- 1 year ago
The Food Truck NZ - S03E05 - Spanish Tapas
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00:00Chef Michael van der Elzen is taking to the streets of New Zealand for a tiki tour of
00:07taste buds.
00:08His goal, to transform some of the world's most popular fat-filled dishes into healthy
00:13gourmet truck food.
00:14It just feels so healthy.
00:19This time on the food truck, it's the beginning.
00:23Michael deconstructs Spanish food and gives tapas the treatment.
00:27Pretty old school.
00:29And discovers the other side of wine matching in the wild.
00:32Phenomenal.
00:33Beautiful.
00:34Were we supposed to pay?
00:35They actually came up to the truck and just took food.
00:37They just kind of forgot about it.
00:41Can Michael do Spanish tapas with the price, speed and taste Kiwis desire?
00:46Find out on the food truck.
00:49The Spanish, they were the world's first great colonists.
00:57They exported their language, culture and food to the Americas, but New Zealand missed
01:02out.
01:03Sadly, all we got was stodgy British food.
01:06Blame Captain Cook.
01:07When I think of Spanish food, I think of great finger food.
01:12Yeah?
01:13I think of tapas.
01:15Tapas is popular all over Spain, indulging the Spanish penchant for dining late and light
01:20with snack-sized dishes.
01:21It's becoming a lot more popular in New Zealand, but I still don't think, you know, many Kiwis
01:27know that much about Spanish food.
01:30Well, New Zealand, prepare yourself for a crash course in Spanish, because in a week's
01:35time Michael will be heading to the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival with his own take on
01:40this enigmatic cuisine.
01:42But before he can educate the masses, he'll need to educate himself.
01:46Time for some research.
01:47There are more than 50 New Zealand restaurants serving tapas, but how Spanish are they?
01:53And is this white man's yum cha any good?
01:56A lot of it is very foreign.
01:57A lot of people would struggle to understand a lot of this.
02:00Well, it is Spanish, Michael.
02:02What can I get you?
02:03I love the sound of the oxtail braised in sherry and the garlic and chilli prawns.
02:08Oh, prawnies.
02:09Look right.
02:10And in the bottom here, you've got all this garlic butter with that handsome chilli.
02:18Not very good for you, but it does the trick for the prawns.
02:22So this oxtail has been really slow cooked in sherry.
02:24This oxtail is the tail of the ox.
02:26You know, the name doesn't lie.
02:28It's a substantial meal, but at $18.50, I think that's quite expensive for a tapa.
02:34For his next stop, Michael downsizes to smaller, some would say cuter tapas.
02:40They even have a cute name, Pink's Toss, Pink's Socks.
02:44Yeah, so I've got my pinchos.
02:46Pinchos.
02:47You just go up to the counter, you take what you want, you keep the little sticks, and
02:52At the end of the day, when you've had enough, you go up to the bar, you give them all your
02:55sticks, and you pay for what you've eaten.
02:57But it's no drama, because at $2.50 each, if you don't like it, it doesn't matter.
03:02Don't go for the white bread, though.
03:06I really think that pinchos are perfect for the truck, but as with anything in cooking,
03:11there's more to simple dishes than meets the eye.
03:13So I'm going to go meet a pinchos expert, and he's actually Spanish.
03:19Michael has come to Serafin, a tapas bar and restaurant in Mount Eden, where owner Serafin
03:24Bueno serves up regional Spanish specialties, including our friend the pinchos.
03:29To learn the secret to a perfect pinchos, we're starting with a Spanish omelette, because
03:33in tapas, it's all about the toppings.
03:36It's just potato, onion, eggs.
03:38Onions and eggs.
03:39Okay.
03:40That is the typical Spanish omelette.
03:41Just put a plate on top.
03:43Over.
03:44And that's it.
03:45After a few minutes and one flop later, we've got a Spanish omelette, or tortilla.
03:50Tortilla is the typical sandwich to go to a football match.
03:54In fact, our omelette is destined for higher honors.
03:57But first, another topping, mussels, simply preserved in oil.
04:02It's a ceviche, but not as we know it.
