Try these sinful cocktail recipes with some heavenly additions

16 Apr 2020

Expand your basic cocktail repertoire by ordering some fruit and vegetables. Turn to lime, coconut, chilli and watermelon for devilish drinks that boost your spirits and vitamin intake.

Watermelon Spritz with Chilli vodka

Ingredients
30ml chilli infused vodka
15ml Martini Bianco
15ml Aperol
30ml fresh watermelon juice
45ml Soda
1 Mint sprig
1 crack of black pepper

Method
1. In a mason jar crush large chunks of watermelon with a muddler. Strain out the fresh juice and set aside.
2. Measure and pour the chilli infused vodka, Martini Bianco, Aperol and fresh watermelon juice into a stemless wine glass. Swirl to combine.
3. Half fill a second stemless wine glass with ice, pour in the soda and top with the watermelon mixture.
4. Garnish with mint and dust with cracked black pepper to serve.

Chilli Vodka Infusion
Slice 5-6 fresh chillies and put them into a full bottle of vodka. Leave for two hours and the infusion will be ready to use.

Johnny Was A Sinner, Soul Bar & Bistro

Ingredients
60ml Coconut infused gin,
30ml Chilli syrup,
30ml Lime juice.
Fresh chilli to garnish

Method
Simply shake liquid ingredients over ice and double strain to serve. Garnish with fresh chilli.

For infused gin
We infused 200g desiccated coconut per litre of gin. Allow to infuse for at least 48 hours before straining out solids.

For chilli syrup
Finely dice 5 chilli peppers. Dissolve 500g white sugar with 500ml water. Add chillies and pop on medium heat. Let simmer until desired heat and consistency are reached (should coat the back of a spoon). Strain out solids and let cool.

Fejoia Caipiroska

Ingredients:
60ml Vodka
2 Feijoas
1 Lime (cut into 6 wedges)
1 tsp Raw sugar
1 sprig of fresh Mint to garnish
Crushed ice

Method:
1. Scoop out the flesh of two feijoas per Caipiroska and whiz in a blender for several seconds.
2. Pour into a glass, add the sugar, squeeze in juice from lime wedges, add the wedges to the mix, then muddle just enough to dissolve the sugar.
3. Add vodka and stir together.
4. Fill another glass completely with crushed ice and strain contents over top. Garnish with a sprig of mint and extra lime if desired.

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The Perfect Roast Pork Ramen Recipe

16 Apr 2020

Indulge in a hot, soupy bowl of ramen noodles with this deliciously easy recipe.

With a strong need for comfort and all this time on your hands, there’s no better time to forgo the cheap packet variety and learn how to make ramen from scratch. Ramen is the Japanese rendition of Chinese Lo Mein. These noodles have a long and rich history in Japan since being adopted from China, with many different and fantastic versions of the noodle dish, taking anywhere from two minutes to two days to prepare. This recipe is as achievable as it is delicious.

Roast Pork Ramen
(Serves 4)

Ingredients
For the ramen broth
750mL pork stock
750mL chicken stock
15cm piece of dried kombu (Japanese seaweed)
6 dried shiitake mushrooms
2 tbsp sugar
2-3 tbsp Tamari soy sauce
2-3 tbsp Mirin (rice wine)

Garnishes
4 eggs
1 braised bamboo shoot (sliced)
4 green shallots (finely sliced)
2 tsp sesame oil
12 pieces of kamaboko (Japanese fish cake)
300g dried ramen noodles
500g pork belly (skin removed but as much fat as possible intact)
1/4 cup flaky salt 1/4 cup sugar

One day in advance, place the pork belly fat side up in a small, snug-fitting roasting pan. In a small bowl, mix the salt and sugar together evenly and rub over the pork belly. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Preheat oven to 220°C. Discard any liquid that came out in the pan.

Place the pork belly in the oven, uncovered. Cook for 40 minutes. Baste the pork belly 20 minutes in with the rendered fat. Continue to baste it until the pork belly has a golden brown exterior.
Reduce the oven temperature to 130 °C and cook for another hour to an hour and a half, or until the belly is tender but not quite falling apart. Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the pork belly to a plate. Allow the pork belly to cool slightly. When the pork belly is cool enough to handle, wrap the belly in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator. Allow the pork belly to thoroughly chill then slice into 1cm thick slices.

