Great recipes from NZ's rugby stars, with photographs of them cooking and socialising. Royalties go to the NZ Rugby Foundation, a fundraising group that focuses on injury prevention, player welfare and care of catastrophically injured players.

With recipes from the likes of Richie McCaw, Piri Weepu, Dan Carter, Jerome Kaino, Conrad Smith – the list goes on – plus older stars like Colin Meads, Waka Nathan and Graham Henry this is a treasure trove of hearty, tasty recipes that Kiwi men and their families love to eat.
Includes lots of photographs of the players relaxing – cooking and chatting – this is an intimate portrait of our rugby stars having a bit of down-time. Plus lovely inviting shots of the food, styled and photgraphed in a friendly accessible way.

A sure fire winner for any New Zealander who enoys the rugby. Celebrating the love of food, family and rugby – a warm, accessible cookbook with recipes from key New Zealand rugby players present and past.

SAMPLE RECIPE

Banana Cake by Jerome Kaino (pictured left)

Ingredients
This cake is a variant of Jo Seagar’s Family Banana Cake from A Treasury of New Zealand Baking.

100 grams butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
½ cup milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
200 ml natural yoghurt — buffalo works well
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder

FOR THE LEMON ICING
50 grams butter, melted
2 tablespoons boiling water
zest and juice of 1 lemon
3½ cups icing sugar
pared rind of 1–2 lemons, cut into fine shreds (optional)

Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C. Line a 20 cm round tin with baking paper.

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the mashed banana and beat well.

Heat the milk until just below boiling point and stir in the baking soda. Stir into the banana mixture with the yoghurt.

Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold together until just combined. Pour into the prepared tin.

Bake in the preheated oven for 50–55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before cooling on a wire rack.

To make the lemon icing, melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave, then add the boiling water, lemon zest and juice. Sift in the icing sugar and stir until smooth. Spread over the cooled cake. If you want your icing to drizzle over the cake, add a little extra
lemon juice or water.

Blanch the pared lemon shreds, if using, in boiling water for 20 seconds, drain, refresh under cold water, then spread onto paper towels to dry. Scatter over the wet icing.

Review
from focussedonfood­.blogspot.co.nz

"…the New Zealand Rugby Kitchen (celebrating the love of food, family and rugby) fits the bill very nicely.

Inside is a wide range of dishes from the likes of Richie McCaw, Piri Weepu, Dan Carter, Jerome Kaino and Conrad Smith. And it is also a walk down memory Lane with recipes by Colin Meads and Waka Nathan.

It's great to see rugby players as role models in the kitchen as well as on the field. They look happy, relaxed and confident as they chop, stir the pot, barbecue and do the dishes.

When I showed this recipe book to my partner his eyes began to gleam as he leafed through the pages.

“Really good recipes,” was his verdict. Some I knew he would immediately want to cook such as

• Kurt Baker's Mince and Cheese Pies filled with prime mince beef and cheddar cheese encased in butter puff pastry.
• Corey Flynn's Spare ribs marinated in hoisin ,oyster and light soy sauce, sesame oil and five-spice powder
• Jimmy Cowan's Roast Pork rubbed with oil and flaky sea salt served with the crackling, roast vegetables and apples alongside.
• Dan Carter's Lasagne properly made with a Bolognese and White sauces interlaced with fresh lasagne sheets and covered with grated mozzarella.
• Sir Graham Henry's Apple Sponge .
• And Charlie Faumuina's large and luscious Chocolate cake with a luscious thick layer of icing.

Some of the recipes would have to be only occasional treats. Richard Kahui uses 500 ml of cream to make his Sweet Chilli Mussels. This is probably fine for players who are into regular strenuous physical exercise out on the field. But if my partner took a fancy to this recipe I'd be encouraging him to go to the gym more often.

Rugby players are a carnivorous lot.While there are chapters on pies, beef, pork and lamb as well as seafood and poultry it does seem a shame that there is no vegetable chapter. Tane Norton's Bacon and egg pie also includes tomatoes and four bunches of fresh spinach. And Jarrad Hoeata's Thai Green curry is swimming in beans and broccoli as well as chicken in a coconut broth. But to ensure that the man in your life cooks a balanced meal it would be a wise to teach him how to toss a good salad and cook seasonal vegetables.

For first time cooks there are some incredibly easy recipes like Ben Frank's Easy Apricot and Mustard Pork Chops which has only 4 ingredients. But once blokes have mastered these they will be ready to go on to further heights such as Andrew Hore's Venison with Beer and Port (a stubbie of beer needs to be sacrificed for this. Andrew recommends Speight's as any good Otago man would)

Or they might like to master that sixties party favourite Beef Wellington chosen by Victor Vito. This is a particularly gorgeous recipe inspired by Gordon Ramsay. And if they are fishermen they may like to transform their catch into Conrad Smith's Roasted Snapper with Israeli Couscous which is a fantastic Al Brown recipe.

In my experience Celebrity cookbooks can be disappointing, great to look at but once you try out the recipes they don't necessarily work. Thankfully behind every man in this book was a good woman by the name of Kathy Paterson (a trained Cordon Bleu Chef) She tested the recipes and created some great food for this book ensuring that they are not only tasty but fool proof.

If you do decide to give this book to the man in your life you'll be winning three ways. He will happily move into the kitchen and cook the dinner more often. You get to sip a glass of wine and put your feet up until dinner is served. And you'll also be contributing to a worthy cause. All the royalties from this book are going to the New Zealand Rugby Foundation which supports badly injured rugby players."