

Coconut Oil is a saturated fat and YES it’s good for you! It is anti-bacterial, anti-microbial, and anti-inflammatory which means that it kills things that should not be hanging around in your body. Additionally, it’s a great immune booster as it helps the body to create the adrenal hormones it needs to fight stress naturally. Once coconut oil arrives in your liver, it boosts your metabolic rate because it uses up energy when consumed.

Another great benefit of using coconut oil for cooking is that it has a very high smoking point so it doesn’t convert to free radicals or become carcinogenic when you use it to cook at high temperatures.

At Raeward Fresh we love wild harvested Niugini Organics Coconut Oil. For those of us who don’t enjoy the taste of coconut but want all the benefits we recommend Blue Coconut Cooking Oil. Coconut Oil is great slathered across your toast, it’s superb for all kinds of baking, adding into soups and providing a tasty dimension to your smoothies. It’s flying off our shelves at the shop and we’re glad to see this super healthy oil put to such delicious use.

Sue’s advice regarding various lamb cuts and uses:
As a general rule, lamb should rest after cooking for at least 5 to 10 minutes depending on the weight of the cut – the larger the cut, the longer the rest period. Letting the lamb rest allows it to finish cooking with the residual heat left inside after removing it from the oven and delivers a perfect light pink colour. Long or slow cooked lamb will be the exception to this rule.

Sausage
Best fried in a cast iron pan. Sausages can also be baked in the oven – 10 minutes at 180˚C then turn the oven off and let the steam out, close the door again and leave for an additional 10 minutes. This will create a nice crispy skin.French Rack – approx. 4 kg’s – 8 ribs
Coat with Panko bread crumbs and place in a covered dish. Cook on a lower rack of a preheated oven at 180˚C for 15 minutes. Cook uncovered for an additional 10 to 15 minutes. To serve, slice into individual ribs or into small groups, depending on how many people the meal is for.Whole or 1/2 Shoulder Roast – approx. 1.5 to 6 kgs
As the shoulder is usually a rolled cut, it allows for a lovely stuffing of your choosing. These roasts are best slow cooked at around 150˚C for 2 to 4 hours depending on the size of the cut and colour you’re looking for.

*Eye Fillets – approx. 1/2 kg
The fillet is very tender and best when barely cooked through. Fry eye fillets with a little coconut oil over medium heat in a cast iron pan for 3 minutes on one side and 2 more minutes on the other (depending on how well done you like your lamb).

*Loin Fillets – approx. 2 kgs
Treat the same as the eye fillet, but since the cut is a bit thicker just cook it for a bit longer.

* Both fillet cuts are fabulous with a favourite salad or greens. You can also place them over a buttery couscous for a quick and delicious meal.

Boneless Tunnel Bone Leg – approx. 1.3 kgs
Since the bone has been removed you can knock off about 30 minutes from the cooking time. If you’re roasting the leg, 1 hour at 180˚C should be fine. You can fill the leg with a stuffing, or garlic and herbs such as thyme and rosemary.

Thick Flank Steaks
Similar to fillets, sear them well on both sides – no more than 5 to 7 minutes in a hot cast iron pan. This is a premium leg cut and on request can be left as a Thick Flank Mini Roast for other uses.

Thick Flank Mini Roast – approx. .85 kg
Sear in a really hot pan with some olive oil and then bake at 190˚C for 20 to 25 minutes. Let rest for about 5 minutes before serving. Searing does not make the meat more juicy – that depends on the quality and cut of the meat. What the searing does is to give a crunchy caramel coating to the meat that baking will not achieve.Leg Cuts
All lamb legs should be rested for a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes before slicing and serving.Bone in Leg – Chump on, approx. 2.9 kgs – Chump off, 2.3 kgs
The ultimate N.Z. roast. This can be cooked slowly in the oven at 110˚C for 5-6 hours or on a moderate heat (150˚C) for 2 1/2 hours. Both are wonderful, but the slow bake will have the meat falling off the bone while the moderate bake will produce a lovely pink meat that will carve well.

Danish Leg – 2.3 kgs
This is actually a shoulder cut and therefore at it’s best when cooked slowly (110˚C for 4 hours). Cooked in a moderate oven, it will take about 1 1/2 hours as the bone is out.

Mince – lean
Lamb mince is lean and very versatile. You can make Greek Moussaka’s or an Italian Lasagne, or French Rissoles. Lamb mince can also be used for an interesting twist on traditional Bolognese.

Butterfly Shoulder – 1.2 kgs
In this wonderful cut, the shoulder has been boned out and splayed. Great on the BBQ (around 15 minutes on each side over hot coals) or baked in the oven at 170˚C for 30 minutes and finished in a mud oven, pizza oven or back on the BBQ. Some people like to marinate the butterfly cut in yogurt and spices, then lay it open on an oven rack and let it drip into a tray of root vegetables roasting below.

