Auckland Museum blog

Jaqueline here from Savour and Devour. At this weekend’s World on Your Plate, I will be cooking three dishes for you to try: peixe moqueado, acarajé tradicional and sagu. Here is my recipe for peixe moqueado, a dish that originates from the Brazilian state of Amazonas.

Peixe Moqueado (serves 4)
Fish: nice white fish, cut into large pieces not fillets.
Marinate in: fresh lemon juice, white ground pepper (just a sprinkle) and bay leaves. {reserve}
Meanwhile make the sauce
1/2 kilo very ripe tomatoes (skinned/ peeled, seeds in)
1 stalk of celery diced
1 tsp crushed garlic
Olive oil
200 ml of good quality coconut cream
Freshly chopped coriander
Sprinkle brown sugar
Salt & pepper

Method
In a pot fry the onion, garlic, celery till soft. Add diced tomatoes with the seed and keep stirring it in a medium to low heat then back to low heat. Cook for about 20 minutes then add the sugar, salt an pepper. {reserve}
In a frying pan heat 2 tbsp of olive oil + 1/2 tsp crushed garlic and the fish, fry both sides slightly, not until brown, just to create a nice coat around the fish, add sufficient sauce to cover the fish together with the coconut cream. Adjust salt and pepper, add fresh coriander and its done!
Serve with long grain basmati or jasmine rice.

It is 31 years since I left The Netherlands and in 1979 when we arrived here you literally could not buy anything remotely similar to traditional Dutch food. Now you buy anything you can over there. There are large supermarket chains that have overseas delicatessens, there are Dutch shops around Auckland, one in Bulls, one in Foxton which now also has a traditional Dutch-style windmill.

The things we like and missed were patat met mayonnaise (chips with mayonnaise), zuur kool (sauerkraut/cabbage), boeren kool (farmers cabbage), frikandel (a sausage or frank), pannekoeken (pan cakes) and kroketten (croquettes)

It does not matter how long one is in New Zealand and we love the unique foods here, you always have that craving for some traditional foods but it is also magic to enjoy the food from many cultures.

I hope you will be here on Saturday to enjoy another traditional Dutch treat: Poffertjes (fluffy baby pancakes – pictured right) which will be prepared by Willem van der Velde of the restaurant Dutch Delights. I have included his recipe below:

Dutch poffertjes (fluffy baby pancakes)

Ingredients:

500 grams self raising flour (buckwheat is even better)

1 litre milk

2 eggs

2 tablespoons of oil

Pinch of salt

50 ml vanilla essence

Mix all the ingredients together, except the oil, until you have a nice smooth thick liquid. Warm the poffertjes pan (a non-stick pan for baking pancakes) and brush some butter, or spray the oil, into all the cups in the pan.

Put the poffertjes mix in a squeeze bottle and squeeze the mix into all the cups. Cook until they’re golden brown on both sides and be sure that the inside of the poffertjes are cooked through. Place the poffertjes on a warm plate, put some butter in the middle of the plate, and liberally sprinkle some icing sugar at the top of them.

While there is honey in Every Flower, no doubt
It takes a Bee to get the Honey out
A poet’s proverbs by Arthur Guiterman (1924)

Bees symbolise industry and persistence. In that way they can be compared with what we observe of Library users. Usually we see them as industrious pursuers of knowledge. What we do not observe until much later is the rich sweet product – the thesis, the book, the article, the television series, the exhibition.

Our Museum Library is one such beehive. And the honey produced by our researchers comes in flavours of local and natural history, genealogy, anthropology, art, medicine and more.

We are mostly familiar with the honey and bumble bees (the social bees), but did you realise there are at least 28 native bee species?

We have been farming bees in New Zealand from at least the early 1840s. Missionary William Charles Cotton wrote A manual for New Zealand bee keepers in 1848 and in the following year it was published in Maori as Ko nga pi.

Another missionary, Richard Taylor, noted 60 hives at the Paihia mission station in 1848. These had been created by Mrs Williams and she gave Taylor one to take one back to Wanganui. He describes the reaction of a local Maori mission teacher in his journal held in the Museum Library’s manuscript collection.

Here is a small selection of honey oriented recipes from New Zealand cookbooks, which I found when preparing for a recent Library tour for Kai to Pie. You will be brave to attempt the first 120 year old recipe for Honey Wine, but the Honey-Ginger cookies sound very pleasant.

