While the leek is celebrated and valued overseas, it’s often underrated in traditional New Zealand cuisine. Here’s how you can give it the respect it deserves.

Words: Jenny Garing

Leeks, like many vegetables I encountered as a child in the 70s, were always served in typical New Zealand fashion – steamed and slathered in white sauce. As a result, I was put off the vegetable for some time. But then we had a spell living in Catalunya, where we were served a wonderful dish called calçots. A type of small leek, the calçots are thrown onto the embers of a fire and cooked until they’re charred on the outside while soft and sweet in the centre. During meals, we’d pick up the whole leek and dip it into a romesco sauce made of blitzed roasted red capsicums, almonds, garlic, olive oil and vinegar, and eat it with our soot-smudged fingers. The dish is so popular in Spain it has an entire festival devoted to it: Fiesta de la Calçotada de Valls.

Although we’re now in New Zealand and don’t often cook over an open fire as they do in Spain, if we’re having a BBQ we put some leeks on the grill and cook them until charred. You can also do this in your oven or under the grill. If you have only big leeks, just quarter them by cutting lengthwise and then across the width. The romesco sauce is optional but it’s simple to make and serves as the perfect condiment.

Leeks are low in calories but high in nutrients, including healthy polyphenols. They’re packed full of magnesium and vitamin A, C, and K and have small amounts of vitamin B6, iron, fibre, copper and folate. Leeks are versatile: you can eat them raw (thinly sliced in salads) or poach, fry, roast, braise, boil, or pickle them. They make a great addition to stews, salads, quiches, stir-fries, and potato dishes, such as the iconic winter special – leek and potato soup. But for something a little more niche, you can’t go past a leek pie. Here’s how I make a Welsh version for the winter months.

Allium and Cheese Crostata

Serves: 6
Prep time: 25 minutes
Pastry rest time: 60 minutes
Cook time: 60 minutes

In Wales, where the leek is revered as a national vegetable, the bakeries sell a leek, cheese and onion crostata – a type of free-form pie. Preparing leeks this way allows the alliums – the leeks and onions – to caramelise slightly, which I think brings out their best flavours.

INGREDIENTS

For the dough:
200g plain flour
120g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
120g Tasty cheddar, grated
60ml iced water
1½ tsp of salt
1½ tsp of ground black pepper

For the filling:
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, peeled and finely sliced
4 sage leaves, chopped
1 medium leek, trimmed and finely sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 spring onions
1 tbsp dijon mustard
50g blue cheese, crumbled (this can be substituted for parmesan, feta or mozzarella)
1 tsp salt

METHOD

In a food processor, prepare the dough by whizzing the flour and a teaspoon and a half each of salt and ground black pepper. Add the butter and cheese to the processor and whizz it again until you have a mix that looks like big breadcrumbs. Finally, add the iced water and give it one more pulse to form a ball of dough. Tip it onto a board and knead it briefly, then wrap in cling film and refrigerate for one hour.

Make the filling while the dough chills. Heat the oil in a frying pan on medium-low heat. Add the onion, sage, leek, minced garlic and a teaspoon of salt to the pan. Cover and leave to cook for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Uncover and cook, stirring, for five minutes more, until they are golden brown. Add a splash of water if the onion begins to stick. Tip the onion mix from the pan onto a plate and set aside.

Slice the spring onions diagonally. Put the frying pan back on the heat and add the tablespoon of butter and heat until it melts. Take the pan off the heat, stir in the spring onions, mustard and salt to taste, toss to coat and then leave to cool.

Heat the oven to 210˚C (190˚C fan). Remove the dough from the refrigerator and tip out onto a lightly floured surface. Working quickly, roll the dough into a 1cm-thick square, fold in half into a rectangle, then fold again into a smaller square. Roll out again into a rough 1cm-thick square. Repeat the folding process once more.

Put it on a large sheet of baking paper and roll into a 32cm-wide circle. Stir the spring onion mix into the fried leek mix, then spread it over the dough, leaving a 1-2cm border around the edge. Fold over the pastry edges partially to cover the outer sides of the filling, then carefully lift the crostata and its paper base onto a baking sheet. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown and some of the onions have browned at the edges.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle the blue cheese all over the top and bake for five minutes more until the cheese is melted. Rest the crostata for 10 minutes before serving.

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