04:04Michael, we're doing escabeche, which is a Spanish way of preserving food.
04:10We bring the oil and the vinegar and the vegetables, a little bit of paprika, into the boil, and
04:14then we put the mussels, which previously we have steamed slightly, to get all the flavor.
04:19It's a natural additive without having to add any preservatives.
04:22Exactly.
04:23Sardines in Spain, we do exactly the same thing.
04:26This is sardine I bought from the market.
04:28What I normally do, curry and salt for about a few hours, olive oil, garlic, and a very,
04:34very fine touch of vinegar, and they can stay there forever.
04:38With the toppings prepared, the base of the pinchos is made from a simple piece of toast
04:43garnished with garlic, olive oil, and a tomato puree.
04:47That tomato's fantastic.
04:48It's lovely, it's healthy, and it's summer.
04:50That is going to be a pincho.
04:52With a bit of capsicum and a garnish of egg, what we might call sardines on toast is transformed
04:58into a mini gourmet extravaganza.
05:00And speaking of egg, let's not forget our omelette.
05:03We put the omelette on top of this.
05:05That's the way the Catalans do it.
05:08The important thing with tapa is to do it well.
05:11Same corner is the worst thing you can do.
05:13What you're using here is fresh product, and easy to do, cheap, with a beer, something
05:20to eat which you are going to enjoy, and it look good, it taste good, it's good for you.
05:26With a few simple dishes from his menu, Serafin has taken us on a mini tour of Spain.
05:32What tapas give you is a great variety, which they represent every corner of Spain.
05:39Only one question remains.
05:41What does the word tapas actually mean?
05:44The word tapa means to cover.
05:46In the summertime there's quite a lot of flies, so what we used to do is this would be served
05:51on a plate, and then we cover the wine with that to stop the fly going to the wine.
05:57When you come back to your glass of drink, you eat it, and have a glass, and then get
06:01a new tapa and put it on top.
06:04In New Zealand, we call that a drinking game.
06:06That's great.
06:07Salud.
06:08Salud.
06:10It was great seeing the tapas made in that classic Spanish style.
06:13I love the simplicity of them, but it's that simplicity that also scares me.
06:17I need to find a way to do something new without over-complicating it, and I have no idea how
06:22to do that.
06:27Chef Michael van der Elzen is taking on tapas.
06:30It's lovely, it's healthy, and it's summer.
06:32Salud.
06:35Today he's come all the way to Marlborough in search of inspiration, but he has just
06:39a few days to drink in the atmosphere and the vino before he launches his tempting tapas
06:45at the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival.
06:48So to help him meet the high expectations of festival goers, Michael is visiting the
06:53Yeelands Estate Winery to see how his tapas fares on the cultured palate of real wine
06:58lovers.
06:59I'm Peter, how are you?
07:00Pleasure to meet you.
07:01I'd love to have a look around.
07:02Love to show you.
07:03Great.
07:04Are you driving, Betty?
07:05You're driving?
07:06Go on, go on.
07:11In little more than a decade, Peter Yeeland has established a vineyard that stretches
07:15to a staggering 4,000 kilometres of vines.
07:18There's 55 kilometres of road on this vineyard, and the wire on this vineyard, if you joined
07:22all this wire up it would go around the equator.
07:25That's a lot of grapes, and a lot of wine.
07:28This soil must be quite salty with the sea bean right there, so do you have to compost
07:32a lot?
07:33Yeah, we do.
07:34I mix that in with the sawdust, the bark, and the grape mulch, and the seaweed that
07:38I get off the beach, a bit of lime, and if I had a shovel here now and dug under there,
07:42you'd get 50 or 60 worms just under one shovel.
07:44Wow.
07:45A lot of ingredients in the soil means a wide variety of grapes and different wines.
07:49So we're predominant with Sauvignon Blanc, just over 100 hectares of Pinot Gris, similar
07:53area in Pinot Noir.
07:55We've also got Tempranillo, and that's a Spanish variety, it's a red, it's a lovely wine.
08:00A Spanish wine grown in New Zealand, that gives Michael an idea.