Discovering Library resources using bees as a key

Honey Wine [1891]

To 10 gallons of water put 10lb of honey and 1/4 lb of good hops, boil for 1 hour, and when cooled to the warmth of new milk, ferment with yeast spread on toast. Let it stand in a tub for 2 days, then put it into a cask. It will be fit to bottle in 9 months. Honey a year old is better for the purpose than new.

from: The New Zealand cookery book and colonial household guide, compiled to suit New Zealand by a Colonial (1891)

Pear and Honey Compote [1952]

Serves 3-4

Ingredients: Pears; lemon; honey; golden syrup; arrowroot; raisins; nuts

Step (1) Halve and core 1 lb pears – they need not be peeled. Cook in ¾ cup water until soft. Add the juice and grated rind of 1 small lemon. If the stems of the pears are added while cooking, the flavour is improved – but remove them before serving.

(2) Lift pears out with a slotted spoon and place in a dish. To the syrup in the saucepan add 1½ tablesp. Honey and 1 tablesp. Golden syrup. Mix 1 ½ level teasp. Arrowroot with about 2 teasp. Water and stir in. Cook, stirring constantly, until slightly thick. Taste and add more honey if not sweet enough.

(3) Pour over the pears in the dish. Fill the hollows with raisins and chopped nuts.

from: The hostess cook book by Helen M Cox (1952). Helen Cox was a popular New Zealand broadcaster and who worked during the war as a cookery demonstrator for Auckland Electric Power Board.

Honey Fruit Salad [1964]

Quantities for 4.
4oz honey (4 Tbs)
½ Tbs lemon juice
¼ pint water (½ cup)

Dissolve the honey in the water and add the lemon juice.

8oz dessert apples (2 medium)
2oz chopped walnuts (¼ cup)
4oz chopped dates (½ cup)

Peel and core the apples and cut into small dice. Add to the syrup at once. Add the dates and nuts and mix well. Chill before serving.

from: Pears family cookbook by Bee Nilson (1964). Mrs A R (Bee) Nilson was born and trained in New Zealand. She moved to England in 1936 and in 1964 was Senior Lecturer in nutrition at the Northern Polytechnic, London.

Honey-Ginger Cookies [1968]

4oz butter
½ cup honey
½ sugar
1 egg
1 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon ground ginger
½ cup chopped walnuts

Melt the butter and allow it to cool. Stir into the butter the honey, sugar and lightly beaten egg.

Sift the flour, baking powder and ginger into the honey mixture.

Stir in the nuts and mix thoroughly.

Drop in spoonfuls onto a greased oven tray, allowing space for spreading.

Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen.

from: Tui Flower’s cookbook by Tui Flower (1968)

Honey Buttered Beets [1974]

M McLew, Kennington

Serves: 4

2 cups cooked diced beetroot
1 cup beetroot juice
2-3 tablespoons honey
1½ teaspoons cornflour
2 tablespoons lemon juice or vinegar
1½ teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons butter

Heat beetroot and juice thoroughly.

Add honey. Blend cornflour and lemon juice to a smooth paste.

Add to the beetroot with salt and butter. Simmer for five minutes.

Serve as accompaniment to cold roast lamb, silverside, pickled pork or ham salads.

from: The N Z radio and television cookbook by Alison Holst (1974)

Enjoy!

These fried, crispy savouries are most often served as appetizers or snacks. See recipe below.

These popular, mouth-watering snacks originated in India.  The fried, crispy savouries are most often served as appetizers or snacks.  My earliest memories of food are about pakoras. As with most Indian family celebrations, everything revolves around the food, from planning to preparing to cooking (remember the samosa production line in Bend it Like Beckham?).

Our family shared many special occasions with my Aunty Amaro’s family in the small Waikato town of Ngaruawahia.  Every festivity I can remember  whilst growing up (dinners, weddings, birthday parties, Diwalli, Christmas and New Years days) – featured the pakora.

Arriving at my aunt’s house, the delicious aroma of pakoras being freshly prepared wafted from the kitchen. Kids were promptly propped up at the table and served drinks while the adults enjoyed copious cups of cha (tea). There were always enough pakoras to fill a rather large roasting dish so they were freely consumed by all, and astonishingly, we seemed to still have room for the Indian sweets that followed like burfi, ladoo and besan that my mum was good at making.

