Fresh & authentic New Zealand recipes

Contemporary New Zealand food and wine offers the world a distinctive cuisine arising from our geographic location and unique cultural heritage.

Being positioned in the Pacific and close to Asia, but with a strong British and European heritage, we have evolved our own unique style of fusion food that applies cooking techniques from around the world to New Zealand’s exquisite produce, spiced up with a dash of Kiwi ingenuity.

Swept by wind and rain, basked in sunlight, on the edge of the planet deep in the Pacific, New Zealand is brimming with fresh, clean, abundant bounty.

Our raison d’etre is simply to grow great food – we gave kiwifruit to the world, as well as feijoas and tamarillos. New Zealand sauvignon blanc is famous, our bottled waters rank in trace components with the best, our dairy is arguably the most prolific globally, our lamb is legendary and our unique sea species are as pure as you can find on the planet.

New Zealand’s fresh, clear waters are the source of many seafood delicacies, including our world-famous green-lipped mussels and succulent scallops.

This impressive salad makes a few scallops go a long way, but you can replace them with seared prawns or even six rashers of bacon that have been cooked until crisp and then crumbled. If it’s not asparagus season, simply double the amount of snow peas.

It’s a perfect dish for when you want to be organised. The asparagus and snow peas can be cooked a couple of hours before you eat, the scallops seared up to half an hour ahead of serving and the Citrus chilli dressing will keep for up to a week in the fridge.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 5–7 minutes
Serves: 6

Ingredients: 24 spears fresh asparagus, tough ends snapped off
100g mangetout (snow peas), trimmed of stringy bits
50g rocket leaves
1 large just-ripe avocado, cut into chunks
24 fresh scallops (or more as extravagance allows)
Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon or lime
Pinch of salt and ground black pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp citrus chilli dressing (see below)

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Lightly salt the water then drop in the trimmed asparagus and return to the boil for three minutes. Add the mangetout to the pot for the final 20 seconds of the cooking time. Do not overcook.

Drain then immediately cover the vegetables with cold water (this helps to capture their vivid green colour and crunchiness). Drain the vegetables thoroughly. Arrange the rocket leaves on a serving platter and place the asparagus and mangetout on top. Top with the avocado chunks.

Mix the scallops with the lemon or lime zest and season with salt, pepper and sugar (the sugar helps the scallops caramelise without overcooking). Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based frypan until it is very hot and cook the scallops for about 30–50 seconds on each side – they should be browned but still soft. Don’t overcook them and don’t overcrowd the pan – you may need to sear them in two batches.

Pile scallops on top of salad, drizzle with 4 tbsp citrus chilli dressing and toss. Divide between six serving plates and serve at once.

Citrus chilli dressing:

Place 4 tbsp each of orange, lime and lemon juice in a large jar with 1 tsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp sugar, ground black pepper and 1 small red chilli, seeds removed and flesh very finely diced. Shake to blend and chill until ready to serve. This dressing is great with seafood, chicken or salad greens and keeps for up to a week in the fridge (makes 125ml).