Kiwi Kitchen - Series One

I like the stuff I grew up with: you know, the ordinary s**t. I've done stacked up food, and I've done fancy bits and pieces, and I've done twiddly bits, and I've shaved parsnips, and I've deep- fried them, and I've tized them up — but in the end I like the ordinary stuff. 

 

– Cook Richard Till, on going back to basics in his cooking

That old stuff requires an ability to cook. And a lot of this new stuff is just an ability to shop really well. You don't have to be a very good cook to cook the best ingredients. And you have to be a good cook to take ordinary old rubbish and make something out of it. So yeah, I'm the upside down food snob.

– Cook Richard Till, explains the importance of mastering simple food, at the start of episode one

I love whitebait. I wouldn't have a season go past without having some; it would just seem a criminal act. I love it because it's a real New Zealand thing. I love it because it's so damned plain. I love it the way people will argue till they're purple that their way of doing it's the best.

– Presenter Richard Till pays tribute to whitebait. early in episode one

You could sort of crumb fish in cornflakes and sesame seeds, and make some fabulous wasabi mayonnaise for it, but if you can’t do a bloody roast then you’re not much use as a cook I don’t think.

– Richard Till on the iconic Kiwi roast, in episode one

This whole episode, to me, is a way to recapture some of those old sort of hotel-style dishes that have a lot of empty theatre in them .  . .  there's no particular point to it other than just to have a bit of fun.

– Presenter Richard Till on bringing signature hotel dishes back into the modern era, early in episode two

I just thought this was different, and it's quite easy to make . . . it was quite simple, but it had a sort of touch of the exotic.

– Former All Black and MP Graham Thorne reinvigorates an eggplant recipe from a 1978 rugby cookbook, in episode three

...this is my version of this sauce, but made with a supermarket shopper in mind, so that we can come out with something which is pretty damn delicious and really requires no effort at all. Isn't that kind?

– Presenter Richard Till on simplifying recipes, in episode two

Changes have come mainly with things like the availability of different ingredients . . . When I first started at the Woman's Weekly, I used to get people terribly agitated because I had the cheek to use garlic, oil and wine. And certainly for the garlic and oil, it was "why are you using that foreign muck!"

– Longtime NZ Woman's Weekly Food Editor Tui Flowers on how Kiwi cooking has changed, early in episode four

If I hadn't had Daren's crayfish before, it would have been ugly. I would have dived at the crayfish and sort of smothered myself in garlic butter and been grunting.

– Richard Till on how desperate he was to eat Jo Roger's crayfish, in episode five

Baked Alaska: well it's as corny as a 101-years old foot really but I mean, everyone used to have them when they were married, engaged, or celebrating a divorce, or whatever. Bring on the bomb! There's flames, and everyone likes flames.

– Celebrity chef Des Britten on the baked alaska, in episode six

Now I'll be straight up with you, I'm not suggesting that you make a fruit cake especially for dessert. But I am encouraging you to join up with the rest of this great, long line of New Zealanders who have been making fruit cakes forever. Find your own favourite fruit cake, and keep New Zealand the number one fruit cake nation of the world.

– Presenter Richard Till issues a rallying cry for Kiwis to keep making fruit cakes, late in episode seven

I was pleasantly delighted by [Richard] Till's cooking show Kiwi Kitchen . . . Here at last was a New Zealand TV cook who was opinionated, unpretentious and made food I could relate to. Food that I grew up on, in fact, which means that some plonker in an ad agency probably calls it 'iconic'.

– Sunday Star-Times writer Grant Smithies, 18 February 2009

Good food should be accessible. I'd hate to make a show where people had to dash around trying to find flayed sassafras leaves or whatever, muttering `That f***ing Richard Till!' My principle on this show is, if you can't buy it at a Pak'nSave, we won't cook it.

– Richard Till on the offerings on Kiwi Kitchen, The Sunday Star-Times, 18 February 2009