In the kitchen with: Peter Gordon

This week, we're in the kitchen with Peter Gordon. Peter is a New Zealand-born and London-based chef, restaurateur and food writer. He also makes a top-notch cheese scone.

Peter Gordon is one of New Zealand's culinary greats. Peter has come a long way from creating recipes as a child. He has opened various highly-regarded restaurants in London and New Zealand, was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, co-founded the ever-desired doughnut company, Crosstown Doughnuts, and has self-authored eight cookbooks.

Your favourite recipe you cook for yourself?
Toasted sourdough from E5 Bakehouse, here in Hackney, London, with goat's milk butter, hummus, and Balinese red guava jam from Awani. Hummus and jam – such a great combo!

The one thing you always have in your fridge?
Hummus and taramasalata.

If you could impart one piece of cooking knowledge to everyone, what would it be?
Taste everything throughout the process – flavours change and develop as a dish cooks or sits over time.

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tomatoes.

Can you recall the moment when you knew you wanted to pursue a career in food?
Mum often tells the story of me cutting out recipes from the Women’s Weekly, aged four. So I guess that decided my path.

Your go-to dinner party meal?
The seasons and weather decide the hero dish, but I always serve a warm freekeh, quinoa and lentil salad with eggplant, harissa and yoghurt.

Who is your food hero?
My gran, Molly Gordon. She was a brilliant cook and baker and managed to feed a lot of people in her time. And she gave birth to my dad!

What music, if any, do you like to listen to while cooking?
In the day it’s Classic FM, in the evening anything from Soul 2 Soul, Leonard Cohen or Diana Krall.

Biggest kitchen disaster?
Tipping a pot of boiling beef dripping over my head, shoulders, chest and arm, at age seven. I had a major skin graft and lost about a year of school.

Your guilty pleasure?
Bahlsen Choco Moments Crunchy Hazelnut Biscuits.

In all your travels, where have you experienced the best food?
Japan. I was only there for 10 days in Kyoto and Tokyo, but everything I ate was standout. It was my birthday, mid-April, so the end of sakura (cherry blossom) season, lots of bamboo shoots, and kinome – prickly ash/sanshō pepper season.

Is there one cookbook you go back to time and time again?
Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook's Companion is a favourite.

The kitchen utensil you can't live without?
Food processor.

You're currently craving?
Mutton curry and rice.

Any advice to new cooks?
Read the recipe twice. Get all the ingredients out on the bench. And be prepared in case your oven isn’t as good as the one the writer used!