Place pork stock and chicken stock in a pot and bring to a very gentle simmer. Add kombu and shitake mushrooms to the stock and simmer very gently for 30 minutes. Bring a small saucepan of water to the boil. Reduce to a simmer then add whole eggs and cook for 6 minutes. Remove eggs and place in a bowl of chilled water to cool. Finely slice the spring onions and fish cakes. Cook noodles according to directions then strain. Strain the stock then return to the heat. Add the sugar, tamari and mirin.

Peel the eggs and slice in half lengthwise. Divide the noodles between 4 bowls then arrange the eggs, pork, kamaboko and spring onions on top. Ladle over the hot broth and drizzle a few drops of sesame oil over the top.

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Take a look inside Josh Emett’s Insta-famous kitchen

16 Apr 2020

One of the best chefs our country has to offer, it goes without saying that Josh Emett sure knows his way around a kitchen. Yet despite being best known for the gastronomic creations he whips up at Ostro, Hawker & Roll and Madam Woo (alongside Queenstown’s Rata) it’s a different cooking quarters that has been the focus of our attention of late: his own kitchen at home.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J O S H E M E T T (@joshemett)

Via a spate of recent video recipes, taken in his home and delivered to his rapidly growing Instagram audience (42,680 followers and counting), Emett has been teaching the masses how to become better equipped in the cooking department — whether it be by divulging the secret to the perfect, creamy mashed potato or delivering a step-by-step guide on the ultimate, mouth-watering eggplant parmigiana. Stealing the spotlight in each of Emett’s videos, however, has been the environs he cooks within: a spot that’s giving us serious kitchen envy for more than one reason.

Undeniably the crowning glory of Emett’s home, the chef and restaurateur’s kitchen is as carefully constructed as the dishes he works his culinary magic on. The brainchild of both Emett and Alan Bertenshaw, director of Matisse, local distributors of coveted Italian kitchen brand Arclinea, the duo worked together to create a space that is both refined and functional. The result is a stunning, modernistic marriage of glistening accents and timber finishes. A beautiful space that is well-deserving of the exquisite dishes the chef is known to produce.

www.matisse.co.nz

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Try this Linguine with Fennel Cream recipe from Gucci and taste true Italian style

15 Apr 2020

If you’ve ever faced a sample sale you know that fashion and food aren’t always friends but all levels of taste combine at the magnificent, Michelin-starred Gucci Osteria in Florence.
“I thought of this recipe that uses fennel as a basic ingredient because it is a seasonal vegetable and because of all the stories and curiosities surrounding this vegetable,” chef Karime Lopez says. “In Greek and Roman history, in fact, fennel was considered a symbol of strength and vigour and they believe it brought luck.”
“Some treatises on Ancient Rome reported how Roman gladiators added fennel to their dishes to be successful in the arena… This is also the reason why – for the Gucci Osteria menu – we called this dish ‘Lucky Fennel.’”

Lucky Fennel (Linguine with Fennel Cream)
Serves 2

Ingredients
4 Fennel, for the cream
2 Fennel, sliced
2 Red prawns
200g Wild Fennel
20 Pistachios
1 Lemon
Lemon oil
400g Seed oil
Extra Virgin olive oil
Salt
100g Linguine (Pasta)

Method
For the Cream
1. Wash and cut the fennel coarsely, steam them at 90ºC for 2 hours
2. Drain the fennel once cooked and whisk them with Evo oil and salt until creamy
3. Pass the cream in the chinois strainer with fine mesh

For the Wild Fennel Oil
1. Whisk 400g of seed oil with 200g of wild fennel
2. Then heat the oil in a saucepan and bring it to a temperature of 80ºC
3. Filter the oil in a sac à poche (piping bag) and then filter it with the chinois strainer with fine mesh

For the Pistachios
1. Toast the pistachios in the oven at 190 ºC for 4 minutes
2. Grate them with a microplane

For the dish
1. Cook the linguine pasta in abundant salted water for about 5 minutes
2. Drain the linguine and finish cooking in the pan for 3 minutes, adding the fennel cream and the lemon oil to make them creamy
3. Season the raw and finely sliced fennel with the wild fennel oil
4. Season the prawns with Evo oil and the lemon peel and cut them into 6 pieces each

To serve
Spread the grated pistachios on the base of the plate, and lay a nest of linguine on top, developing it in height. Add 6 pieces of prawn, other pistachio powder and finely sliced fennel. Garnish the dish with wild fennel leaves.

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Meet Carol Crawford, the Sydney-based sculpturist catching our eye

15 Apr 2020

Born in Sydney, Carol Crawford’s interest in art and sculpture was piqued on frequent visits to galleries with her parents, “I was always a doodler and a maker of things,” she says, “oh, and a chronic day-dreamer.”

