How do you like them apples ?

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As autumn turns to winter apples begin to appear in the Nikau kitchen.

It can’t be denied that for a crisp, slightly tart, juicy eating apple it’s hard to go past a Braeburn. Discovered in Motueka in the fifties, and thought to be a cross between a Lady Hamilton and a Granny Smith the Braeburn has spread across the apple growing world and is now one of the most important commercial apple varieties. Even its supermarket trademarked off-spring like the Jazz and Mahana varieties make for good eating. Good eating though, doesn’t always mean good cooking.

At Nikau we are lucky enough to have access to some terrific apples, some are older heritage varieties, others more recent. From the Dutch Boskoop, dating from the 1850’s, to Merton Russet an English apple first grown in the 1920’s, or Freyberg, developed in New Zealand in the 30’s to Charden, a  1970’s French apple, we have the chance to experiment with a wide range of interesting varieties. We have used our apples across the menu and what strikes us as one of the key differences between these apples and the apples that your average vegie wholesaler only know as green or red, is texture. Cooked, many of these apples retain their shape and are perfect as a component of a dish. Others will fluff up beautifully, to be incorporated into pies or cakes.

An autumn regular in our cabinet is a Worcestershire apple tart. To get the perfect tart you need the right apple, and ironically, our favourites for this very English recipe are the very European Boskoop and Charden. They fluff beautifully and make a rich custard like filling which is a perfect base for the flavours of spice and rum that lace the apple.  Over the cooler months, our breakfast regulars will be sure to come across caramelised apples on the menu as a topping for our porridge. Aromatic, sweet and sharp Cox’s Orange is our favourite here.  Panfried in butter ‘til golden, then allowed to caramelise with sugar and apple juice, this classic English apple retains its shape and is beautifully tart and sweet. Spooned over creamy oats with lashings of caramelly apple juice and toasted nuts, these apples make a Wellington winter southerly bearable.

On the menu recently has been a lovely autumn dish. Serrano ham, with roasted Merton Russets, grilled endive and sherry dressing. The Merton is a small golden russet apple with a complex sweet and spicy flavour, complementing the richness of the ham and the bitterness of the endive. 

Want to know more about apples? Orange Pippin is a website for apple geeks, with information on hundreds of varieties, and an orchard registry enabling you to search for a variety anywhere in the apple growing world. Once you’ve found your perfect pomme, try Edible Garden for a range of seedlings, if you have the inclination to grow your own, or visit Treedimensions for a huge range of superb organic fruit.

We are really excited to have Tatsushi cooking with Kelda at Nikau on the 8th of November.

Tickets are limited to 50 guests and are on sale now.

Send us an email to secure your tickets. nikaucafe@xtra.co.nz

Summer Hours 2015

Christmas 2014
 
We are closing on the 24th and reopening on Tuesday the 6th.
Merry Christmas and we  hope you have a safe summer break.

A day in our life...

Rajeev Mishra is one helluva talented chap.
When he approached us with a proposal to produce a short film chronicling a day at Nikau we jumped at the chance.

Here is what he came up with....

Sandor Katz - Sold Out (sorry)

We are very excited that Sandor Katz is coming to Wellington in March.

We will host him at the café on Friday 7th of March for an evening introducing us to the art of fermentation, including demonstrations and tastings and a look at fermentation’s place in our culinary traditions.

I have found his books to be a treasure trove of information and stories; demystifying, encouraging and inspiring. This is a great opportunity to learn more first hand, both on a practical but also on a cultural level.
I am especially inspired by how fermentation can help us preserve our harvest, helping us use more local food.
As I have started working with fermentation it has been exciting to observe how interesting and complex flavours can be created with simple, age old techniques

We were lucky enough to see his talk at the MAD symposium last year, we’re really happy that  Wellingtonians will get this opportunity too.

                          An Evening with Sandor Katz
         Nikau Café  -  Friday 7th march  5.30-8.30pm   $100

       A little something to drink and some tasty(fermented) treats 
                                      will be provided
           Enquiries and registration to nikaucafe@xtra.co.nz

Sandor Ellix Katz is a fermentation revivalist.

