A life and love of sharing food

Otago Daily Times

29-04-2025

For nearly four decades Joan Bishop has shared her recipes with Otago Daily Times' readers. Having made the momentous decision to retire her Southern Kitchen column this year, she talks to Rebecca Fox about her love of food and sharing her recipes.
Tasty and quick. For Joan Bishop, they are the two essentials to any good recipe.
She can remember being a young mum and reading recipes extolling the virtues of spending all day in the kitchen. But Bishop had much more she wanted to do.
"I don't want to be in the kitchen all day."
However, she did want fascinating food.
She grew up in Dunedin in a family where meat and two vege reigned, as her mother, a florist and potter, was not an inspired cook.
"We always had good meals because she had been to a course on nutrition, which was quite novel in those days."
At 16, Bishop had a boyfriend whose family had lived in Malaysia and so she was introduced to proper Malaysian curries, "not the English version".
"It opened a whole new world for me."
Combined with food experiences while travelling, it was no surprise that when she was a full-time wife and mother, she took every opportunity to attend night classes and experiment with cooking at home.
When her children got older, she took on a job in 1980 as a demonstrator for Sunbeam Appliances, later becoming southern territory manager. It was a time when food processors, slow cookers and electric fry pans were making their debuts.
Using the experience gained from teacher training, as a NZ National Airways Corporation air hostess and trainer of air hostesses, Bishop travelled the region doing demonstrations on how to use food processors.
She found women — and it was mostly women back then — kept returning to the demonstrations asking for more information, so she decided to write a book.
Her first book was published in 1984 followed by one on electric fry pans.
But it was the discovery of the crockpot that really inspired Bishop.
As a young mother having to juggle children and the "fractious 5pm" window, it was revolutionary.
To put a meal on in the morning and have it ready at dinnertime "seemed to me the most amazing thing that could happen", she said.
"But also for busy mums, it has to be tasty and quick."
Another bonus with the crockpot is cooking more than you need for one night, something Bishop is a big believer in.
"Because it's tomorrow's dinner, which is very special."
In 1985 her crockpot book was published, a first for New Zealand, and seven new editions have been published over the years.
More than 125,000 copies have sold, hence Bishop becoming known as the "Crockpot Queen".
"It comes through that this was my passion, the crockpot. I just loved it."
Even though she had to down-size when she moved into an apartment in a lifestyle village a few years ago, Bishop, who is now in her 80s, could not get rid of her crockpot.
"I wish I still used it but I've got it here with me. I've cooked one or two things but I guess as you age you go for the simplest things."
Bishop said she had greatly enjoyed writing her cookbooks.
"Everything else really goes on to the back burner. And you just get so passionate about it that it really is quite a momentous occasion when the 'baby's' born. It's emotional."
She still has a bookshelf crammed with cookbooks she could not part with when she down-sized, although she did part with the files of recipe clippings she had amassed over the years, apart from her favourites.
"It was hard, I couldn't bear to give my cookbooks away. They're special. And I browse them often".
Australian Stephanie Alexander has always been a favourite, as well as Nigella Lawson, who she describes as a "absolutely brilliant".
Bishop cannot recall when her first column was printed in the Otago Daily Times but she said the column had been an anchor for her , and in recent years especially, it had been incredibly important in helping her keep productive.
"I found it wonderful if things were not going smoothly; I could switch on to food and just concentrate on that. And it helped me through lots of sticky patches."
Her aim with the recipes was to "keep it simple" and to create great flavours without requiring too many exotic ingredients.
She has also been a big believer in eating seasonally and locally.
Every Christmas and Easter Bishop would come up with a special holiday recipe, one that could be helpful if entertaining or hosting visitors, whether it be for afternoon tea or dinner.
She also went to great lengths to make each recipe's introduction interesting, and even produce a "giggle" now and again.
"I don't want it to be boring, I want it to be light and for it to be easy reading for people. Nigella was good source of inspiration."
In 2012 publisher Random House suggested she gather the best of her recipes written for the food column and her most recent slow cooker recipes in what became known as A Southern Woman's Kitchen .
She continued to write her column, coming up with nourishing recipes that also recognised that many of her readers, like herself, watched their weight.
Bishop has enjoyed chatting with readers about her recipes and while she discovered not all of them actually cooked the dishes, they faithfully read the column.
"The men seem to be cooking more than the women. And they chat away to me about what they're cooking and it's quite interesting things like broths and using raw bones and things. I'm intrigued by it.
"But the women, I know they care about food and cooking and they're also intelligent enough to be aware they have to eat well."
"I have been so fortunate to have the food, the cooking, in my life.
"It's made an enormous difference, I think. Because it is an act of love, isn't it, to cook for people?"
Picking a few favourite recipes from the columns has nearly been an impossible task for Bishop, but she has settled on the ones included here. Panpepato
Panpetato is a fabulously spicy cake which is also chock-full of fruit and nuts plus the surprising addition of black pepper.
This dense rich Italian dessert cake dates back more than 1000 years.
The original name of panforte was panpepato (peppered bread). Along with a number of other spices, it contained quite a lot of pepper which was a rare and expensive spice at that time.
Documents from 1205 show panpepato was paid to the monks and nuns of a local monastery in Sienna as a tax. There are also references to the Crusaders carrying panpepato, as the durable confection, which is energy and nutrient rich, helped sustain them on their travels.