For anyone unfamiliar with Crawford’s work, her sculptures have gained quite a following among fashion and design insiders. Featured in esteemed publications like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue for the unique shapes she creates out of stone, Crawford manages to take a solid material and transform it into curved, interlocking forms that would typically lend themselves to a more fluid medium.

But for Crawford, the artistic process is less about forcing her stone to shed its straight lines and corners and yield to her tools, and more about working with its natural properties. She explains, “the sculptures evolve organically as a conversation between myself and the stone.” Going on to say, “I feel I am merely the medium, and the result is what was always meant to be.”

As a result, no two sculptures by Crawford are the same. And when you see them in a space, you feel the individual energy the artist has imbued in each — every one different but joined by the motif of rounded movement. Having just returned from a residency in Berlin and with a number of interesting projects on the horizon, Crawford is the creative we have our eyes on right now.

www.carolcrawfordsculpture.net

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The inspiring biographies team Denizen is reading during the lockdown

15 Apr 2020

There is no doubt that we are living in extraordinary times but immersing ourselves in the lives of others can show that remarkable things happen to people everyday. From sports stars to the First Lady, women on the run to society queens, here are the lives the Denizen team is looking into.

Claire Sullivan-Kraus – founder and editor-in-chief

Will by Will Self
It may be a dark journey into heroin-not-so-chic but I do love Will Self’s writing. It’s set during the eighties when the writer threatened his brilliant future with destructive behaviour.

Damien Woolnough – editor

Among The Porcupines by Carol Matthau
The wife of actor Walter Matthau led a life worthy of a film. When her mother married an aviation millionaire she went from rags to riches living on Fifth Avenue and becoming best friends with Gloria Vanderbilt and Oona Chaplin. With doll-like looks and a sharp tongue, Matthau moved through high society, the literary worlds of Truman Capote and her two-time husband William Saroyan and eventually Hollywood.

Unorthodox The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman
I devoured the Netflix series faster than Tiger King so Feldman’s book is my next step into the confronting world of ultra-organised religion. Feldman’s brave search for Freedom offers a glimpse into other worlds while shining a light on our own.

Fliss Grennell – advertising manager

The Girl With Seven Names by David John and Lee Hyeon-seo
The thrilling story of one woman’s escape from totalitarian North Korea and her battle to be reunited with her family.

Fran King – art director

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
Apart from incredibly snappy writing, this is worth the read alone if it stops you from throwing a Rod Stewart-themed party. Just don’t do it.

Arabella Nelson – digital manager

Open by Andre Agassi
An absolute classic that looks at the tennis champion’s battles with drugs and rivals. It’s hard to believe that when he started playing, he hated the game.

Becoming by Michelle Obama
The most memorable First Lady of the modern era, Michelle Obama is also one of the most inspiring. Her rise to the top as a lawyer and in public service puts this Obama front and centre, where she belongs.

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How skincare brand Aotea is putting its best face forward at Commercial Bay

14 Apr 2020

The eagerly-awaited Commercial Bay development is set to return Auckland’s city centre to its historical roots by showcasing the best of New Zealand creativity to the world. Skincare brand Aotea well and truly fits the bill with its ethical approach, focused on giving to customers and the community of Great Barrier Island.

Meet the maker, Aotea founder Tama Toki, as he shares his vision and explains why he joined the Commercial Bay community.

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With its sophisticated play on light and contemporary interiors, this coastal home leaves its ’80s past behind

PHOTOS Sharyn Cairns | 9 Apr 2020

An eighties style house on Melbourne’s coastal strip The Esplanade has been given the 2020 treatment by Golden. The four bedroom, five bathroom received a glamorous makeover with Andorra Limestone flooring and a soothing palette of greys and charcoal providing a serene backdrop to bursts of colour from carefully curated furnishings. With the existing eighties-statement staircase replaced by a sculptural vertical balustrade and curved concrete, and light flooding the living spaces thanks to strategic skylights, the result is organic in texture and flow, leaving the past far behind.

Poliform Mad Joker armchair from Studio Italia, Living Divani NeoWall sofa from Studio Italia, Floss IC F2 floor lamp from ECC, Baxter Loren table from Cavit & Co.

Poliform Mad Joker armchair from Studio Italia, Floss IC F2 floor lamp from ECC

Living Divani NeoWall sofa from Studio Italia, Baxter Loren table from Cavit & Co.

Mattiazzi Branca stool from Simon James Design

Oluce Atollo table lamp from ECC, Massproductions Crown armchair from Simon James Design.