08:04If I make up some tapas, we get together, and then I go into game day with you, with
08:09your wines and my food.
08:10Yep.
08:13The wine lies in wait, so Michael begins creating a match made in heaven to go with it.
08:18Well, a match made in the food truck.
08:21The beginning.
08:24Let's begin again.
08:25Today I want to make a pan fried squid dish, served with a real authentic Spanish romesco
08:30sauce.
08:31This will be my alternative to the fatty deep fried squid.
08:33Scoring the squid allows it to cook faster, and keeps the flesh tender.
08:37I just want to marinate it really quickly, just to give it a little bit of character,
08:40a little bit of vibrance.
08:42Michael combines Spanish sherry vinegar, smoked paprika, grapeseed oil, a pinch of salt, crushed
08:47garlic.
08:48And then finally, a little bit of orange zest, just to give me a little bit of fragrance
08:52more than anything else.
08:53It's beautiful.
08:55The squid will be served with a classic Spanish romesco sauce.
09:00The romesco sauce to the Spaniards is like tomato sauce to us Kiwis.
09:03Michael combines garlic, whole roasted tomato, roasted peppers, chilli, sherry vinegar, and
09:08olive oil, along with hazelnuts and almonds, and bread to bind.
09:12Delicious.
09:13The flavours of this are going to work so well with my squid.
09:18I can't do Spanish tuffers without doing meatballs.
09:20But I don't want to use the normal pork or beef or lamb, I'm going to use something that's
09:25even more ordinary, chicken.
09:27Michael's chicken is flavoured with garlic, mustard, paprika, and filled out with Spanish
09:32red onion and courgettes.
09:33I'm just adding goodness in there, I don't necessarily want to taste them.
09:37To make sure the water content doesn't dominate, Michael puts the squeeze on.
09:40So I don't want all that water going into my mints, otherwise it's just going to make
09:43them fall apart when they cook.
09:45The only real trick is just keeping your hands a little bit wet, stops the mints from sticking
09:49to your hands so much.
09:50Roll that up, and then just pop these into the fridge, just to set the ball shape.
09:53While the mix is cooling, Michael prepares his second tomato sauce.
09:57It's kind of like a tomato soup, it is the simplest tomato soup you could possibly make.
10:01Really?
10:02How simple?
10:03As simple as taking rosemary, putting the oil into a pot, don't boil it, otherwise you'd
10:06lose that rosemary freshness.
10:08The base combines Spanish broad beans and tomato juice.
10:10A little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper, that's it.
10:13When it is just approaching hot, but not boiling, Michael adds the oil, but not the foliage.
10:17That has to be the fastest, easiest tomato sauce.
10:20Known to man?
10:21Known to me anyway.
10:22Fair enough.
10:23And now I'm going to make a Spanish tortilla, which is inspired by what I saw at Seraphim.
10:28Michael is simply grating part cooked kumara, carrot and parsnip.
10:32Heaps of goodness in that skin.
10:33Along with a touch of beetroot for colour.
10:35So I'm just going to add a little bit, I want the flecks of red, opposed to the whole thing
10:38being red.
10:40Into the pan it goes, and already it's showing its true colours.
10:43So much for the beetroot not infecting everything.
10:47The tortilla tops a slice of bread, along with some manchego cheese, and an olive for
10:51a classic Spanish pinchos.
10:53Just in time for our vineyard worker's lunch break.
10:55I'm going to give you my root vegetable, Spanish tortilla.
10:58The cheese is nice.
10:59It's a bit cheesy, in a good way.
11:01The cheese is absolutely delicious.
11:02Because that's a Spanish dry cheese, so I've just got a wafer thin amount on top.
11:07It's really, really nice.
11:08Does it have enough flavour?
11:09It didn't lack flavour, but it probably could be a little bit punchier, like a bit more
11:14of olives or saltiness.
11:17Next up, Michael's meatballs.
11:18Okay, so dig into this.
11:20What's the herb that you've used with it?
11:22Rosemary.
11:23Rosemary, you can really taste that all the way through.
11:25Herbaceous notes are never lost on wine lovers.
11:28But what we really need is a lover of meatballs.