Food often provides that important connection with “home”. My mum and aunt went to extraordinary lengths to replicate dishes and sauces from India and ‘made do’ with the available ingredients from IGA, 4 Square and then later the local supermarket.

In India the usual accompaniment for pakoras is tamarind sauce but it wasn’t readily available in New Zealand during the ’70s.   Our neighbour gave my dad a “handed down family recipe”, which he used to make a great homemade (spicy) tomato sauce and it became the replacement for tamarind sauce (imli) in our wider family.  To this day…even though tamarind pulp may be found in many shops to make the sauce …it’s kiwi tomato sauce I reach for first when I’ve got a plate of pakoras in front of me!

Back to the present day…depending on where you live there are many pakora variations such as macchi pakora (fish), paneer pakora (cheese), gobi pakora (cauliflower) and even bread pakoras.  The most popular in our family is the vegetable pakora.  I share with you my own kiwi-style recipe for vegetable pakoras, which I cooked this week for my workmates at the Museum to celebrate World on Your Plate.

Vegetable Pakoras

1 large onion
2 large potatoes
1 bunch silverbeet
1 cup frozen peas
700 grams chickpea flour (also known as chana flour or gram flour)
1 level tsp baking powder
2 litres Canola or Olive Oil

Spices
4 tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala
2.5 tsp ground coriander (or you can use hara dhanya- Green coriander)
2.5 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp chilli powder
1 tsp curry powder

Finely slice the onions and potatoes.  Shred the silverbeet.  Place all the vegetables in a large bowl and add flour and baking powder.  Use enough warm water to make a very thick batter.
Add spices and mix well.
Heat oil in deep pot or fryer.  When oil is hot drop large spoonfuls of the pakora batter into the oil.   Don’t overload the pot or they will stick together as they cook. Deep fry for a few minutes, then turn over to cook evenly.
Fry until a deep golden brown.  Remove with a slotted spoon let cool on paper towels to drain excess oil.
Serve while hot with tamarind sauce, yoghurt or tomato sauce.  Pakoras can be kept in the warming drawer until ready to eat.  If reheating from cold best to use the oven rather than microwave.
Serves about 8-10 people.

Maua ko pou whakarae

“He Whare tu ki te pae he kai na te ahi. He whare tu ki te tuwatawata koira kee te tohu o te rangatira!”

Ko Syd Kirby taku ingoa, no Te Whakatohea ahau, he kaimahi ahau ki Tamaki paenga Hira. Ko tenei pou whakarae tetahi o nga tino taonga e rata ana ahau ki tenei whare taonga. I nga raa o mua he poupou tenei no tetahi paa tuwatawata I tu ki Opotiki mai tawhiti. Koinei tetahi taonga nui ki ahau ta te mea I ahu mai tenei poupou mai I toku rohe I te tairawhiti.

“The unpallisaded fort is food for the fire, the pallisaded fort is truly the sign of chieftainship!”

My name is Syd Kirby, I hail from Te Whakatohea an east Coast tribe. I work here at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. This carved pillar is a carving that is important to me here at the museum. In former times this post was part of the fortified paa at Opitiki. This taonga is a treasure because it comes from my hometown on the East Coast.

Pai varaipani

Ma’ara here, Pacific Educator at Auckland Museum. This Saturday at World on Your Plate, you will have a chance to taste Pai varaipani (Fried sweet banana pie).

Pai varaipani is a traditional Cook Islands food which in European terms may be categorised as a dessert. It is made from very ripe bananas (Musa sp) mixed with arrowroot / cassava (Manihot esculenta) starch.

The two are mixed well and then fried (like a pan cake) for some 6 minutes. It is common for Cook Islands food to be eaten straight from the hand

Ingredients

(makes three servings)

10 x very ripe bananas

Half cup arrowroot starch

Water

Olive oil

Procedure

Skin the large bananas and place in a bowl. Mash well.  To the mashed bananas add half cup arrowroot starch and 1 tablespoon water. Mix well

Scoop 1 cup of the mixture and place into heated frying pan. Flatten out and cook for about 2-3 minutes. Turnover and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Once golden brown in colour you know it is cooked. Scoop onto a plate and enjoy.  Option: Serve with sliced bananas.