Peta Mathias: Christmas cake

Peta Mathias favourite Christmas cake.

Top chefs share their culinary secrets and favourite festive-season recipes

Peta Mathias: Taste New Zealand presenter and chef

What was the first thing you cooked as a child?

By the age of 10, I could cook an evening meal for the whole family. We also did home economics at primary school, where we dressed up in aprons and hats and made sponges and roasts. These classes were ecstasy for me. I thought it was so mysterious and magical that a mixture would go into the oven wet and come out a cake.

What do you like to drink?

My preference is red wine, especially the sexy, robust ones. I also love pink champagne because of the rules around it - there are only two reasons to drink champagne; one is when you are in love and the other is when you are not in love.

What do you always have in your fridge and kitchen cupboard?

In the fridge - old cheese, Antipodes water, some sort of cured meat like bressaola or prosciutto, and delicacies from Sabato like capers in oil and artichoke paste. I can't have anything fresh as I travel so much, so I buy fresh for only one meal.

In the freezer - essential cuisine stocks, gourmet sausages, Rachel Scott's bread and lots of ice for G&Ts. At the moment it is full of presents people have given me - organic hogget, pheasant and Akaroa salmon.

In the cupboard - pasta, tinned and bottled delicacies from Sabato, baked beans, olive oil, nuts and raisins, spices.

Do you ever eat convenience food?

I never eat fast or junk food - not because of a moral high ground I wish to balance on, but because it doesn't taste good. Life is too short to eat bad food and delicious food is such a cheap way to get a thrill.

Convenience food for me is cheese and wine, carrots, chocolates, a piece of bread with ham and tomatoes.

What do you eat when you can't be bothered to cook?

Cheese on toast. A plate of cured ham, tomatoes, mozzarella, olives, artichokes, salad leaves. Glass of wine. Avocado on toast with dukkah and pepper.

Where is the most interesting culinary place you have visited, and why?

Vietnam, because the cuisine was influenced by the two greatest food cultures in the world - Chinese and French. It is the cleanest, zingiest, freshest, most profoundly flavoured food I have eaten.

What is the strangest thing you have eaten?

A rice-paddy mouse. It was grilled and I thought it was a spatchcock bird. It was juicy and delicious.

What are your favorite food indulgences?

Foie gras, caviar and truffles, all of which I have to go to another country to eat, except for our Gisborne truffles but they are very hard to come by.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

That I love tinned peas, adore babies (but don't eat them) and that being mildly famous has made me socially phobic. Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm the first to leave a party, if I turn up at all. I am basically a sociable loner anyway which is just a well as you have to be an extrovert to present television and an introvert to write books.

What are three foods you could not live without, and why?

Fish and shellfish because they taste good, are light and you get to eat them with your hands. Lamb because it tastes sweet and earthy and is comfort food as I've been eating it all my life. Potatoes because you can live on potatoes alone for 60 days before everything goes pear-shaped. They are a hugely good excuse to eat butter. If I was on a desert island I would happily eat only spuds - nutty, heart-warming and filling.

Your favourite summer foods?

White asparagus, young broad beans, Central Otago stonefruit, end-of-summer tomatoes, salade nicoise made with fresh tuna, berries, sandy pippies, fish and chips on the beach.

Favourite food store?

Sabato, because when you go in you feel like you're on holiday and about to eat every favourite thing you ever ate and they make you coffee and there are no children in the tiny trollies.

Your most recent interesting food discovery?

Mexican food in Oaxaca. It is much better and more varied than I thought - a dreamland of silky moles, fresh corn tortillas, unconched chocolate, fresh hand-made cheese and lime-laced mezcal. I loved the way they put a little chocolate in some of their dishes - it makes things unctuous and quite regal.

Your biggest kitchen disaster?

In the middle of a busy service in a restaurant in Paris, the shelf above the stove, which was holding a huge cheese tart, broke and fell on all the steaks, sauces and pasta pots below, ruining everything.

It was an open kitchen so the clients were all aghast, watching to see what I would do next. My boss calmly took the utensils out of my hands, turned me around and walked me out of the restaurant to the back courtyard. There he force-fed me whisky and didn't let me back in till the staff had cleaned everything up. Not a word was said.

Then I went back in and continued as if nothing had happened. Needless to say, the clients were most appreciative of the show and expressed this with a standing ovation.

What are you cooking for Christmas Day?

We will be eating smoked Akaroa salmon, organic ham, turkey, fresh peas, new agria potatoes, bright shining salads, trifle, plum pudding and chocolate log, which sister Keriann always makes specially for Dad.

Where will you be, and who will you be spending it with?

My parents, brothers, sisters and families are coming together to Hawkes Bay from all over New Zealand and Australia.

This is a chance for all of us to compete for attention, the boys to tell sordid jokes my mother pretends not to understand and for the mothers to say to the children, "Stop screaming near Aunty Peta - you know it drives her nuts".

Your best idea for leftover Christmas ham or turkey?

Give it to a family who has nothing.

CHRISTMAS CAKE
 
2kg mixed fruit, such as currants, raisins and sultanas
6 Tbs sherry, cognac or rum
500g butter
500g dark cane sugar
1 Tbs golden syrup or treacle
6 large eggs
1/2 preserved lemon, finely chopped
500g flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp curry powder
200g whole blanched almonds

Soak dried fruit in alcohol overnight.

The next morning cream the butter, sugar and treacle till soft and light. Beat in the eggs one by one. Stir in the preserved lemon then add the sifted flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Stir in the fruit and almonds.

Preheat oven to 160C. Line a large, tall cake tin with baking paper and pour the mixture into it.

Place the cake on a lower rung of the oven and bake at 160C for one hour then lower the heat to 120C and bake for another three hours.