11:31I love meatballs.
11:32Bingo.
11:33I'm going to give you some of mine.
11:34Fantastic.
11:35It's a little bit on the dry side, but it's not over dry or anything like that.
11:39Okay.
11:40A little bit of a kick on the meatball.
11:41I like that.
11:42The hotter the better.
11:43That's good.
11:44So you want a little bit more chilli in the balls themselves?
11:46Yes.
11:47How are we?
11:48I'm good, thank you.
11:49Oh, yum.
11:50There's a little squid tupper with a romesco sauce.
11:52Oh, wonderful.
11:53I can taste the peppers and the almonds, the tomatoes.
11:57It's really good.
11:58Mike's hit rate here at the vineyard is at 100%.
12:01First time for squid?
12:02Wow.
12:03What do you think of it?
12:04It tastes like chicken.
12:05Almost 100%.
12:07The concept of all those three dishes, I love.
12:09The flavours, I love.
12:10But I'm only halfway there.
12:12Three is good.
12:13Eight is a lot better.
12:15So I actually need to go back, and I need to come up with some more dishes.
12:20The next morning, Michael has meat on his mind
12:23and decides to go straight for the most famous Spanish dish of all.
12:27I can't do the food of Spain without doing the classic paella.
12:30It just screams Spain.
12:32So I'm going to stuff it in some little red peppers,
12:34bake them in the oven, and then eat them.
12:36No, Michael, your customers will eat them.
12:38I've got some true, authentic Spanish chorizo.
12:41This is the heart of my paella.
12:43And to this, Michael adds red onion, garlic, tomato.
12:47Next, the all-important saffron.
12:50This is the soul of a Spanish paella.
12:53Short-grain rice is cooked in vegetable stock,
12:56two-part stock to one-part rice.
12:58I'm going to cover it in some paper, bake it in the oven.
13:01Now Michael excavates a dinky pepper to act as his vessel.
13:04And there you've got a nice little cavity you fill with your paella rice.
13:07And to top it all off, the top of the pepper.
13:10It's pretty old school, but there's nothing wrong with old school.
13:13Speaking of old school...
13:14I want to do my take on a croquette,
13:16but I don't want to use beef or chicken or something like that.
13:19I just want to do a seafood croquette.
13:21It's the classic potato croquette without the classic deep fryer.
13:24I can't make my croquettes and then drop them into a deep fryer.
13:27So I need to bake my croquettes in the oven,
13:29so I need to make them really strong.
13:31So I'm going to swap the butter out for coconut oil,
13:34and I'm going to put in loads of vegetables along with a canned tuna.
13:38Michael's using plain white flour and milk as a thickener,
13:41and I'm going to add spinach with spring onion and some garacha.
13:44That's a cheese.
13:46This tiny little bit is going to be enough to flavour all of my croquettes.
13:49To effectively bake his croquettes,
13:51Michael adds a little bit of gelatin to help them set.
13:54While it's still warm, so the gelatin hasn't fully set,
13:57pop your croquette mix into this and then pipe them out.
14:00Pop that into the fridge, the gelatin will set,
14:02and then you come along, cut it up, crumb it, bake it.
14:05And for local flavour, seasonal fruits.
14:08I want something light and summery,
14:10so I'm doing a three-melon tapa,
14:12using rock melon, watermelon, and honeydew melon.
14:15I'll be serving that with a spice yogurt,
14:17with some crispy Serrano ham on top.
14:19Looks awesome.
14:21I couldn't think of anything better on a hot summer's day.
14:24And then I've got the cherry on top.
14:26My local cherries that have been de-stoned
14:28and then piped with the olive caramel inside.
14:30It's that perfect harmony between the naturally salty olives and that honey.
14:35I'm really happy with that one.
14:37Really happy, because it's simple and it's fast.
14:39And I can't wait to see the wine match for that.
14:45Chef Michael van der Elzen has come to Marlborough,
14:47where his food truck has been turned into a mobile tapas bar.
14:50It just screams Spain.
14:52He's here to take on some of the nation's most cultured palates
14:55at the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival,
14:57New Zealand's longest-running culinary carnival.
