About this time of year one of the most important dates on the Auckland culinary calendar comes up; the Auckland Food Show held at Greenlane.

As is tradition I went on the preview day with by business partner Ulrich and had a great time chatting with all the stall holders, tasting new foods, and learning how to pour a Stella Artois (and practicing drinking it of course).

If you are in Auckland then this is an event you don't want to miss. Please head along and you will be able to visit some of our brands who all have stands there; notably Equagold, Natures Country Gold, Lemon Fresh, and Wild Country Fine Foods. You won't get another opportunity to taste the varied offerings these brands have until this time next year! The show ends on Sunday so you've got two more days!

In the upcoming weeks I hope to bring you some more brands who I met at the food show . They all really grabbed my attention with their quality and uniqueness of product offering.

If you've had a great Food Show experience please let me know in the comments section below! And if you want a Zealand Foods stand there next year then let me know as well :)

My Dinner Party Lesson with Kitchen Central

A couple of weeks back I attended Auckland's latest culinary school for one of their Dinner Party lessons. They are called Kitchen Central - the school of culinary cool, and are located in Remuera, Auckland. Wendy McEntegart is the person to contact there if you are interested. I'll give a brief run down on their services at the bottom of this article.

Welcome:

I was invited along to the evening to take photos for Wendy, enjoy some great food, and learn about the school and how it all works so i could write about it for you.

As I walked in the door I was greeting by Wendy and taken into her family home which has been decked out in the best possible fashion for hosting dinner parties and creating culinary delicacies. I hadn't made it ten steps before a welcome cocktail was thrust into my hand are I met the other chef for the evening, Brent Matches. As the rest of the guests arrived the total in attendance got to 5, and Wendy tells me that she limits the dinner party classes to 6 or 7 maximum. Funnily enough I was the only male there other than the second chef!

Once the other guests had arrived we were served some welcome hor d'oeuvres of rare tuna crostini... which were excellent, and just the right thing to whet the taste buds for the courses to come.

Entree:

For the next hour or so Wendy and Brent took us through creating the entree and main courses, which were salmon with courgette fritters, and braised duck legs with lentils, witlof, and caramelised beetrrot. We all had some hands on time creating each component of the dishes and learnt how to do some great things and even had a brief "how to chop" lesson from the chef which put my knife skills to shame! As i was the only man in the house (other than the chef) I got the task of wringing out the grated courgette to remove all the moisture... and apparently I did such a great job they were even better than usual! It goes to show that even some so un-technical can make an impact. After this I got to make little balls of the courgette mixture for the fritters and seasoned the salmon.

Now that everything for the first course was prepared we got to cooking it... well mostly Brent got to cooking it and we watched. The salmon was placed on the hot pan (the right side down, which is skin side down I believe, and left to cook whilst we got to cooking the fritters. We all cooked some fritters ourselves, but the salmon was mostly left to the pro's. After everything was cooked we plated our own meals and learnt some of the skills of plating a meal to make it look fantastic. It really is quite simple to make a meal look great, it just takes a little basic know-how on what to  place on the plate and to keep quantities to a reasonable limit.

Now that the first course was plated we got to eating it. Yum! We we're served some great wine, Vidal Reserve Chardonnay, which perfectly matched the dish. I think this was one of the best salmon dishes I've ever had, and by far the best that had my hands in the creation of it.

Main Course:

A large amount of the prep for the main course had been lovingly done by Wendy the previous day, which thankfully didn't leave us with too much more left to do. There was a little bit of chopping to do, but all in all this was the easiest dish for me. The most fun part was cooking the duck legs and learning how they need to be cooked to preserve the taste and tenderness.There was quite a bit of stirring of the lentil broth which had to be done as it simmered for nearly an hour to reduce to the optimum consintincy. The mini potato gratins were fun to make as we placed thin slices of potato into a muffin tray with a couple of pours of cream over top.

Plating the main dish was relatively easy... plate the legs over each other on opposite angels to make a pyramid I recall being told. The taste was marvellous and we were again served with a great wine, this time a Bald Hills Pinot Noir. Conversation started to flow with everyone remarking on the quality of the food. Co-chef Brent even made up some recipes on the spot for the other guests who had a variety of ingredients in their freezers.

Dessert:

I was looking forward to dessert with trepidation as I do have a bit of a sweet tooth at times. We were tasked with making Crepe Suzette, and this was our most hands on dish of them all. We mixed the crepe mix to the perfect consistency, learning that it needs to be rested at least a half hour before being used (I never knew that!). One by one we poured the crepe mix in the crepe pan and cooked them to perfection, even flipping them with our hands like a pro!

Creating the sauce is something we left to the pros. It involved caramelising sugar and mixing in the fruit juice and zest to create some amazing smells and flavours. Once the sauce was ready we gently poached the crepes in the sauce and served them onto our plates. We topped this off with some ice-cream at the table and sat down to enjoy our final course. To top it off we were served our third wine of the evening, a Ted Nobel Savignon Blanc 2008. Extra yum!

Conclusion:

If you are looking for a different night out from a restaurant then I can highly recommend a night with Wendy and Kitchen Central Cooking School. The meals are restaurant quality, the wine is flowing, and you get to take part in the creation of every aspect of the meal.

Wendy gives you detailed instructions to take home with you so you can recreate your dinner party at home. Wendy has kindly allowed me to share the recipes with you.

You can download the recipes from my evening here.

Quotes from the evening:

"A very special experience being welcomed into Wendy's house."

"I've been inspired!"

"Best duck I've ever had."

Kitchen Central

Kitchen Central offers all types of culinary courses, from basic cooking and knife skills to the more advanced dinner party lessons which I attended. The prices are more than reasonable and Wendy keeps class sizes small so that everyone gets the most attention possible.

For more information and to book lessons get in touch with Wendy via her website here.

Divinity Olive Oils wins GOLD at the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil awards.

Thanks for all your support so far and please keep telling your friends all about us. Please continue to send me your feedback, queries, and comments. I love constructive criticism so if you think we can do things better for you then let me know!

Happy Eating and Have Fun

Paul