Their restaurants may be closed, but you can still get a taste of these Kiwi celebrity chefs in your home.
Peter Gordon's Homeland snack packs and condiments
The restaurant is shut and the cooking classes can't go ahead, but Peter Gordon and his team are still hard at work in the kitchens of Homeland, the restaurant, cooking school and community hub Gordon co-launched at between lockdowns in 2020. Among the range are the XL spicy cheese straws (level up your cheeseboard), spiced nuts and seeds (which featured on the menu of Gordon's Marylebone eatery The Tapa Room, and totally moreish with a cold brew), and the addictively garlicky kawakawa pesto, with kawakawa harvested in Mt Eden and blended with NZ pine nuts and olive oil.
For the condiment that will go with everything, try Peter's Sweet Chilli Sambal - in The Sugar Club cookbook, this was added to grilled scallops, but it goes beautifully with anything you'd like to spice up, from a fried egg on toast to your lunchtime sandwich, mixed with a little mayo.
The new range was always part of the Homeland plan, but Auckland's most recent lockdown pushed it up the priority list. You'll also find dukkah, granola (the same recipe that you'll find on the breakfast menu once Homeland opens to diners again), a miso caramel sauce and lemon yuzu curd, vanilla-glazed shortbreads and head chef Nagaraju Sunkara's Gun Powder (which can be sprinkled on just about anything).
Head to homelandnz.com to order.
Sid Sahrawat's Cassia curry sauces
No one makes a curry like Cassia, and now you can enjoy them straight from your own kitchen. Sid Sahrawat's sauces are made from the same recipes that are served in Cassia's dining room and are all gluten-free and dairy-free. They're made with the best fresh ingredients and have a shelf-life of four months. Each jar will feed four people – simply open them up, cook your choice of protein, then add the sauce.
Choose from korma (a mild sauce made with almond and cardamom), makhani (a butter chicken style sauce, but made with cashews to be creamy, and vegan-friendly), and karahi (a spicy tomato-based sauce). They're all perfect with whichever protein you prefer, and recipes are available on the site.
Cassia is also offering spice kits – ideal if your spice cupboard could do with a refresh – plus spice blends and, for those who really miss the restaurant experience, candles to bring home the signature scents of Cassia and Sid at the French Café.
Go to cassiarestaurant.co.nz to see the full range, plus a selection of recipe ideas for bringing each sauce to life.
Simon Gault's next level at-home cocktails
The man who has taken on restaurants, books and pantry essentials now turns his hand to world-class cocktails. The range contains seven different drinks and aims to transport you around the world, even while we remain very much grounded. Travel to the beaches and sunshine of Costa Rico in a pina colada, tropical with pineapple and coconut. Take the red-eye to New York with an espresso martini, a late-night favourite that came from London in the 1980s to take over the world today.
There's a bellini straight out of northern Italy but flavoured with French apricots rather than the traditional Venetian peach version, and a raspberry margarita with lime, Cointreau and tequila.
But there's more to these than just a straight drink. Take the blood orange margarita for example. Choose this kit and you'll be serving up margarita salts, blood orange rounds, plus your cocktail mix, full instructions, and mint leaves straight from the chef's own garden.
For all kits, the ingredients are fresh, so the cocktails must be stored in the fridge, and should be consumed within a couple of weeks – a deadline which we're sure will challenge no one. You'll find the full range at gaultscocktails.co.nz.