15:04So the thing that probably makes me the most nervous today
15:07is not so much what I'm serving out of the truck,
15:09it's how it's going to stack up against everyone else.
15:11There's some awesome things going on out there.
15:13You know, we've got cloudy-baked clams, we've got fresh produce.
15:16Like, I'm not up against hot dogs and chips.
15:18And at the end of the day, the food truck has a reputation,
15:21and I've got to uphold my healthy fast food.
15:24Reputations are on the line today, and not just Michael's,
15:27because his skewers are being matched with Gielin's wines right next door.
15:31Not only that, Mike's entered in the festival's wine match competition.
15:35You can almost hear the judges sharpening their knives.
15:40I can only enter one of my dishes.
15:42Do I go safe or do I go kooky?
15:44Explain kooky.
15:46I go kooky would probably be the cherries with the olive caramel.
15:49If I go safe, it would probably be the melon.
15:51Go kooky! Go kooky!
15:52So I'm going to go kooky.
15:54It's the simplest of all the type of dishes.
15:56I'm hoping the wine match will make it.
15:59But what wine does one pair with a kooky cherry?
16:02To find out, Michael has enlisted the help of Mike from Gielin's.
16:06Great, so we've got two wine options.
16:08We've got either the Pinot Noir Rose,
16:10and then we've got the Peter Gielin's Pinot Noir.
16:12Cool. Let's dive in there.
16:14When you're wine matching, should you drink the wine first
16:16and then eat the food and then drink the wine again?
16:18I typically eat the food first and then try the wine afterwards.
16:22It's all right. It almost makes the wine taste really tart.
16:26It brings out the acid in the wine.
16:27Agreed.
16:28And Pinot?
16:29It's got some lovely savoury characteristics from the oat,
16:31so it should go quite nicely with that olive base.
16:34I'm going to go with Pinot. I think it works better.
16:36Much better.
16:37Well done.
16:38Cool. Thank you.
16:39Pinot it is.
16:42Judges are here. Judges are here.
16:43Michael is more used to being judged by panel beaters than professionals,
16:47and these highly trained taste buds are making him nervous.
16:50Gorgeous texture, really juicy.
16:52That's so refreshing.
16:53The olive comes through at the end so well.
16:55I've never tasted anything like that.
16:56No.
16:57That's beautiful.
16:58Michael hasn't got time to worry about expert opinion
17:00because there's 8,000 hungry people out there.
17:03You know, there are crowds starting to build.
17:05It's open to the public now,
17:06so there's a lot of people rolling through.
17:08It's a massive amount of people in a very tight, confined space.
17:11It's quite exciting, though. I'm looking forward to it.
17:14Michael has decided to charge $2.50 per penchos or skewer.
17:18But the real gamble today is not the price, but how people pay.
17:22You come up, you help yourself, keep the sticks, bring the sticks back to me,
17:25and that's how you pay for them.
17:27Honesty, people.
17:29Go for it.
17:30He is hoping the people of Marlborough are as honest as they are tentative.
17:34Go for it.
17:36But it soon becomes apparent that money is the least of Michael's worries.
17:40In fact, before long, Michael's biggest problem is not a lack of money,
17:44it's all the money coming in at once.
17:46Thank you very much.
17:48Thank you, sir.
17:53Have a good day.
17:55Oh, look at that little pile.
17:57I know.
17:58We're trying everything.
17:59Everyone's bringing all their sticks back,
18:01so I'm having to take the money and try and serve at the same time.
18:03And being a kind of buffet,
18:05Michael's penchos are being snapped up faster than he can make them.
18:08It's like a school of harper grout.
18:10All those penchos are gone.
18:12It's like a wave.
18:13As soon as I put it out, it's gone,
18:15and then that wave comes back and pays for it.
18:17It's a good thing that that wave is coming back and paying for it.
18:20Were we supposed to pay?
18:21Wait, we were supposed to pay.
18:23Oh, we didn't pay.
18:24We didn't pay.
18:26Well, the system's not perfect.
