In season

What's growing in your garden or flooding the markets? In Season follows Witt's many chefs in their quest to source the freshest fruit and vegetables, and serve them up with simple sense and inspiration.

Witt chef tutor Denis Duthie had to raid a mate's garden for this week's recipes.

Food fact Arthritis sufferers should avoid rhubarb. This vegetable contains oxalic acid, which inhibits the body's ability to absorb calcium and iron from other foods, says UK website 50+ Health Club. "Rhubarb can aggravate arthritis and may even cause an attack if eaten to excess. It can also cause kidney stones in some patients."

When he couldn't find rhubarb for sale, he visited fellow foodie Lorna McKenzie for a bundle of red stalks. "The young people have got it growing and they don't even know what it is," he says.

Because of that lack of knowledge, readers beware - don't ever eat or cook the leaves because they are poisonous. With the warning out of the way, let's move from toxic to tasty. This week, Denis serves rhubarb with pork, in a chutney he eats with cheese and in a shortcake served with creme fraiche.

For the pork dish, short sticks of rhubarb are tossed in melted honey. The recipe says runny honey, but Denis has other ideas. "It would taste beautiful with manuka honey," he says. "Put honey in a pot, heat it up and move your rhubarb around gently for about two minutes." The rhubarb is then added to a roasting pan of pork fillets stuffed with sundried tomatoes and wrapped in streaky bacon to seal in the moisture. Denis also recommends using sundried tomatoes that have been marinated in oil; not the plain dry ones, because they wouldn't work.

Both the tomatoes and the rhubarb complement the bland meat, he says. "They give it a real lift." He serves the pork fillets on a bed of wilted spinach cooked for just one minute in the water the green leaves are washed in. "You will still have to drain it in a colander or sieve," Denis says.

The sauce or gravy drizzled over the pork is made from the roasting juices and expanded with vegetable stock and creme fraiche.

Denis is partial to chutney and cheese, especially the blue vein varieties. "My favourite are stilton and gorgonzola." The rhubarb and date chutney has been a teaching tool on Witt's Diploma in Professional Cookery course. "I have made it in class before - we make it for our cheese boards." This chutney has also been served during Friday lunches at the institute's Impression Restaurant and would also go well with a ploughman's lunch, featuring cheeses and ciabatta bread.

"The chutney lasts for ages too - as long as you seal it properly. I make it every six months and have a teaspoonful once a week with cheese."

For the shortcake, Denis has some old-fashioned pastry tips that differ a little from the recipe.

"Don't work it too much with your hands because your hands heat it up," he says.

"You have to use chilled butter, otherwise the fat in the butter runs and the pastry becomes too heavy. That's why you put it back in the fridge and that's why some old recipes tell you to cut butter with a knife." Winter is also a good time to make dough. "You are best to make pastry on a cold day." When he was a youngster, Denis learnt from the best. "Barney Burt was a master baker from the British Army. He came out to teach us apprentices in the New Zealand Army and he taught me how to make pastry. He was a marvellous guy.

"I remember having to make 30 kilograms of pastry at a time. It was for pies for guys in the field." These days, Denis cooks at Tairoa Lodge in Hawera on the weekends and shares his vast culinary knowledge with students at Witt during the week. Best of all he shares In Season recipes with you all.

Rhubarb Shortcake

500g rhubarb, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

180g butter, softened

1 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 cup icing sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1. Place the rhubarb, sugar and water into a medium-sized saucepan and gently bring to the boil. Cover and simmer until the rhubarb is cooked and soft. Set aside and allow to cool.

2. Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a 22cm round baking tin with baking paper.

3. Cream butter and sugar with an electric beater until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla essence and beat well.

4. Add the flour, icing sugar and baking powder and gently fold together.

5. Roll in plastic wrap and place in fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

6. Once rested, place two-thirds of pastry on floured board and roll out to fit baking tin.

7. With floured hands, line the bottom of the baking tin with pastry dough. Spoon the rhubarb over the shortcake pastry and dot the remaining dough over the top.

8. Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown.

9. Cool in the tin and serve with a dusting of icing sugar and with whipped cream, creme fraiche, thick Greek-style yoghurt, custard or vanilla icecream.

Rhubarb and Date Chutney

700g rhubarb  

400g sugar

500g red onions, chopped

50g fresh ginger, grated

300ml red wine vinegar

500g apples, peeled and finely chopped

200g pitted dates, chopped

100g dried cranberries or raisins

1 Tbsp mustard seeds

1 Tbsp curry powder

2 tsp salt

1. Put the onions in a large pan with the ginger and vinegar. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minutes.

2. Add rest of the ingredients, except rhubarb, and bring to the boil, stirring. Simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes until the apples are tender.

3. Stir in the rhubarb and cook, uncovered, until the chutney is thick and jammy, about 15-20 minutes.

4. Leave the chutney to sit for about 10-15 minutes and then spoon into warm, clean jars and seal. Label jars when cool. Keep for at least a month before eating.

Pork with Sundried Tomato and Roasted Rhubarb

Serves 4

2 pork fillets (350g each), trimmed of fat and skin

Salt and pepper for seasoning

Juice 1 lemon

10 marinated sundried tomatoes, chopped

4 thin rashers streaky bacon

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp clear honey

400g rhubarb, cut into 5cm lengths on diagonal

200ml vegetable stock

2 rounded tsp creme fraiche

1 packet fresh spinach

1. Heat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

2. Cut a pocket lengthways along the trimmed pork fillet.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and rub in lemon juice.

3. Fill the pocket with the chopped sundried tomatoes.

4. Stretch bacon rashers with the back of a knife, then wrap around the pork fillets, tucking the ends under the pork where possible.

5. Place pork fillet into greased roasting pan. Drizzle with olive oil and roast for 30 minutes.

6. Heat honey gently in a pan, taking care not to burn. Toss rhubarb in the melted honey and add to roasting pan with pork for the last 8 minutes until tender and bacon is nicely browned.

7. Transfer rhubarb and pork to warm plate and keep warm while you make the sauce and wilt the spinach.

8. Set roasting pan on stove over medium heat and add vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, stirring to scrape off pan juices. Bubble for a few minutes then add creme fraiche and whisk until it has dissolved into the sauce. Taste and correct the seasoning if necessary.

9. Meanwhile, wash 300g fresh spinach and remove large stalks. Place washed wet spinach in small pot with tight-fitting lid and cook over high heat for about 1 minute until wilted.

10. Divide wilted spinach evenly between four plates, placing in centre. Cut the pork into slices and place on spinach. Put roasted rhubarb on the side of the spinach and drizzle with the sauce. Put remaining sauce in a small jug and serve dinner.

- © Fairfax NZ News