The Five Stags sig­na­ture dishes are inspired by hearty, rus­tic New Zea­l­and cuisine and pay trib­ute to wild game of the New Zea­l­and coun­tryside. Each dish is inten­ded to be good, hon­est tuck­er — hunt­ing food for every­day folk. The sig­na­ture dishes on the menu fea­ture staple meats of New Zea­l­and cuisine, but with a hearty hunt­ing spin.

Dishes like Smoked Kahawai and kumara fish cakes, or slow cooked beef with root ginger and nat­ur­ally fer­men­ted soy sauce or two day but­ter­milk fried South­ern chick­en. Who does­n’t like a gen­er­ous help­ing of roast pork with all the trim­mings? One of our favour­ites is the ‘Wounded Bull’: pickled beef, slow cooked with ginger and soy, and served with mush­rooms and creamed spring onion mash.

 Wounded bull

  Ingredients

• 300g Shii­take mushrooms
• 300g onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• 10g gar­lic, crushed
• 20g ginger paste
• 1 litre of beef stock
• 2g star anise
• 40ml soy sauce
• 2 toma­toes, crushed
• 75g brown sugar
• 1 tsp five-spice powder
• 1kg corned beef sil­ver­side, soaked overnight in 1 litre of water
• 1 tsp arrow­root powder, mixed into 10ml cold water
• Fresh cori­ander, roughly chopped

Preparation

1. Soak the mush­rooms in water for 24 hours.

Method

2. Put the onions, gar­lic, cori­ander and ginger in a blender and pulse to a rough paste. Add to the beef stock along with the star anise, soy sauce, mush­rooms, crushed toma­toes, brown sug­ar and five-spice powder, and bring to the boil.
3. While the stock is com­ing up to heat, cut the beef into 200g por­tions and place into a deep tray.
4. Once the stock has come to the boil, pour over the beef por­tions, then cov­er with bak­ing paper that has been pierced with breath­ing holes. Cov­er with foil and bake at 160˚C for 2½ hours.
5. When the beef is nice and tender, place the por­tions on a tray and strain off the stock into a sauce­pan. Bring the stock to the boil, stir in the arrow­root powder and water mix­ture, then whisk until thickened.
6. Serve with creamy mashed pota­toes and fresh spring onion and gar­nish with peeled car­rot, red onion and freshly cut ginger.

Serves 4–6W