His book Wild Fermentation (2003) and the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught across North America and beyond, have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts.
A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, the New York Times calls him “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.”
 His latest book, The Art of Fermentation (2012), received a James Beard award. Sandor teaches fermentation workshops in Tennessee and many other places.
 For more information, check out his website www.wildfermentation.com

Summer break 2013/14

Judy Rodgers, Zuni and her cookbook

There is constant development in what we do in the Nikau kitchen. Looking back at menus from 2 or 5 or 10 years ago we see the growth we have made, as we explore new ideas and ingredients or as we refine techniques. Some changes are an evolution, a gradual improvement, and some have been more quantum leaps.  But despite the change, there are some constants to life in the Nikau kitchen. On our shelves are many cookbooks written by chefs we respect and admire. Even as we change these books remain with us, in constant use, their pages a dog-eared and oil stained tribute to the chefs who wrote them.

One of our long-term companions is The Zuni Café Cookbook, by Judy Rodgers. 

Needless to say we were all sad to hear of her recent death, aged 57, after a battle with cancer.  Judy was born in St Louis in 1956.  As a 16 year old she travelled to France as an exchange student, and in the introduction to her book recounts living with the family of well-known French chef, Jean Troisgros, owner of a 3 Michelin star restaurant in the Loire. She writes of learning the importance of tradition, of ingredients, of simplicity and respect, and how “within a very few months, I had succumbed to the philosophy that guides Zuni cooking today”.

Judy’s cookbook is one of our bibles. Every recipe works, every introduction is thoughtful and elegantly written. The beliefs she espoused are echoed in our beliefs here at Nikau.  Respect for tradition and for the seasons. Respect for ingredients and for flavour. Simple dishes prepared and presented to show food at it’s best.

As we talked about the news of Judy’s death, we realised that our current menu contained no less than four Zuni Café recipes.  From asparagus and rice soup with pancetta, to the breadcrumb salsa adorning our kingfish, or the hazelnut picada that garnished the prosciutto, cherries and buttercrunch and the espresso granita in our freezer, Judy’s influence was all around us. Yet this was no conscious choice. We hadn’t set out to write a Zuni menu, it was simply a reflection of how much Judy’s recipes resonated with us. 

We will continue to come back to the Zuni Café Cookbook time and again. Even as Nikau continues to evolve, we will hold to the beliefs that epitomise Judy Rodgers and her food. Simplicity, integrity and quality. Judy finishes the introduction to her book with these words.

“I hope in this volume I can honour and convey some of their collective wisdom and passion. If our food is delicious, it is due to that passion, and to the extraordinary quality of the products we obtain, and to the talent and devotion of every cook who has embraced it with heart”.

Judy Rodgers, we at Nikau hope this post has paid tribute to your wisdom and passion. If our food is delicious it is in no small part due to you, and we embrace you with heart.

John Speak

our best review ever...

The Nikau Big RB

It was a rainy old wellington day, but it wasn’t raining at Nikau. They have a roof. And because they think of everything, my companions and I were in for a treat: the redundancy banquet. (Recommended if you are ever made redundant. Ask for it by name: the Nikau Big RB.)

Kelda and Paul, the dynamic duo behind this classy joint, knew we were too tired to read a menu. But it was all part of service. They did the reading for us. We were in their hands, and because this joint is so classy, we barely noticed that Paul’s hands weren’t even there. He had played soccer in the rain and was in bed with the flu (despite the fact this link is an old wives tale … we suspected man flu). Thankfully, he was there in spirit: in the gleaming cutlery; in the ice that bobbed in our green tea soda; in the well-scrubbed faces of the friendly waiters he has reared from chicks. 

The asparagus was expected. Kelda is a notorious sucker for the seasons. But the matching sauvignon was not. One of my companions last drank wine with lunch back in ’98, possibly on the day she was hired by a certain company that shall remain nameless (Learning Media Limited). But she managed. We all did. And surprisingly, it got easier. 

The soup was celeriac, that hoary old beast of the soil only a chef could love. Blended with nettles and dill and surely plenty of cream, it slipped down a dream. I could barely remember why I have always hated celeriac. The matching pinot gris didn’t help. 

But there was no time to dwell on blurred memory. It was time for our salmon, which had swum all the way from the deep south straight into Kelda’s pan. She respected that journey, making our friend a comfy bed of red-wine lentils with marinated turnip for pillows. Talk about being lulled into a false sense of security. In fact, we suspect that’s what the Nikau Big RB is all about. And the matching pinot noir certainly helped. 

There was pudding. Buttermilk ice-cream churned on the premises and marbled with rhubarb sorbet. Only Kelda would think of that. It was so delicious, my companion’s eyebrows shot up six inches. Thankfully it’s beyond even the staff of Nikau to match wine with ice-cream, which meant my companion was in a position to retrieve his eyebrows and carry on. He even managed a double espresso. 

