• register
  • log in
  • shopping list
  • home
  • recipes
    • recipe categories
    • recipe collections
    • reader recipes
  • kitchen tips
    • how to
    • glossary
    • ask peter
  • hot topics
    • features
    • wellbeing
    • in season
    • what's on
    • wine
  • videos
    • features
  • win
  • meal planners

Bite

Recipes

  • home
  • recipes
    • recipe categories
    • recipe collections
    • reader recipes
    • Have a recipe that you'd like to share on Bite?

      Add your own recipe
  • kitchen tips
    • how to
    • glossary
    • ask peter
  • Hot Topics
    • features
    • wellbeing
    • in season
    • what's on
    • wine
  • Videos
  • win
  • meal planners
Register Log in
Menu
Home > In season > Produce report: January 22

Produce report: January 22

Suzanne Dale

Bite

22/1/2018
Produce report: January 22

It’s dream time out there in the produce aisle. Quality is great across the board and for once we won’t be grizzling about cost (well, we won’t unless we crave pricey pumpkin and maybe kumara too). Small blips, there’s loads more fruit and veg to enjoy instead.

Capsicums and sweetcorn are must-haves now and cucumbers are plentiful too – they were 50 cents each at the Avondale market at the weekend. While you are scouring the stalls, look out for cheaper chillies, bright new-season radishes and local snow peas, alongside healthy mounds of snake beans. And it’s time to buy up or pick plenty of tomatoes, preserving some in chutneys and sauces. See Jan Bilton’s relish recipe here.

Those tomatoes make great confit too. As Warren Elwin says, slow-roasting them in good olive oil concentrates their sweetness and renders them wickedly flavourful additions to salads and sandwiches, soups, stews and sauces. Plus there’s the flavoured oil to add to cooked dishes and dressings.

Tomato confit

tomato-confit-inline.jpg

Get the recipe

Warren piles the sweet confit tomatoes on to toasted bagels which have been spread with goat’s cheese or crème fraiche, spiked with a little lemon zest and horseradish. To serve, he sprinkles them with a little fresh chervil or dill and a squeeze of lemon. Lovely for a fresh-tasting summery lunch.

Confit tomato bagel

confit-tomato-bagel-inline.jpg

Get the recipe

Remember to store tomatoes at room temperature — if kept under 12C the flavour and aroma will be affected which is why chilled ones are often bland and mealy. Instead, leave them (in a single layer if you can) stem side down, somewhere out of the sun.

It’s time, too, to drag out those eggplant parmigiana and baba ghanoush recipes earmarked in winter — summer’s bountiful days are here right now and eggplants are another very good buy. Eggplant parm aside, try Ray’s version of Italy’s melanzane sott’olio (eggplant preserved under oil). Stored in the fridge, it can be served as an antipasto or with chicken and fish. The leftover oil, like that in the tomato confit above, can be used for cooking, drizzled over bruschetta or in dressings. 

If your eggplant hankering involves the golfball-sized Thai green ones, rather than the more common purples, head back to your Asian market where you will find good stocks to add to stir-fries and curries.

Fruit wise, lovely crunchy South Island cherries are at their best. There are only a few weeks left until they disappear again so give yourself a New Year treat. Prices are much lower now and the fruit is really sweet. Cherries belong to the stonefruit family but it’s their relatives – plums, peaches and apricots – which are our fruit buys of the week. Eat as is, grill or bake them and bottle some too for future desserts or breakfast bowls if you have loads (see Jan Bilton’s microwaved bottled apricots. 

Apricot fool

apricot-fool-recipe_2.jpg

Get the recipe

Quick plum cake

Quick-plum-cake-inline.jpg

Get the recipe

 

comment

http://www.bite.co.nz/hot-topics/in-season/3679/Produce-report-January-22/

Related recipes

Pineapple and rum-glazed Christmas ham with violet mustard

Pineapple and rum-glazed Christmas ham with violet mustard

13
Fish cakes with spicy cucumber salad

Fish cakes with spicy cucumber salad

Kathy Paterson 35
Chicken, pasta and papaya salad

Chicken, pasta and papaya salad

5
Chocolate slab

Chocolate slab

Angela Casley 9

Collections you may like

Mash recipes

Mash recipes

Burgers and sliders

Burgers and sliders

Thermomix competition entries - Dinner for 4 for $20

Thermomix competition entries - Dinner for 4 for $20

Taylor Farms suggests

Say Hello To Taylor Farms new chopped salads

Say Hello To Taylor Farms new chopped salads

Taylor Farms

Comments

Join the conversation

Tell a friend...

Seen something you really like? Use the form below to send your friend(s) an email message and link to this item.

Thank you, your message has been sent.

Most viewed recipes

  • Fresh fruit trifles

    Fresh fruit trifles

  • THE salted caramel cookies

    THE salted caramel cookies

  • My famous bacon and egg pie

    My famous bacon and egg pie

  • Hot night avocado and cucumber salad

    Hot night avocado and cucumber salad

  • Hot-smoked salmon and potato hash cakes

    Hot-smoked salmon and potato hash cakes

  • No-bake chocolate, apricot and pistachio nut slice

    No-bake chocolate, apricot and pistachio nut slice

Receive weekly emails & save favourite recipes

register now

Trending

  • Meal Planner's Club: Feb 11

  • Annabel Langbein's romantic Valentine's menu

  • Lunchbox fillers

  • Summer vegetables

  • Barbecue inspiration

  • Summer berries

  • Stone fruit recipes

  • Jan Bilton does schnitzel 3 ways

Connect with us

Related Articles

  • How to choose fresh fish

    How to choose fresh fish

  • Mikki Williden on canola oil

    Mikki Williden on canola oil

  • Super sizzles

    Super sizzles

  • Stop waiting

    Stop waiting

  • True to nature: Nic Watt's three-course meal for the warmer weather

    True to nature: Nic Watt's three-course meal for the warmer weather

  • Produce report February 12: The week's best fruit and vege buys

    Produce report February 12: The week's best fruit and vege buys

  • Destination Tahiti

    Destination Tahiti

  • Chutneys for a samosa

    Chutneys for a samosa

bite.co.nz
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • pinterest
  • Who we are
  • Our People
  • Terms & conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Contact us
  • FAQs
Bite Magazine

Dedicated to food and wellbeing, Be Well is The New Zealand Herald's weekly Monday magazine that celebrates your relationship with food. Be Well offers recipes and kitchen tips contributed by some of New Zealand's most talented cooks and chefs, reviews and insider knowledge on where to eat in New Zealand and abroad, gardening and fresh food tips as well as new trends to help you live well.
Be Well – Your recipe for life.

© NZME. Publishing Ltd, 2019

Back to top