One of the oldest forms of cooking is also one of the tastiest - and a firm family favourite.
Picture this: a hot summer's evening, sitting on a blanket in Auckland's Villa Maria vineyard with a great bottle of chilled champagne, waiting for Tom Jones so we can shake our hips to his groove.
I'm ravenous and on the hunt for something tasty. Then I spy a little smoke on the other side of the vines and discover succulent lamb and pork turning slowly on a spit, its juices hissing into the fire underneath.
Luscious slices of the cooked meat are then layered with onion jam and pickles and wedged between crunchy sourdough bread - yum.
Roasting is generally accepted to be one of the oldest styles of cooking. Beginning with the spit-roast recorded in a 14th-century manuscript, far more recently, in 1971, the spit-roast was turned on its end by a Turkish immigrant in Berlin, Mahmut Aygun. He invented the modern vertical roaster for popular doner kebabs, or gyros.
In the Western world though, we are usually armed with a modern oven, which suits three roasting techniques:
* Slow-roasting, set at 95C-160C, which is best for large joints of meat and turkeys.
* High-temperature cooking at 165C-230C, which instantly seals smaller cuts of meat, a process known as Malliard or caramelisation.
* Low-temperature cooking followed by a heat blast to 220C in the last 15-20 minutes. I find this gives me the best result - especially if you prefer a crispy exterior on your roast.
When it comes to roast veges, try cutting them, tossing them in the oil of your choice and fresh herbs. Tip them on to a foil-lined tray to cook for easy cleaning afterwards.
If you want to try the French method of making a "raft" of root vegetables, add some red wine and port and roast your meat on a trivet suspended above the vegetables. It works a treat and the aroma wafting through the kitchen is sensational.
My favourite roast is Beijing roast duck. The duck is plunged into a master stock laced with maltose, a dark malt syrup, for two minutes. The cavity is filled with star anise, Sichuan pepper, cassia bark and soy, and sewn shut. The duck is then hung to air-dry so it develops that parchment-like skin. It is then brushed with more syrup and roasted. Traditional accompaniments are warm mandarin pancakes and hoisin sauce.
