KEY POINTS:
Tired of plain old roast chicken, at a loss to know what to do with that piece of beef or want your mashed potatoes to be a bit more exciting? Jon Standbrook has the solution - mustard. Not any old mustard, mind, but a range of imaginative, organic
and rather exotic condiments he's created under his Mustardmakers at the Plantery label.
Some contain native ingredients such as kawakawa and horopito, others are blended with herbs and honey. Standbrook sells his range alongside wife Morag's home-cooked preserves and chutneys from a tiny cottage surrounded by lavender in Puhoi, north of Auckland.
The couple never meant to go into the mustard business. Landscapers by trade, their original plan was to set up a nursery selling edible gardening plants. Then Morag, granddaughter of a keen South Island preserve cook, decided to whip up a few marmalades, jams and mustards to sell alongside the plants. The condiments shot out of the door, to the point where the Standbrooks had to give up the plants and get serious about mustards and preserves.
They maintain that mustard is not just a meal's guest star, a daub on the side of the plate, but an integral part of the dishes they cook.
"The lemon and dill mustard is beautiful spread over hapuka or salmon before you cook it in foil," Jon explains. "Or you can put it in a sauce for cauliflower cheese to really bring out the flavour.
"The lemon and ginger mustard relish lifts a roast chook to another level. And the horseradish and horopito mustard is perfect with roast beef or mashed with your potatoes."
A favoured dish is Mustardmakers Chicken. "It's so simple. I cut open a chicken thigh, put in a teaspoon of the bush honey and orange mustard, wrap with bacon, put it on an oven tray with a little orange juice and pepper, bake for 35 to 40 minutes and voila - it's a great quick meal."
As a boy, Standbrook helped out in his family's pub, mixing the Colman's mustard powder into a paste and putting it in containers on tables. "The stuff would go up my nose so it was probably a Freudian type experience that changed me forever," he laughs.
He and Morag have started small but have big plans. With product already stocked in 100 shops nationally, and 16 months of export sales to Singapore they now have Australia, England and Belgium in their sights.
But you'll still find Jon in his little Puhoi cottage most days and at Matakana Farmers Market on Saturday mornings looking for feedback.
"It's a great place to meet people who use our products."
Morag's jams and marmalades sell under The Old-Fashioned Preserves Company label and are versatile in cooking beyond the normal smear on toast or scones.
Jon recommends strawberry and orange blossom jam in a tall glass with vanilla ice cream, and a large dollop of whipped cream.
"That's pretty good. Fig and ginger jam is great with cheese, apricot jam is beautiful with meat and, of course, the marmalades are fantastic as a glaze over ham."
Website: www.mustardmakers.co.nz
- Detours, HoS