Many of us don't often bother sitting down at a table to eat with others, but Selaks roast day on Sunday is the perfect excuse to invite family and friends to an old-fashioned roast dinner - or one with a modern twist.
From simple roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, gravy and roast vegetables or roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and horseradish sauce, to Moroccan spiced roast chicken, a quick Thai roast beef, or a vegetarian stuffed roast pumpkin, there are many options.
The Auckland-based wine company Selaks decided to dedicate a day in ''honour of the humble New Zealand roast'' in 2010, but it's no longer necessarily humble. The theme this year is ethnic diversity - roast flavours from around the world.
This year's chef, Nici Wickes, presenter of the television show World Kitchen and author of Cook Eat Enjoy, has developed roast recipes with exotic flavours, for both fast and slow cooking.
''We've always been a multicultural nation and are becoming more and more so,'' she said in a phone interview from Auckland.
''It's time to bring some of that into the old roast dinner. What I've tried to do in my books and television show is to make it accessible without dumbing it down and I also wanted people to find the recipes approachable - for instance the roast salmon.
"It's fast, and believe it or not, the skin of the salmon really starts to caramelise. It gets sticky and fabulous and I throw in some currants and they imbue it with that tart sweetness.
"I think people will find that sort of thing easy but hopefully perhaps a bit more interesting than they've been doing.''
Although she hasn't included a vegetarian roast in the six recipes on the Selaks roast day website, she says she'd roast a pumpkin for a vegetarian dinner.
''I would take some of those beautiful Middle Eastern flavours like currants and pine nuts and couscous or rice, and render down some peppers, stuff a pumpkin and maybe pop in a pinch of cumin and cinnamon and preserved lemon.''
In those days chicken was a special treat and one chicken would feed a family of seven as only a quarter or fifth of the plate was taken up by meat. Now we tend to overdo the meat and serve a quarter of a chicken to each person.
Wickes has been fascinated by food and cooking since she was a little girl, and learned to cook with her mother and grandmother.
Although she'd already been doing small-scale catering, she trained as a chef when she was in her 30s.
However, after graduating she decided she didn't want to work in a restaurant as that would have changed food from a hobby to a tough job.
Instead, she returned to the corporate world for a few years and only later started tutoring cooking classes and set up a school holiday cooking
''I would take up to 16 kids and they would learn to cook things like Balinese curry, pizza from scratch including the dough, and creme brulee - things that were delicious.
"On the last night we'd sell tickets and the community would come - usually about 70 people - and we'd turn the hall into this big bustling restaurant.''
Once she'd committed to bringing cooking education more into her life, she was offered an audition for World Kitchen and other things started to fall into place, such as writing for the Herald, and writing cookbooks, she said.
Serves 4
By wrapping salmon fillets in baking paper before roasting them, you ensure that the fish is moist and flavoursome when cooked. The combination of salmon with the sweet-tart flavour of currants, the creaminess of pine nuts and a hit of lemon zest is truly delicious.
Ingredients
4 200g salmon fillets, skin on or off, bones removed
4 Tbsp currants
4 Tbsp pine nuts
zest of one lemon
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
olive oil for drizzling
sea salt
Method
Preheat oven to 200degC.
Cut four 30x30cm squares of baking paper. Place one salmon fillet in the centre of each piece of paper, then sprinkle the currants, pine nuts, lemon zest, parsley and olive oil over the top. Lastly add a pinch of salt.
Make neat sealed parcels by folding the top and bottom edges of the paper together, folding over a few times until the paper is fitting snugly around the salmon, then tucking in the ends of the paper to make a sealed parcel.
Lay parcels on a baking tray and bake for 15-20min until cooked through. Leave to rest while to you put the finishing touches on the side dishes.
Wine match: Chardonnay
Smashed potatoes with feta and dill
Serves 4
Ingredients
6-8 potatoes, peeled, cut into chunks (use potatoes good for mashing)
½ tsp salt
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup cream
150g feta, in small chunks
2 Tbsp fresh dill
juice of one lemon
Method
Boil the potatoes in salted water until they are rough around the edges and nearly falling apart - 20-30min. Drain potatoes and return to the pot.
Add the olive oil and cream to the potatoes and mash with a fork or wooden spoon until roughly smashed up.
Mix through the chunks of feta, dill and lemon juice, and mash some more until you have chunky mashed potatoes.
Taste for seasoning and add more olive oil, salt or lemon juice as required. You want these to have lots of flavour!
