School cookbook a collection of 'mouth-watering' recipes

Kiwi chef Anthony Foy Hong. Photo / Supplied

The recipes number just under 150, and the team behind a cookbook created from the family favourites of Auckland Grammar students - featuring old boys and former principals - have ingested them all.

Auckland Grammar School's first cookbook, A Taste of Grammar, edited by former chef to United States' president Barack Obama and Grammar old boy Anthony Hoy Fong, is being launched at the school's main hall on Sunday afternoon.

Hoy Fong has flown back from his home in New York City for the launch. He told the Herald on Sunday this week the book was one of the most rewarding culinary projects he had worked on.

"Being able to work with such a diverse range of authentic family recipes from the community, not to mention all the heartfelt stories behind them, was too good of an opportunity to miss. The recipes are brilliantly simple, humble and mouth-watering."

He was particularly taken with former All Black captain and longtime Grammar headmaster Sir John Graham's five-generation old family recipe for salad dressing.

"It's a beautifully old technique that I hadn't seen before."

Slow Braised Beef Cheeks from the cookbook "A Taste of Grammar". Photo / Supplied

For Grammar director of advancement Amanda Stanes, the launch is the culmination of months of work collating recipes, standardising measurements and, most importantly, tasting them.

"We've tried all of them. It's been disgusting for our waistlines."

All recipes came from students, their families, old boys or former principals of the central Auckland secondary school.

Three hundred submissions were considered and those chosen had been divided into the four school terms based on what ingredients are in season at that time.

Dion Nash Broth from the cookbook "A Taste of Grammar". Photo / Supplied

There were other conditions too - they had to be family recipes, not those already in a cookbook, use whole foods and be nutritious, Stanes said.

Increasing diversity at the school was reflected in A Taste of Grammar, she said.

"There are quite a few ethnic recipes our demographics are about 40 per cent Asian...we've got a lot of rice dishes. We didn't get a lot of what you would call Kiwi staples - meat and three vege or roasts."

Kiwi chef Anthony Foy Hong, who put together the cookbook. Photo / Supplied

Recipes included a Red Wine Octopus Stew, Kaffir Lime and Chicken Salad and Trevally Mousse.

The book is a fundraiser for the Auckland Grammar School Foundation, which is hoping to raise $100,000 from sales.

The foundation is an academic endowment fund for teaching or potential teaching staff at the school.