I went to the Wellington Food Show in the weekend and to be honest I was a little under-impressed. I admit that it was the last day, so all the stall owners were tired of people coming and grabbing all the samples they could, not buying anything and then dashing off to the next stall.
There were some nice stalls (Shott’s syrups and Lemon Z being my favourites) and some awful stalls—think infomercial-esque people showing off vacuum cleaners with a Madonna microphone headset on.
The best part about the entire thing was the Donna Hay cooking show. I have watched a lot of cooking shows so it was quite cool to actually finally see one in the flesh.
Ms Hay made the following things: Zucchini and Mint Pasta, a Flourless Chocolate Cake, Pancetta Baked Eggs and Lemon-baked Chicken.
My favourite was probably the Pancetta Baked Eggs because the recipe basically makes you little bacon and egg pies without using pastry. The best ‘food-stylist’ trick I learnt was how to twirl spaghetti onto a plate so it looks like spaghetti looks like in food magazines: essentially you turn the serving plate while at the same time lowering the spaghetti on—this way it piles up into a glamorous swirl.
I strongly recommend Donna Hay cookbooks. I have her basic baking one (Modern Classics Book 2) at home. It has a zillion simple recipes for yummy things to make. Unfortunately I cannot reproduce the recipe here, but the Pancetta Baked Eggs got me thinking about how lovely eggs are. It is often hard to get simple egg recipes right—in particular to make sure they do not burn or overcook. I watched on Food TV once a most excellent way of making scrambled eggs so that they do not get too dry. I’ve tried it a number of times and it works really well.
Ingredients:
2–3 eggs per person Scant 1/4 cup of milk per 3 eggs (less is more with scrambled eggs, you don’t want them too watery) Salt and pepper to season
Boil a pot of water on the stove. Over the pot place a heat-proof glass bowl (Pyrex is good). Whisk the eggs, milk and salt and pepper together. Place over the double boiler you have now created. Stir occasionally and only take off the heat when the eggs look all lovely and creamy and like proper scrambled eggs (10-15 minutes). This is a great way to cook scrambled eggs so that they do not get too dried out. It also means you can bustle about the kitchen without worrying about things burning, because the eggs are not over a direct flame. Serve on wholegrain buttered toast with some crispy bacon on the side. Yum!