Hind Shanks & Foreshank – .35 to .6 kgs
These cuts are at their best when slow cooked in a crock pot (or any slow cooker). Moroccan spices or some wine and broth pair with the flavour well. You can also place the shanks in a covered dish in a moderate oven (150˚C) for an hour or two until tender.

Diced
Diced lamb is perfect for curries, pies, or sliced a little thinner for pizza’s or tortillas. Once fried, you can also chop it up a little finer for fillings or salad toppings.

June 7, 2015March 15, 2020

Pure Coco with the Mclachlan Family

For many of our boutique suppliers, serendipity seems to play a key role in the development of their companies and products. It’s fascinating to observe how seemingly random life events may eventually pull together to form, say, an amazing coconut sugar, oil or raw cacao bar. As a customer walking through the isles of Raeward Fresh in Queenstown and choosing a jar of Pure Coco’s extra virgin coconut oil from the shelf, you’d ordinarily have no idea that entire family histories, the restoration of village communities and truckloads of Kiwi ingenuity all came together to create what you’re holding in your hand. However, if you use a bit of Pure Coco’s extra virgin oil on your brunch-time toast with avocado and pepper, or their outstanding coconut sugar in your afternoon coffee… and if you took the time to read their labels on the back while you did, you’d gain a glimpse into all that has gone into these gems in the market.

Here’s a bit of the back story:

Myles McLachlan grew up in Auckland, the son of parents who both grew up on the land (Picton for Dad and New Plymouth for Mum. This heritage informed the McLachlan family diet, which Myles reports was reasonably health conscious at around 80% natural / organic until his younger brother, Alexander, was diagnosed with lymphoma. At that point, the family decided to aid Alex’s recovery by going to a diet of 100% whole foods. In a silver lining to a very difficult time for the McLachlan family, the positive effects of their new diet set the stage for them to see the potential of future opportunities.

While Myles’ Mum has a nursing background, his Dad, John, is an engineer. When John was asked to complete the construction of a wood-chip mill on a remote Fijian island, which no one else was willing to finish, he not only took the job but did so well at it that the villagers from a nearby island asked if he would come over and help revitalize their work and community prospects too. These villagers, of an island of the Lau archipelago, had an abundant supply of coconuts and so John brought some of the products they were developing back home and sat them on the kitchen table to discuss possibilities. Being a tight knit family they called Myles, who had been working in restaurants around Melbourne, and together they researched all the benefits of extra virgin coconut oil. After a year of development, the family started Pure Coco and has since created over 12 products which utilise the agricultural output of this same village.

Myles and his family have all been through the village training on how to extract and produce extra virgin coconut oil giving them a grounded background in the product. They’ve taken this experience, and the phenomenal quality of their coconut oil, to the road in the form of food shows, chef demonstrations, displays at health food stores and, of course, farmers markets. They love educating people on the huge benefits of raw coconut products (from the low glycemic index of 35 and high mineral content of their coconut sugar, to the brain health aided by lauric acid found in coconut oil) and have used this as the basis for a well rounded marketing approach. I love it when companies market their products based on their helpful benefits for wellbeing instead of assumed status or an empty, branded-only coolness. Myles has focused his efforts on this healthful side of the company and is spreading the good news through Pure Coco’s web site which you can see here.

I know there are a few coconut oils kicking around out there, and a lot of them are great for basic cooking. What I really like about Pure Coco – what differentiates them from the pack, in my opinion – is the actual flavour of the oil straight up on toast or in a bulletproof coffee (see recipe below). Pure Coco’s oil really stands out if you like the flavour of coconut to come through in your food. Their flavour profile is amazingly rich and yet not overly pungent. Their coconut sugar was a bit of a revelation to me. With its low GI and high mineral content already being a plus, I was even more delighted to find this incredible new sweetener is diversely applicable across the range my (many) sweetness needs. It works well in coffee, mixed into banana breads or other home baking and, most importantly, seems to be the perfect compliment to my kettle popcorn (see recipe below). I haven’t tried their coconut flour yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing if this holds up well in baking too because many people I know are looking for good wheat flour alternatives. Myles tells me that you only need 1/3 of a cup of coconut flour to replace 1 cup of wheat flour, helping to balance the price diference. What I’m interested in is the unique flavour and structure of the coconut flour in, say, baking a friand or a light blueberry muffin.