I have taken a few liberties with this recipe, swapping fruit and nuts to suit, and simplifying where possible. Citron, candied peel and dried figs are the most commonly used fruits in early panpepato recipes.
Chocolatey, spicy and more baked confectionery than cake, panpepato is quite expensive to make but it is usually served in slim slices with coffee or a dessert wine after a meal. Makes 1 x 22cm cake
80g raisins
¼ C Grand Marnier, or other citrus-based liqueur
130g standard flour
20g cocoa powder
1 tsp finely ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
130g almonds, whole, brown skinned
120g hazelnuts, no need to remove skins
90g New Zealand dried apricots, chopped
80g crystallised ginger, chopped
⅔ cup runny honey
50g caster sugar
80g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped
Grated zest of two oranges
Method
Line the base of a 22cm round cake tin with non-stick paper and lightly oil the sides.
Preheat the oven to 170°C.
Place the raisins in a microwave-proof bowl, add the liqueur and cover with cling film. Microwave on 50% power for 2 minutes.
The raisins will plump up as they absorb the liqueur. Not quite all the liquid will be absorbed by the raisins; the little remaining will be stirred into the cake mixture along with the raisins.
Set aside to cool. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg into a medium bowl. Add the almonds, hazelnuts, dried apricots and ginger and stir to mix well.
Combine the honey, sugar and the chocolate in another microwave-safe container and microwave on 50% power for about a minute. Stir and repeat until melted and smoothly blended together.
Or, on the stove top in a heat-proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, melt together the honey, sugar and chocolate, stirring until smooth. Do not let the bowl touch the water.
Add the liqueur-soaked raisins, the orange zest and the still warm honey-chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. This is quite a stiff mixture.
Tip into the prepared cake tin and press evenly over the base of the tin using the back of a spoon or your hands moistened with water.
Place in the pre-heated oven and bake for 30-35 minutes. Be careful not to overcook. The cake will be firm but still soft when touched.
Leave to cool in the tin for about 30 minutes. Loosen the edges with a knife. Invert on to a plate then turn right side up and cool completely.
Wrap in foil and store in the fridge if the weather is hot. Otherwise, store in a cool place.
It will keep for several weeks.
Lovely to have on hand as a special treat to serve with coffee. A wedge of panpepato makes a wonderful gift. Blue cheese and apple muffins
The sophisticated combination of flavours in these muffins makes them perfect to serve with pre-dinner drinks, as party food, or with an array of soups and salads. But eat them with whatever or however you choose. The blue cheese component is quite subtle and does not overwhelm.
The muffins are easy to make. Makes 12
180g blue vein cheese, cubed
2 large eggs, size 7
¾ C Greek yoghurt
¼ C standard milk
¼ C light olive oil
200g self raising flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 Granny Smith apple (200g), peeled, cored and finely diced
Method
Have all the ingredients at room temperature.
Preheat oven to 180°C and lightly oil a standard 12-hole muffin tin.
Place cheese cubes, eggs, yoghurt, milk and oil into the bowl of a food processor and whizz until smooth and creamy. Set aside.
Sift together the self-raising flour and baking soda into a large bowl.
Stir the diced apple into the flour until it is thoroughly coated.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the liquid ingredients all at once. Stir until just combined. The batter will be a little lumpy. There is quite a lot of batter so spoon it generously into the muffin tins, filling them to the top.
Bake until lightly golden and the centre springs back when lightly pressed, 20-25 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool for five minutes. Loosen the tin then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container, preferably in the fridge for up to four days. These muffins freeze beautifully. Chicken in red wine with cannellini beans
A complete meal in a pot, this supremely succulent stew, a combination of chicken and creamy cannellini beans in a rich red wine and tomato sauce, is topped with a parmesan crumble. Easy to assemble and able to be prepared in advance, it can be kept in the fridge for up to 24 hours before reheating. A green salad is the only accompaniment needed. Serves 8
¼ C flour
1kg skinless, boneless chicken thighs (about 10 trimmed of excess fat)
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 large red onion, thinly sliced
400g red capsicums (2 large) deseeded and thinly sliced lengthways
3 garlic gloves, crushed
1x 400g can diced tomatoes in juice
¼ tomato paste
¾ C red wine
1 Tbsp fresh oregano leaves or 1tsp dried
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 x 400g cannellini beans, drained, rinsed (or 1½C cooked dried beans)
½ C breadcrumbs (panko)
50g parmesan cheese, finely grated
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C
Place the flour in a plastic bag, add the chicken pieces two at a time and shake to coat the chicken evenly. Shake off any excess.
Heat a large non-stick frypan, add 1 Tbsp oil. When hot, fry the chicken in batches until lightly brown. Place the chicken pieces in a flat-ish casserole dish, 18cm by 30cm works well.
Add remaining oil to the frypan and add the onion and stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the capsicum and garlic and stir fry for another 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, oregano, brown sugar and balsamic vinegar to the frypan, stir well and simmer for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Pour the sauce over the chicken. (the chicken can be refrigerated at this stage for up to 24 hours)
Gently stir the cannellini beans into the sauce surrounding the chicken. Cover the casserole dish with a lid or foil and place in a preheated oven for 50 minutes. If reheating the chicken from the refrigerator, bring to room temperature and allow an extra 15minutes.
Increase the oven temperature to 200°C.
Combine the breadcrumbs and the parmesan cheese. Remove the lid or foil, sprinkle the cheese mixture over the top. Return to the oven for 10 minutes until the topping is golden.