The Plating Game: Siouxsie Wiles

We asked microbiologist and science communicator Siouxsie Wiles to share her food loves so we could create a dish especially for her.

Microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles is really something special. An Associate Professor and Head of the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland, she spends much of her time making bacteria glow in the dark so as to better study them and come up with new medicines. Her recent achievements include publishing her first book, Antibiotic Resistance: The End of Modern Medicine and being named 2021 Te Pou Whakarae o Aotearoa Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year. Since last year, she has collaborated with The Spinoff to educate Kiwis about the symptoms and risks of Covid-19, and her infographics created with artist Toby Morris have been picked up by governments around the world.

As if that wasn’t enough, she’s a prolific and witty Tweeter, a Lego and board games enthusiast and a loving mum. And her hair is, I can confirm, just as amazing in person as in photographs (Siouxsie has dyed it fully pink since 2000).

dish caught up with the effervescent scientist to find out what she likes to cook, what food she absolutely can’t stand and what her go-to chocolate mousse recipe is.

What do you like to eat?

Siouxsie: I’m a bit of a supertaster, meaning I have a strong sense of taste and smell, and my daughter is even more extreme than me. Since becoming a parent, our diets have become more restricted because there’s only so many meals you can cook which please the whole family! That being said, I love sweets. And I love seafood. I love prawns, the bigger the better.

Do you like to cook?

Siouxsie: Honestly, I find it a bit of a chore. I’m quite envious of people for whom cooking is a really important part of their day and their wellbeing.

One of the best things for my cooking was buying a slow cooker. I love that you can get up in the morning, shove some ingredients into it and when you come home, the house smells delicious and the food is ready without extra work. One of my favourites is either a lamb and chickpea stew with Moroccan spices, or I do one with beef and red wine.

You mentioned you have a bit of a sweet tooth. How do you feel about baking?

Siouxsie: I love baking. Unlike cooking, baking is absolutely a pleasurable activity for me. I think the scientist in me is maybe why I love baking so much? I love that baking is about chemical reactions – I guess cooking is too, but I can’t visualise those reactions as well.

What sort of things do you like to bake?

Siouxsie: I’ve got a repertoire of standard things, like I’ve got a fantastic scone recipe, a great banana choc chip muffin, that sort of thing. One of my favourite recipes comes from my mum – a brandy tart, which is a traditional South African dessert. We don’t use the nuts, just dates and brandy, and it’s delicious. It’s a recipe that’s been passed down the family and one that reminds me of my mum. It's something I remember her making when my parents had parties. I was probably too young to eat it then but when I was older and we moved to New Zealand, I was like, “oh, I want that recipe”. It’s pretty special to me.

One of my other favourite dessert recipes is the simplest possible recipe for chocolate mousse. You melt the chocolate, whip some eggs, let the chocolate cool, add the eggs and beat until it’s all glossy, then fold through the whipped cream. It takes ten minutes max and it’s divine. It's from Anyone Can Cook [by Annabel Langbein].

I imagine you're pretty busy! What do you grab for lunch during a crazy workday?

Siouxsie: Café Karadeniz [in Grafton] is my favourite place to grab a pita roll. But I’m trying to get better at packing lunches. At the moment I’m making myself some salad, a little bit of feta and either venison or lamb and a piece of fruit.

Do you like to entertain?

Siouxsie: Yes, but pretty casually. My family loves board games and we have a group of people we often have over for board games. It’s really informal, nothing too fancy!

Any favourite cookbooks/authors?

Siouxsie: I like Gorgeous Cakes [by Annie Bell], which has great cupcake recipes and my scone recipe. And I love Anyone Can Cook just for the chocolate mousse! We have lots of other cookbooks but nothing we use all the time. We do like Heston Blumenthal so we’ve got some of his more home cooking-friendly books – his recipe for boiled eggs is complicated but it makes damn good eggs.

You grew up in the UK and South Africa. Are there any food traditions that you’ve carried through your life from that time?

Siouxsie: Something my mum used to make all the time when I was growing up was tuna flan. Like the brandy tart, it’s something I still make all the time, it’s just the simplest recipe and I cheat completely by using Edmond’s shortcrust pastry sheets. Basically, you just put the shortcrust on the bottom and then you put in beaten eggs and milk, a tin of tuna, cheddar cheese and Red Leicester and a little bit of veggie stock for flavour. It’s basically a quiche and it’s just one of those things – you can eat it hot, you can have it cold, you can have it for dinner, lunch, a snack…

Are there any foods you just can’t stand?

Siouxsie: I cannot bear coriander, it’s like eating soap. I also don’t particularly like cabbage or brussels sprouts. And I don’t drink alcohol but I will use it in cooking.

What’s always in your shopping trolley?

Siouxsie: Bananas, grapes, cucumber and breakfast cereals – cornflakes and Ricies.

What are your favourite places to eat out?

Siouxsie: In Auckland, I often go to Prego – my go-to order is the duck risotto. It’s one of the few places the whole family is happy. And one of my favourite places for lunch is Japanese restaurant Cocoro [in Brown Street] – they do the most amazing set lunch sort of Bento box.

Click here to find the recipe for Siouxsie's Sticky Banana, Dark Chocolate and Spiced Streusel Loaf