The art of the home-cooked meal

October 7, 2013,  Anna Murray Yahoo! New Zealand

With world-class restaurants continuing to open around New Zealand, Kiwi diners have never had it so good.

Julie Biuso's ricotta-stuffed chicken breasts with verjuice

But as nice as a beautifully presented plate courtesy of a professionally trained chef is, it's still tough to beat a good old-fashioned home-cooked meal, prepared with – dare I say it – love.
But the practice of cooking a meal from scratch has become a bit of a dying art of late, something chef Julie Biuso hopes to turn around with her new cookbook, 'Julie Biuso at Home'.
Chatting in her own beautiful North Shore home, Biuso says she wants to encourage people to cook ‘real food’ again.

"At the heart of it, I do see that we’re getting fatter and I do see that we’re getting sicker and I do think we’re losing that wonderful thing of having the family around the table," she says.
"If we keep on buying ready-made food then we’re not going to be having that wonderful inclusive dining experience which I think is central to our wellbeing."
Biuso’s latest collection of recipes places particular emphasis on cooking from scratch so that people know exactly what it is they’re feeding themselves and their families.

RECIPE: Julie Biuso's ricotta-stuffed chicken breasts with verjuice

It stems from a childhood that saw Biuso and her siblings all having to help out with cooking and growing vegetables.
"In those days, you did learn [how to cook] by osmosis, because so much cooking was happening around you.
"We were really involved in that part of it, which was neat, because it gave you that appreciation of fresh food."
When Biuso left home to go flatting, she said she loved to host elaborate dinner parties that required hours of preparation.
"Back then you spent more time cooking – now people just want instant results, whereas we were in that era where if you were having people round for dinner, you cooked all day, that’s just what you did."
But fear not - while Biuso says she doesn’t believe much in the 10-minute meal, her recipes these days also don’t take hours on end.

Julie Biuso at home in her kitchen

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