Living Divani Chemise sofa from Studio Italia

Flos IC Pendant from ECC, Baxter Nepal chair from Cavit & Co.

Kettal Landscape dining table from Studio Italia, Kettal Net dining chair from Studio Italia, Kettal boma sofa from Studio Italia and Kettal Mesh coffee and side table from Studio Italia

Kettal boma sofa from Studio Italia, Kettal Mesh side table from Studio Italia

Interior Design: Golden
Art Direction: Marsha Golemac
Photography: Sharyn Cairns

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The fiction books the Denizen team are reading (or are on their bedside tables)

7 Apr 2020

Claire Sullivan Kraus – Founder and Editor in Chief

House on Fire by Joseph Finder
While we patiently await the third season of Succession here’s something to fill the void. Author Joseph Finder’s leading man has been described as a cross between Sam Spade and Jason Bourne.

The Wish List by Sophie Money-Coutts
I’ve always loved Sophie Money-Coutts’ hilarious banter on the trials and tribulations of the British aristocracy in the pages of Tatler magazine. Her latest novel screams ‘chick lit’ but promises to be brimming with her usual self-deprecating humour. Just what we all need right now.

Damien Woolnough – Editor

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
All the longing and desire of Call Me By Your Name, without the peaches. Set in Poland against a backdrop of uprisings targeted at the communist regime, this story of survival, compromise and coming of age is cinematic in its emotional range.

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
I loved the Man Booker Prize winning Wolf Hall and liked Bring Up The Bodies well enough to excited in joining half the world in third and final book in this imaginative look at Thomas Cromwell’s rise to influence in the court of Henry VIII.

Fran King – Art Director

The Woman In The Window by AJ Finn
Has there ever been a better time to read a book about spying on your neighbours? A movie with Julianne Moore and Amy Adams is already in the works.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
This bestseller shows just what you can be missing out on by leading a regimented life. Here’s to spontaneity.

Fliss Grennell – Advertising Manager

Sunday Girl by Pip Drysdale
The type of break up advice book to file alongside Gone Girl and Fatal Attraction. Broken-hearted Taylor Bishop consults the classic Art of War for modern day revenge.

Arabella Nelson – Digital Manager

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
The misunderstood Marsh Girl, Kya Clark, is the prime suspect of dashing Chase Andrews’ murder in North Carolina in 1969. Coming of age with a dash of murder.

Image credit: Mara Sommer

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The simple chocolate Easter Egg recipe that can’t wait until Sunday

7 Apr 2020

Part of the beauty of good chocolate easter eggs is that they look too good to eat, until you do. Liv Glazebrook from @kitchenoftreats has delivered a simple recipe for homemade chocolate eggs that will look incredible on Easter morning and be gone by Easter Monday. Maybe make a second batch.

Chocolate Easter Eggs
Serves 8

Ingredients
2 cups Whittaker’s chocolate (we used White, Creamy Milk and 50% Dark Chocolate)
8 large eggs
Food-safe paint (optional)

Method

Preparing Egg Shells
1. Using a pin, poke a hole in the bottom of a large egg; insert the tip of a chopstick (or equivalent) and gently turn to open the hole slightly.
2. Insert pin into the hole to pierce the yolk. Hold the egg, hole down, over a bowl, and shake the egg out (alternatively you can blow air into the hole with a rubber ear syringe – the air will displace and expel the egg). Rinse out egg. Repeat.
3. Sterilise eggs: Boil the egg shells in a saucepan of water with 1 tablespoon of white vinegar; then simmer for 10 minutes. Let egg shells drain.
4. To speed up the drying process, place the egg shells in an oven heated to 50°C until completely dry – check the inside of the shell to ensure there is no moisture. Be very careful, the egg shells will be fragile.
5. Once dry, remove from the oven and if you wish to paint the eggs – do so at this step with food-safe paint.

Filling Egg Shells
6. Chop up sufficient chocolate to fill the egg shells – allow for approximately ¼ cup chocolate per egg shell.
7. Melt chocolate in the microwave at steady increments to avoid burning. If you would like to temper your chocolate (optional) we recommend you do so at this step.
8. Place eggshells (hole up) in an egg carton. Place a disposable pastry bag in a tall glass and fill bag with chocolate, then snip the end.
9. Insert tip of bag into each egg, and fill with chocolate (about 1/4 cup per egg; fill a new bag with chocolate as needed). Leave to set completely, about 4 hours.
10. Gift to family and friends – remember to tell them to remove the shell before eating!

Image credit: Liv Glazebrook

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