You hear it and see it so often. From the outright slanderous attack to damn with faint praise. You hear it from citizens of the world comfortable in their trendy fusion food moverments but also from the British themselves. British food is terrible. Or that is what we are all meant to think. Recently someone…

Its high summer which means tomatoes are cheap which means its time to make tomato sauce. I make a few varients, some using the smoker to add some earthy tang to proceedings. This one however plays on the flavours of a good Pico de Gallo Salsa. I call it Salsa Sauce but I suppose its…

Back in November I turned 40. To mark the occasion I threw a party in our barrel cellar . I did all the food and we had a feast. I cranked up the SnW offset smoker. Somewhat surprisingly the dish that left the biggest impression on people was the vegan BBQ main. Inspiration for this…

This recipe is mainly based on Nigella Lawson’s boiled chocolate fruit cake recipe. I have been making it every Christmas for about a decade and a few tweaks and changes have crept in. The most important method wise is i have moved to ‘boiling’ or ‘simmering’ the fruit , booze, butter and sugar in a…

This dish takes inspiration from the spicy boiled Collard Greens dishes of the American South. Kale and spinach are simmered in a hearty broth flavoured with smoked pork, chilli, herbs and a generous dose of garlic. You can of course serve this as a side to BBQ brisket or pork shoulder , or with roast…

I love brisket , I get a regular supply of BBQ brisket at work and usually will pick up brisket if I see it and pop it in the freezer. I do sometimes do brisket in the smoker however this recipe is a different take on cooking brisket combining the slow cooking in beer of…

Some years ago I picked up the technique of unlinking sausages and roasting them in a spiral from Jamie Oliver. Its a super easy way of making an impressive , hearty centrepiece for a meal without breaking the bank. Here I have combined it with a potato and leek bake and roasted the sausage over…

Its amazing how fast things change. It is only my grandparents time when animal fats were almost all that was used in British and NZ cookery. I have recently been trying a lot of old English recipes, utilising a pudding basin I recently purchased for many of them. We have a lot of citrus in…

Its probably clear from the recipes on here that I love traditional British cookery. Pork Pie sits very high on my list of favourite foods. I was once bought Pie by Angela Boggiano by someone special and it is one of my most used cookery books. I’m not offering up any wisdom on making pork…

I grew up in a family where my father was atheist and my mother was a non practising Anglican, however the census didn’t have a space to tick our true religion for we were raised in the way of Coro. Watching Coronation Street was a binding family experience and the politics of how far behind…