Pumpkin
Soup and Cheese Rolls from the Mainland
The best pumpkin soup I have ever tasted
arrived in my mailbox recently, from my sister
Margreet. It comes from Omakau; near the
Otago Central Rail Trail.To make it you need a whole pumpkin.
You
simply make a few cuts into it with a knife to make sure it doesn’t explode, and
then cook it for 15 minutes in the microwave which softens it, making it easier
to peel and chop.
In the meantime fry
an onion with garlic and ginger, and then add the chopped pumpkin and all the other
ingredients except for the coconut cream. The chili sauce adds a little
sweetness and heat, the ginger some zing, red pepper adds to the warm colour,
and the orange juice gives it a fresh fruity flavour. Bring it to the boil and
then let it simmer for 30 minutes before using a stick blender to make it
smooth. It makes an ambrosial soup, enriched by a swirl of coconut cream at the
end.
If you wish, and I usually do, you can
leave it simmering in a slow cooker instead for about 6 hours, which fills the
house with the homely smell of good soup and gives the flavours time to mellow.
.
At the bottom of her recipe there was a
note: Serve with cheese rolls. Cheese rolls? Never heard of them! It seems
unbelievable now but it’s true that on several trips to the South
Island I had failed to come across them.
No less a source than Wikipedia gives them
a mention as one of a very small number of recipes which are specific to only
one of New Zealand’s main islands.
This culinary icon has been around for a
long time. It was first recorded in a National Newspaper called Truth in 1935
which apart from much scurrilous gossip also published some good recipes.
Originally they were called rat traps, probably because of their rotund little
bodies and to distinguish them from mouse traps.
They really took off in the 1950’s when
commercially sliced bread came on the market, making it easier to prepare them.
Then they hit the headlines last week when
the winner of a Mainland Cheese roll competition held as part of the New
Zealand International Science Festival was announced in Dunedin. It was a truly scientific quest in
which no less than 81 entries were rigorously scrutinized for taste, texture,
appearance, nutrition and the all important ooze factor.
The Mainland’s winning
cheese roll or the Cheese Rolls Royce as the Southland Times aptly called it
was made by Joy Jones from Dunedin.
She learnt the recipe from her Mum and now makes them for Robbie’s Bar and
Grill in South Dunedin.
In the traditional mainland style it had a
substantial amount of cheesy filling, and was made with onion soup mix and
evaporated milk.
Professor Phil Bremer described them as flavoursome, thick
cohesive and smooth with a full bodied texture that delivered a rich mouth feel.
In addition the fact that .the ingredients were heated in the microwave ensured
a homogeneous easily spreadable filling that did not separate or go greasy when
the cheese roll was heated.
Why cheese rolls have failed to cross Cook Strait, head North and become a café staple up here,
remains a bit of a mystery. Maybe we’ve been so slow to catch on because we
were too busy grazing on ciabatta, pita bread, bagels, naan and croissants to
fully appreciate just how special this regional comfort food is.
But now that the humble cheese roll has
climbed the ladder of fame it seemed a good time to go local rather than global.
So I decided to give them a go
My sister kindly emailed me her family
recipe for cheese rolls .Unlike the winning recipe it does not contain cream so
a little less dangerous for the waistline! And so convenient, if not eaten
straight away you can pop them into the freezer and they can go straight from
there under the oven grill. She keeps a constant supply of them.
For these cheese rolls simply simmer a cup
of milk with a packet of onion soup and stir till it thickens, then melt in
lots of Cheddar Cheese (might as well use Mainland!) Use this mixture to spread
on pieces of sandwich sliced white bread and roll them into a cylindrical
shape. It takes three folds. No need to cut off the crusts. Put under the grill
until a golden brown on both sides, then spread generously with butter.
Being an Aucklander I was tempted to tamper
with the recipe, to add a dash of sherry, a little mustard, a few chopped up sundried
tomatoes or olives but in the end I did it her way, and there were no regrets. This
was real comfort food, tasty but simple. We dunked them into our pumpkin soup.
The one mistake I had made was to spread
the cheese filling on too thinly, so it failed to ooze out as it should. It
still tasted good but thicker would have been better.
Next time we have overseas visitors who
want to taste some real kiwiana, I might well serve them cheese rolls with
pumpkin soup, followed by roast lamb and a pavlova with canned peaches for
afters.
The fact that Wikipedia named the cheese
roll as one of a number of very small recipes which are specific to the
Mainland continues to intrigue me. Having developed a taste for them I am now
on a small mission to discover what these other recipes might be. I’ll just
have to invest in some more merino woolies, a balaclava and Ugg boots and cross
over Cook Straight on the ferry. Then onto on a voyage of discovery to ferret
them out.
The Recipes:
Margreet’s
Pumpkin Soup: (which I have slightly adapted from
her original recipe)
Ingredients:
1 whole pumpkin
Cheese
Roll Filling
Ingredients:
1 packet of onion soup
1 cup of milk
About 350 gm of tasty cheese
Method:
Put onion soup and milk in a saucepan.
Heat over a moderate heat until the mixture
thickens.
Stir in grated tasty cheese until it is quite a thick
mixture (about 350gms)
Spread on Sandwich
sliced bread and roll up (no need to take the crusts off)
Grill on both sides till golden brown and the
cheese has melted.
Slather the rolls with butter
Enjoy!