I’m also really interested in finding a soy replacement and Pure Coco’s Liquid Aminos could be perfect. Soy as a monoculture scares the future out of me, and so I’m always on the lookout for diverse products such as this. Pure Coco’s Liquid Aminos range is made from a mix of coconut sap and sea salt, containing 17 amino acids and 0 msg. Pure Coco also produce a 100% raw, organic, fair trade, vegan friendly, all natural, un-refined coconut nectar which can be used to replace other sweeteners. I can’t overstate how great this is. With cane sugar coming in at 68 on the GI and coconut sugar (nectar or crystals) at just 35 – especially in the current nutritional climate when we’re seeing how excess sugar effects health negatively across the board – this is very COMFORTING news.

Speaking of comfort, on the cacao scene this time (oh chocolate…), Pure Coco also produce a great coconut / cacao nib which is completely raw and uses fair trade cacao (not cocoa). This makes a great nibbling snack or an interesting, textured, flavourful baking topping. Finally, Pure Coco’s raw cacao coconut bar is a powerful little on-the-go treat containing 47.5% raw cacao (makes for very good feelings), the rest being raw coconut milk, coconut oil and coconut flour. Of course, there are no nasty chems or GMO bits in Pure Coco’s lineup and the way they work with the world around them means we can all enjoy staying here ethically and sustainably a little bit longer. The McLachlan family has teamed up with Fijian families, and now Samoan families too, to bring us some of the best of their island worlds. I encourage you to grab a few Pure Coco products for your own test kitchen and share the love.

Recipe: “Bulletproof” Coconut Oil Latte

Get ready for a burst of flavour here. A ‘bulletproof’ coffee comes in a many forms, all of which can be super intense. Making a latte from the basic mix is a good introduction to this amazing drink.

Ingredients:
Either a double shot of espresso, or a half cup of French Press, or a Mokka (shown above) pour.
1 tbsp butter (Lewis Road Creamery is the best for this)
1 tbsp Pure Coco extra virgin coconut oil
warm milk (frothed)

Method:
• Extract your coffee as you normally would.
• add the butter and coconut oil and using a stick blender, give it a good whiz until completely blended and frothy
• Foam your warm milk (I have a screen plunger at home that I pump for around 20 seconds, works really well) and pour into the coffee blend.

Recipe: Coconut Kettle Popcorn

Typically, Kettle Corn is made with a mix of butter, salt and sugar in a rotating cast iron kettle. This method adds Pure Coco’s coconut oil to the mix making a deliciously unique popcorn. The sweet and salty mix is addictive.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil (peanut oil or rice bran oil will work too)
60g butter
50g Pure Coco coconut oil
1 tsp flaky sea salt
2 tbsp Pure Coco coconut sugar
1 cup of popping corn

Method:
There are a few things to keep in mind here. First, the pot. I’ve used a large wok or 4 litre soup pot, but you’ll need a good sized lid to cover either. I’ve also used a huge 10qt pot with an enamel coating which works pretty good. The best though, is a really large cast iron dutch oven or camping pot. The bigger the better. You gotta troll the garage sales and second hand shops for this black iron beauty. Secondly, you need to regulate the heat so it’s really hot at the beginning and less so towards the end. Sometimes I lift the pot above the heat as the popping dies down, sometimes I reduce the gas flame (if you have it). You’ll get used to your own gear once you see the state of your final popped corn and the bottom of your pot. You know you have it down when the kettle corn tastes great and nothing’s burnt on the bottom of the pot.

1. Place the cast iron pot on the stove top on high heat. Add the olive oil, butter, salt and coconut oil. When the butter is just about melted, add the corn.

2. Give the pot a bit of a stir to coat the corn and then add the coconut sugar. Don’t stir it again just yet as you want the corn to heat up a bit before the sugar starts to melt. Place the lid on the pot and wait until you hear the first kernels pop.

3. Using some heavy duty pot holders, pick up the pot with both hands and give
it a few circular movements. This will stir the sugar into the oils and coat the newly popping kernels. Place the pot back on the stovetop and repeat the swirling movements every 30 seconds as the corn keeps popping. This keeps the sugar from burning and continues to coat corn. You can also move the pot slowly around the burner to keep the heat distributing.

4. Once the popping dies down either reduce the flame a bit or lift the pot until just a few kernels pop over a 10 second period. Remove from the heat immediately. If you have a light enough pot, you can get a solid grip on the whole thing and turn it upside down (with the lid on!). This is tricky and risky but you’ll coat the popped corn with any remaining oils. Otherwise, take the lid off immediately and toss the popped corn in the pot using a forward then jerking up circular motion. This airs the popped corn and keeps anything from burning on the bottom. Cast iron retains a lot of heat so you’ll need to pour the kettle corn into a serving bowl as soon as you can. If you have a thinner bottomed pot, you can toss the corn for a minute and then eat it straight out of the pot.

Gift Hampers