The Modern Pantry Cookbook
by Anna Hansen
Ebury Press, $69.99
Anna Hansen's grandmother always believed that any fool could cook if they had the perfect ingredients, but that it took a great cook to make something delicious from nothing.
Anna remembers her Mormor, as Danish grandmothers are called, having to be very creative
to turn out her native Danish food in Auckland with the ingredients available in a young country at the other side of the world. The younger Anna inherited not only her Mormor's name but also her love of adventurous cooking.
London-based but still an avid Kiwi with ties to Auckland and to the Hansen silversmith family of Nelson, Anna Hansen is a colleague and former business partner of chef Peter Gordon.
The pair set up The Providores in London in 2001, and together experimented with "fusion" cooking. Fusion food is no longer high fashion, but Anna continues the concept, mixing ingredients from different cultures to create new dishes which blend East with West. From the time she opened her London cafe and restaurant, The Modern Pantry, in 2008, customers have been asking for recipes.
Anna has obliged, writing what may become the ultimate fusion cookbook.
This is a cook's recipe book, written for people who understand food and like to try new combinations of ingredients and flavours.
But Anna insists her food is everyday fare - just lifted out of the ordinary by simple twists.
So we have steak marinated in tamarind and miso and rhubarb with lemongrass and sago. It's worth a trip to London to eat The Modern Pantry's version of an omelette - made with sugar-cured prawns and served with smoked chilli sambal, or their version of the Middle Eastern bread lavosh, made with sumac and quinoa.
But if need be, the recipes are in the book, along with many popular menu items such as salad of slow-cooked octopus with confit artichoke hearts, grilled lamb chops with smoked anchovy salsa, and banana and coconut upside-down cake.Pam Neville
