FOOD & WINE

 

 

The Café’s Head Chef Mark Pietersen, better known as Zeph, was instrumental in developing a menu so that customers can breakfast till mid afternoon, select lunch and dinner from the all-day selection, or simply have a snack.
Zeph came to Tay Street after ten years running Astrolabe’s kitchen. He heads a team of five chefs committed to creating simple fusions of flavour using fresh produce and authentic ingredients.

Recipes provided by Tay Street Beach Café, Mount Maunganui.
Photography by Quinn O’Connell.

 

Eggs Benedict

It’s hard to beat a good ‘eggs bene’ with perfectly poached eggs and a sharp Hollandaise Sauce on grilled Ciabatta with sliced Smoked Aoraki Salmon and Spinach.

INGREDIENTS:
Hollandaise
• 3 egg yolks - use organic free range eggs
• 250gm unsalted butter
• 50ml white wine vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 pepper corns
• juice of ½ lemon
• salt & pepper


Put the vinegar, bay leaf and peppercorns in a pot, bring to simmer, reduce by 1/3 and strain.
Melt the butter (it needs to be hot)
Blitz the egg yolks and add the hot vinegar then slowly add the hot butter and as the sauce thickens squeeze in the lemon and season with salt and pepper. It should be thick and tart when spooned over the poached eggs; the sharpness cutting the richness of the runny yolks.

Mozzarella & Tomato Salad

A variation of the Italian favourite Insalata Caprese, I’ve added some extras.

INGREDIENTS:
• A good selection of summer tomatoes; as many interesting varieties you can find.
• Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella (Italian) torn into nice sized pieces
• A good handful of basil leaves
• A jar of Artichokes, drained, tossed in olive oil and grilled
• Strips of parma ham
• Black olives
• A handful of pine nuts
• Extra virgin oil for drizzling
• Black pepper and flaky sea salt

Build up the salad and season with salt and pepper and drizzle over the olive oil.
If you use the best ingredients available this is an amazing dish.

Thai Prawn Noodle Salad

This spicy, crunchy salad packed full of goodness is great with a cold beer.

INGREDIENTS:
Salad
• Packet of noodles cooked as per instructions
• A handful of bean sprouts
• 2 red radishes thinly sliced
• A handful of tatsoi greens or watercress washed & spun dry
• 4 spring onions thinly sliced
• A handful of toasted cashews
• A pinch of toasted sesame seeds
• 2 red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
• A handful of fresh coriander
• Cooked prawns; eight pp; head & tail removed & deveined

Dressing
• 500ml light soy sauce
• 100ml fish sauce
• 6 fresh limes juiced
• 2 sticks of lemongrass finely sliced
• 1 knob of ginger roughly chopped
• 1 knob palm sugar

First make the dressing. Bring all the ingredients to the boil in a pot then turn heat to medium and reduce by 1/3. Strain the dressing and let it cool.
Taste and adjust seasoning. It should be sweet and sour with plenty of zing.Toss all the salad ingredients together and mix through the dressing giving it a good coating and finish with a squeeze of lime.
Delicious.
Serves 4.