Quick bites: Slow down

Breville Slow Cooker. Photo / Supplied

If you're going to try some delicious slow cooking recipes this winter, you're going to need a slow cooker. Kiwi foodie Allyson Gofton is such a fan of the stainless steel Breville Avance, $149.95 (it also comes in white for $119.95), it stars on the cover of her new book Slow.

The benchtop cooker has a five-litre capacity, three settings including an auto function, a clear glass lid and a dishwasher safe, removable crockery bowl. Some handy tips for getting the best from your slow cooker: Pre-brown meat and poultry before slow cooking to seal in moisture and intensify flavour; place vegetables on the base and sides of the slow cooker and place meat on top; resist the temptation to remove the lid and stir until it's time to serve, or you'll lose all the built-up heat.

Going wild
Experimental home cooks have three more weeks to send in their best wild food dishes to the Monteith's Wild Recipe competition.

The competition, which runs parallel to the Monteith's Wild Food Challenge in bars and restaurants, is open to anyone over 18 years old who has a great wild-food recipe to share, matched with a Monteith's beer or cider. Recipes should be uploaded to monteiths.co.nz before Sunday, July 18.

Some of the recipes uploaded include Bendigo black beer stew with wild Central Otago goat, matched with Monteith's Black Beer, by Brock Campbell of Cromwell, camp-oven braised wild rabbit, matched with Monteith's Celtic Red by Joanne Anson of Whangarei and parcels of wild pork and pate with mushroom sauce, pictured, matched with Monteith's Golden Lager, by Diane Davidson of Auckland. All recipes will be judged by Monteith's Beer and Wild Food Challenge head judge Kerry Tyack and chef Mark Gregory, with the winner announced in early August.

If you're inspired to enter, here are some tips: take inspiration from locally grown wild food or readily available wild ingredients such as venison, rabbit, pork or apples from your neighbour's tree. Or prepare your dish in a "wild" manner - and make sure it matches well with your chosen Monteith's beer.