Speight's Southern Man Cookbook

Generous to a Fault

Random House New Zealand  - $45

This is a very masculine and hardy high-quality cookbook - a collection of simple tasty fare done the southern way and intended for enjoyment country-wide.
It features beer matching from the head brewer and recipes for home-cooking inspired by Speight's Ale House chefs. The hearty food included everything form Mrs McConnell’s Venison Pies, (lots of venison recipes), Wild Hare Stew, Shearers Shanks, Chicken Burgers and of course there are  recipes for the ladies because ‘The Southern Man us always a gentleman. If the lady wants salad, the lady gets salad – with chicken and bacon, mind.’
Maybe so but I can see this one ending up under the Christmas tree for a lot of blokes on the 25th of next month.

He is a recipe to give you an idea of the content and style:

Shearers’ Shanks
slow cook, serves 4, meat: lamb, time: 9 hours

After a day in the sheds, shearers are always absolutely starving. A big feed of shanks and a few tonnes of mash might just fill the gap.

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
A few parsley stalks
4 lamb shanks
100 ml red wine
1 x 400 g can chopped tomatoes in juice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cups boiling water
salt and freshly ground black pepper
butter and flour to thicken sauce

Method
Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add onion, carrot, and garlic and cook gently for about 5 minutes.
Place in the base of a slow cooker. Sprinkle herbs on top.
Place a frying pan over a moderate heat and brown the lamb shanks on all sides, then place on top of herbs.
Add red wine to the frying pan and allow to bubble up. Add tomatoes and juice and tomato paste. Pour in boiling water and stir well. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Pour over the lamb shanks. (The liquid should just cover the shanks.) Turn slow cooker to low and cook for 8 hours until the lamb is beginning to fall off the bone.
Remove lamb shanks and strain sauce through a sieve, pushing down on the vegetables as you go. Leave to cool to allow the fat to rise to the surface and set. Remove fat.

Reheat the lamb shanks in the sauce. Thicken sauce by whisking in a paste of equal quantities of softened butter and fl our, until the sauce is a syrupy consistency. Taste and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Serve lamb shanks with your favourite mash and steamed vegetables.
Enjoy!

In addition to the hearty recipes the book includes stunning southern landscapes and some great yarns that will be sure to appeal to the Southern Man (and woman!) - material on the Coast to Coast, beer profiles, a little bit of history, the words of the Southern Man song and the Southern Man identification chart.
Running throughout with a good dose of humour are the memorable ad campaigns. Good on Ya Mate, Generous to a Fault and He Would’ve Been Quicker on a Horse have all become iconic ads much loved by kiwis around the country.
Photos here all by Aaron McLean.

The book was launched last evening at the Speight's Ale House in Herne Bay, Auckland and this was a book launch with a difference. First up we were drinking beer instead of wine, of course, the audience was 90% male and the punters were a beer crowd rather than a book crowd.

Rory Glass of Lion Nathan (owners of Speight's) opened the brief formal proceedings speaking proudly of their involvement with the book and informing us that Speight's was now the biggest beer brand in New Zealand.

Then Margaret Sinclair of the Random House publishing team spoke enthusiastically about the book, the number of people who had been involved, the pulling together and testing of the recipes sent in by various Speight's Ale House chefs. She said it had been an enormously enjoyable, frequently humorous experience. And then we all went home with a goodie bag, a very rare event at a book launch, which contained a bottle of Speight's and a handsome Speight's beer glass.

I think both Lion Nathan and Random House may be surprised at just how well this book sells. I think it is a commercial winner.