18:28It seems Michael can carefully match the right wine to his food,
18:31but matching the people is more difficult.
18:34Thankfully, the customers who have paid could not be happier.
18:38From Michael's meatballs...
18:39Had some really nice rustic flavours.
18:41Very succulent, very juicy.
18:43Amazing to think it came out of the truck.
18:45I was supposed to share this with my wife.
18:48She might have words.
18:50To his fruity melon balls...
18:52Very refreshing, especially in this hot weather.
18:55The paella and everything in between.
18:57Delicious.
18:58It's amazing.
18:59I don't usually like squid either.
19:01Well, I think that Michael's done a really good job today.
19:04We watch him on TV, and he looks a lot younger and more handsome, I think.
19:08Michael's food and Michael are going down so well,
19:11people are ignoring the wine altogether.
19:14There seems to be no wine matching going on whatsoever,
19:16which is a shame because we're at a wine festival,
19:18and the whole idea was to match the food to wines.
19:21So if I can't get people to bring the wines over here and do the matching,
19:24I'm going to take the food to the wine.
19:27I'm selling heaps of food, but nobody's doing the matching.
19:30And the matching is all part of it.
19:32So I thought I'd bring the food to you.
19:34Deep into the afternoon, the wine matching finally gets underway.
19:38I'll go with Pinot Gris.
19:40Great. So that will match the melon.
19:42Something a bit nutty in the array.
19:45But it's not too long before it becomes difficult to tell
19:47where the food stops and the wine takes over.
19:50Good on you, mate.
19:52However, unperturbed, Michael heads back to the truck
19:54to sell the last of his tapas to the increasingly happy crowd.
19:58Whoo!
20:01This is a food truck, guys.
20:05There's some pretty red, cheery-faced people out there
20:08that have been obviously drinking a little bit too much wine.
20:11Phenomenal, phenomenal.
20:13Beautiful. You're grabbing it wrong.
20:15Amazing.
20:17I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
20:20Yeah, it's chaos. It's chaos.
20:23I can't... I don't know whether I'm coming or going.
20:25I don't know whether I'm taking anybody or serving food.
20:27There's no way of keeping an eye on how many I'm serving,
20:30how many people are paying for them. It's chaos.
20:32I have no idea what I'm selling.
20:34Which is good, because many of Michael's customers
20:37have no idea what they're buying.
20:39What is it? What is it?
20:41Those are the tuna craquettes.
20:43So grab them with your hands. It's probably easier.
20:45You don't like tuna?
20:47I love tuna.
20:49Try it. Try it.
20:53That's it. All gone in less than a minute.
20:56Unbelievable. I needed 10 of me.
20:59I served probably 30 portions.
21:01I probably got payment for 15.
21:03You don't get this sort of food in, like, USA.
21:06It's fresh. It's fresh.
21:08It's like, let me talk.
21:10Despite positive feedback from the judges,
21:12Michael failed to place in the wine match competition.
21:15But he remains a winner with his customers.
21:18The best thing that I've eaten today, by far.
21:21The focus is still going on in my mouth now.
21:23His tapas has been snapped up, gobbled down and even stolen.
21:27And after more than 150 servings,
21:29there's no doubt Michael's left his mark on Marlborough.
21:35Who else wants one?
21:38All right, here you go.
21:41What I tried to achieve today was serving healthy, tasty tapas
21:45and offering them at a price that everyone could afford.
21:49I was really proud of them, really proud.
21:51The only problem was hardly anyone really paid for them,
21:54particularly in the second session.
21:56How do I make money out of that?
22:01Next time...
22:03Mmm, very nice.
22:05Michael serves as much as 1.3 billion people
22:08as Michael takes on Chinese food.
22:10If that's not enough flavour, then I'm doing something seriously wrong.
22:13But can he get the Chinese to take on him?
22:15Mmm, I don't like this.
22:17No? No.
22:18Can I give you another one? No.
22:20Michael tries not to lose face at the Lantern Festival.
22:22I haven't actually tasted anything like it,
22:24yet, being Chinese my whole life.
22:26Hi. Hungry? Chinese?
22:29That's next time on The Food Truck.
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