| In Association with 5+ A Day Charitable Trust |
The navel orange is one of winter's best-loved fruits. New Zealand ones will be arriving in supermarkets early in July, set to brighten fruit bowls and menus up until December. The navel's arrival means it's time to say goodbye to the last of the feijoas and local Packham and Bosc pears, with Australian imports filling the gap. Along with oranges, it really is citrus to the rescue for the next few months (hello mandarins, lemons and limes).
Large, sweet and usually seedless, the navel orange is easy to peel and originated as a sour fruit grown in China, maybe as early as 2500BC. Since then, it’s made its popular way across the world, with most of New Zealand’s crop grown in Gisborne. While many of us already know about its high vitamin C content (one orange will provide all of our recommended daily intake) it is also contains folate and potassium and niacin (the later essential for brain and nerve function, also helping to reduce fatigue).
Store oranges in the fruit bowl at room temperature for about a week. Refrigerated, they will last about three weeks longer. If you are picking your own, it’s helpful to know that fruit with a little green may actually be ripe. Strange but true, if left on the tree, the orange colour can actually revert to green. Luckily, this will not affect the flavour. Indeed, navel oranges can stay on the tree for three or four months after the fruit reaches a mature size (taste one to see if it’s ripe and choose oranges that are firm and heavy).
Those sweet orbs are a great boost to kick-start your day. Aaron Brunet adds them to his spoonie breakfast (with hazelnuts, banana and dates) and uses the navel's zest in his citrus breakfast crumb topped with the cut orange and coconut cream or yoghurt. It makes a feel-good dessert as well.
Meanwhile try adding oranges to enliven one of your winter coleslaws. This fennel and orange slaw from Viva, serves four.
The slaw calls for segmented oranges. Ray McVinnie shows how to go about it in this video.
Parsnips and Ohakune carrots are plentiful and good buying this week. Thanks to the cold, which increases their sugar content, they are even sweeter over winter. Both come from the carrot family and they complement each other in so many ways. They contain fibre, niacin and potassium, with carrots having loads of vitamin A too.
There would be few of us who don’t have a carrot or two lurking in the veg crisper (they are happiest stored in the fridge in plastic bags). When preparing, team them with orange, lemon, garlic, thyme, tarragon and parsley. Spices — ginger, cumin, paprika and turmeric — will balance their sweetness.
If buying carrots with leaves on, remove them as soon as you get home (those leaves suck up moisture). No need to peel carrots, just give them a scrub. The same goes for young parsnips, but older, bigger types make better eating if they are very thinly peeled. And, unless the centre core is very woody, there’s no need to cut it away.
When buying, avoid any overly hairy parsnips with brown patches which indicate they will be past their best. Parsnips will keep for a week in a perforated bag in the fridge. And like carrots, they are lovely grated raw into salads as well as being cooked.
All carrots were originally purple but in the 17th century, patriotic Dutch growers bred them to match the colour on the national flag. This week you may come across large purples in stores as well as the baby purple carrots we have become used to seeing.
Whatever colour you opt for, try carrots and parsnips in the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust's winter vegetable soup with carrots and parsnips. Warming and nutritious, a bowlful will make a sustaining snack or addition to a meal.
Get the recipe (Recipe by the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust)
Also try
- Jan Bilton's parsnip rosti with salmon (or a poached egg) for a weekend breakfast.
- Warren Elwin's luscious side, mashed carrot and parsnip
are one of the week’s best vege buys. Our most used vegetable (97 per cent of Kiwis eat them), potatoes contain vitamin C, potassium, niacin and pantothenic acid which aids fat metabolism, normal growth and vision.
No matter the time of year, there’s a spud waiting for you. Along with their great support role as part of a wintry roast, floury types, such as Agria can be baked to become a meal in themselves.
Try Warren Elwin's masala baked potatoes, stuffed with an Indian-inspired spicy mix using frozen peas, and topped with a garlicky mint and coriander yoghurt sauce.
Remember, the most important thing when choosing potatoes is the use they will be put to. Waxy spuds (most early or new season types) have high moisture content and low starch. They can be roasted too but are de rigueur for boiling, in salads, gratins, casseroles and soups — anywhere where you don't want the potato to turn to mush. As well as summer's jersey bennes, waxy varieties include Nadine, Draga and Frisia.
Floury potatoes, which have less water but more starch, include the aforementioned Agria along with Ilam Hardy, Fianna and Red Rascal.
All-purpose potatoes sit somewhere between the two: commonly seen are Rua, Desiree, Karaka and Moonlight.
New potatoes are available from August through to February. As the season progresses waxy potatoes can mature to become floury.
For a change, try roasted waxy (or new) potatoes with chilli and lime.
Get the recipe (Recipe by the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust)
Green and gold kiwifruit also help us keep up our supply of vitamin C over winter. They also contain useful amounts of folate and potassium. The green, however, has more fibre than the gold but the gold is a source of vitamin E. Both are good buying now: the green is especially affordable. Sweeter gold kiwifruit will be with us until October; the green season is from April until January. The skin of both is edible. Ripen kiwifruit at room temperature but store in the fridge.
When you want dessert but you are trying to skip the steamed pud, put kiwifruit to delicious good use in a winterfruit salad with honeycomb and chia seeds.
Get the recipe (Recipe by the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust)
Or whip up their kiwifruitsalsa (below) to accompany tacos or chicken dishes.
Get the recipe (Recipe by the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust)
Other good buys this week include mandarins (see broccolini with mandarin and chilli,) beetroot and mushrooms.
Get the recipe (Recipe by the 5+ A Day Charitable Trust)
See 5+ A Day (also through Facebook) for more seasonal fruit and vegetable information.