Our Whānau Kitchen

Recent Recipes

  • When I moved to Melbourne and discovered the Queen Victoria Markets, and discovered potatoes are not all the same.

  • This is Rom’s most iconic recipe. Gingerbread, beloved by her children, grandchildren, and friends alike. A mate and I were almost driven mad by the aroma while it baked in Palmerston North. Gingerbread, still warm from the oven and spread…

  • This sukiyaki comes from a single typed page sent home in 1974 to the mothers of Room 9 at Highbury Primary School. It was written for electric frypans, scaled for children, and annotated with practical advice about where bamboo shoots…

  • This custard fruit cake comes from a card written out by my father Tom. Its origins are unknown, but the method is unmistakably of its time: butter rubbed into flour, eggs cracked into a well, and boiling milk stirred with…

  • A lighter Christmas steamed pudding from Rom’s kitchen, made with sago, brown sugar and dried fruit, gently spiced and finished with a quiet splash of rum. Soft, comforting, and best served hot with cream, this was the other pudding that…

  • A simple, generous pasta built around vegetables and a soft yoghurt dressing. Orecchiette, broccoli and peas are folded together while still warm, finished with basil, pine nuts and olive oil—an easy dish for sharing, from the wonderful Hetty Lui McKinnon.

  • A traditional New Zealand Christmas plum pudding from Rom’s family notebook — made weeks in advance, soaked generously with brandy, and finished with a properly reckless table-side flambé. Served hot with Edmonds custard, it’s as much ritual as dessert.

  • A dense, dark Christmas cake handed down from my mother Rom — deeply moist, quietly rich, and made to last. Perfect with custard on Christmas Day, or enjoyed later with a cup of tea, a glass of sherry, or a…

  • A slow-cooked ragout of venison sausages, lentils and kumara, gently sharpened with lemon and rosemary. The kind of winter bowl that looks after itself all afternoon and rewards you with something deep, generous, and quietly comforting.

  • A simple, hearty New England fish chowder—bacon, potatoes, milk and lemon—made from “whatever fish is cheapest” and good stock. It’s the kind of soup that eats like a meal, and tastes like the kitchens we lived in.