There’s nothing more to say, other than our asparagus came with bread and our salmon came with roast potatoes. And the toilets were very clean. And we very much liked being Nikau Big RB VIPs.

Signs and labels...

Some signs and labels we saw on a trip to Copenhagen to attend MAD3

 Bi Rite Mission San Francisco

 Billy Bragg and his other job

  Golden Gate Park

 In case you've ever wondered about Schrader valves

Brooklyn NY

Blue Bottle Coffee Williamsburg

Roberta's Brooklyn

 Ronald Mc

 Big Tree Bottle liquor store

Mikkeller beer for MAD3

 and more

Bastard from Malmo

MAD

Brakes

Brooklyn Grange x2

Reuben Sandwich

If asked, most would volunteer New York as the birthplace of the Reuben sandwich. To be sure the Reuben is a New York deli staple, but its story may begin elsewhere.

There are several legends of the origins of the Rueben, and all of them are the true story of the original Reuben. My favourite tells of the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska in the late 1920s. Every Sunday night the hotel owner and some friends would play poker, collecting change through the night to pay for a midnight snack. One evening, one of the players- Reuben Kulakofsky, ordered a corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich. The chef, son of the hotel owner and recently returned from a year at the Ecole Hôtelière in Switzerland, drained the sauerkraut and tossed it with Russsian dressing. This was layered with the corned beef and Swiss cheese on rye bread and toasted. The poker boys loved it and the sandwich soon made its way onto the hotel menu. The Schimmel Reuben Sandwich was born.
At Nikau, we’ve been able to get some nice Savoy cabbages recently, and Kelda has taken advantage of this and put down some batches of delicious sauerkraut. Painstakingly chopped cabbage is salted and after vigourous kneading is left in jars for some friendly lacto-bacillus to work it’s bacterial magic.

So we salute those card sharks from the Blackstone, all those years ago with our version of the Reuben. Because, once you have a chiller full of sauerkraut, and have access to corned beef and some very good gruyere, well, it would be rude not to …

Bikes in our rack...

 We love our Candywhistle designed bike racks and there is a lotta bike envy from everyone here for some of the bikes that park up.

Here's a few of them.

 

Neon (just) right

Just in case you hadn't quite worked out what we do around here we've lit it up in neon.
In Auckland recently we came across this beautiful piece of neon at Cam's great store flotsam+jetsam on Ponsonby Rd.

With a little help from all sorts we got it down here, plugged it in and lit up our corner of the Civic Square.

A dinner served last night

We have been hosting a small group for dinner once a month.
It is a working group who's needs are nourishment and relaxation.

It's proving to be a really nice opportunity to create some little menus (three courses) and to have a play with combinations.

Last night we served the following,

Cured salmon, lightly pickled beetroots, a herbed puy lentil salad, Zany Zeus creme fraiche, a little olive oil and a sprinkling of fennel pollen.

 Next came cannelloni filled with ricotta and winter greens - rocket, spinach and some chard from our garden on the rooftop.
A little cream, some gorgonzola and some grated pecorino and into the oven to be served with some lightly toasted walnuts.

Dessert was all comfy and nursery school-like.
Warmed gingerbread, seville orange marmalade ice cream and some warm chocolate sauce.

Nikau class of 2012

good honest books

One of the many satisfying elements of running a business like Nikau is discovering the talents and creative outlets that exist within your staff.
Georgia is one of those staff members who over the past few months has been producing these beautiful hand crafted and bound notebooks.
I have become a frequent user of my smaller notebook and have delighted friends and family with presents of the larger books.
They are for sale at the cafe.

a courtyard garden.

 We have for sometime thought it would be a good idea to 'green' the courtyard.
 With this in mind we talked to Veronica Alkema from Vero Design about our ideas to introduce a courtyard garden.
 We were keen on a modular approach allowing for some movement of the planters and also allowing us to replace harvested or tired plants with new, lush seasonal plantings. To this end she came up with the concept of three large plastic planters in each unit that can be removed and replaced with another tub .

 Steve King Builders and his crafty boys built these sweet planter boxes on wheels . Macrocarpa was chosen for its aging quality and removable slated seats were added so they could double as extra seating

 We now have close to two dozen plastic planters filled with all sorts of seedlings sitting in a sunny sheltered spot away from the courtyard. Red Opal basil, Rainbow light beets, Little gem lettuces and Rocket are just some of the plants biding their time before they are introduced to the courtyard.

 We can't be too far from harvesting our first crop from the garden, some good looking white cos lettuce.
Look out for them and future produce on the menu.