Slow-roasted tomatoes
Ingredients
6-8 small-medium tomatoes - on the vine if possible
½ tsp salt
dash of olive oil
ground black pepper
Method
Let's be honest, tomatoes are never at their best during winter but here's a great idea to encourage the flavour from them during the cooler months.
Preheat oven to 160degC.
Place the tomatoes on a baking tray lined with baking paper with the edges turned up (to catch the juices). Sprinkle with salt, pepper and oil. Bake for 30min near the top of the oven.
They will burst open, deepen in colour and taste delicious.
Serves 4-6
What could be better than a perfectly roasted chicken imbued with the fantastically aromatic spices from Morocco? This is a simple and easy roast and, paired with couscous and a fresh carrot salad, will take your taste buds on a magical journey.
Ingredients
1 whole chicken (buy the best quality you can afford)
1½ tsp cinnamon
1 heaped tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 heaped tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp each salt and pepper
½ preserved lemon, flesh and pith removed, roughly chopped
¼ cup olive oil
1 cup pitted prunes, roughly chopped
2 medium red onions, peeled and sliced
olive oil
1.5 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 Tbsp honey
Method
Preheat oven to 200degC.
Prepare the chicken by patting it dry inside and out and removing any excess fat from the cavity opening and tail end.
In a small bowl, combine the dry spices (cinnamon, coriander, cumin, ginger, salt and pepper), preserved lemon and oil and mix to a paste. Add the prunes.
Ease the skin of each breast away from the flesh, without tearing it. Using a spoon, or your hands, tuck about 2-3 Tbsp of the spice and prune mix under each side, pushing it down until the area is full. No need to get too fussy.
The remaining mixture can be packed into the main cavity and then, while there's no need to fully truss the chook, I do recommend securing the legs together, with either string, toothpicks or skewers, to aid in even cooking and so that the spice mix doesn't fall out.
Scatter the sliced red onions into a roasting dish, or ovenproof casserole dish and place the chicken on top.
Mix together the stock, honey and a slug of olive oil and pour this around the chicken. Cover with tinfoil or the casserole dish lid and cook for one hour.
Remove the cover, reduce the temperature to 180degC and cook for a further 20-30 min or until the chicken is cooked through and dark golden on top.
Before serving, baste the chicken well with the juices. Serve on a bed of couscous with the pan juices drizzled over.
Wine match: Merlot cabernet
Fluffy comforting couscous
Serves 4-6
The trick to making great-tasting couscous is to use a decent stock and make sure you steam it more than boil it to end up with a glorious pile of the fluffy, light grains. It is an ideal dish to soak up the lovely juices from the roasting pan.
Ingredients
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups stock (or 2 cups water simmered for 15 minutes with cut onion, half carrot, stick of celery, a bay leaf, tsp salt and pepper)
1 cup uncooked couscous
¼ tsp salt
dash of olive oil
fresh parsley to garnish, roughly chopped (optional)
Method
Heat the stock until a rolling boil, then reduce to a simmer.
Add the couscous in a steady stream and stir to ensure that it doesn't clump. Put the lid on, turn the heat off and allow to sit for 10-15 minutes, enough time for the grains to fully absorb the stock.
Lift the lid, and fluff the couscous gently with a fork and add a splash of olive oil.
Transfer to an ovenproof serving dish, cover with foil and bake at 160degC for a further 15 minutes. This extra steaming step allows the grains to become truly light and fluffy and vastly improves the texture.
Transfer to a serving dish, add the parsley if desired and serve immediately.
Ribboned carrot, orange and pine nut salad
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
4 carrots
2 oranges
½ cup toasted pine nuts
3 tablespoons olive oil
juice of one lemon
Method
Peel the carrots and ribbon with a peeler (save the leftovers for stock) until you have a big pile of ribbons. Transfer to a large bowl and, with your hands, roughly scrunch and squeeze the carrot ribbons. This breaks them down to ensure they will absorb the dressing and other flavours.
Peel the oranges with a small paring knife, removing all pith, then cut into small chunks. Add this, and the juice that will be all over your chopping board, to the carrots.
Dry-toast the pine nuts in a pan until light golden. Watch them closely as they will burn quickly. Add these to the salad, along with the olive oil and lemon juice.
Toss well, taste (check for balance of flavours and add more oil/lemon if required) and set aside until ready to serve.
Learn more
• For more information and a free e-book of recipes, visit www.selaksnzroastday.co.nz.
