i keep looking over my shoulder because i can just hear the cows coming up
behind me
my god
today we're in the Waikato in the North Island of New Zealand this place is
incredibly rich in agriculture and a very big
dairy industry around here we are traveling by campervan
from the top of the North Island of New Zealand all the way down to Bluff in the
South Island to share with you New Zealand's best
food Aotearoa New Zealand has a rich food culture
that revolves around the land and the fresh food it provides
in this massive New Zealand series we're traveling the length of Aotearoa to take
you into the heart of our country's food culture
we'll go behind the scenes of New Zealand's favorite restaurants
share with you the small producers and family-run businesses that create some
of New Zealand's best food and together we'll fish gather and
cook New Zealand's unique food this video
kicks off in the Waikato in the upper part of Te Ika-a-Māui
the North Island it's a region rich in agriculture
and has the highest number of dairy farms in New Zealand
we take you on to an organic farm to meet a raw milk herd
and learn why this unique method of farming creates such phenomenal milk
join us at the farmgate where we grab a bottle of milk from the farm's vending
machines before we head to a bakery with a
special history for a classic Kiwi lunch you don't want to miss this series hit
subscribe and get ready for some mouth-watering
food I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate we hope you're hungry
let's eat
the Waikato is dairy country so we thought we had to bring you to a dairy
farm to really show you what this region is like now
we've come to a place called Alexander Organics
and they sell raw organic milk here actually in this shop from milk vending
machines so that's pretty cool right at the farm
gate you can drive in fill up your your glass bottles and grab
some raw organic milk and we've just met the two farmers Siah
and Ellen who own the farm and they're going to take us for a bit
of a tour of the farm and also introduce us to their herd
so we've made our way down into the farm and we're wandering down the race at the
moment and this right here is the raw milk herd so this is the herd
that milks for the shop so the raw milk that you
can get from the vending machines comes completely from these cows and
it's been fantastic learning about how this is
farmed this this piece of land because it's a fully organic farm and the way
they use the natural plants that are here
they plant different plants so the cows can essentially self-medicate so
they have a lot of different grasses available to the cow so if the cows
feels that its body needs something it can eat what it needs
and I love learning about this organic farming it's something that I
and both of us are very much into I used to work in an organic supermarket
actually in my day job I was a buyer for that
supermarket so organics was very much a part of my life before we
started this YouTube channel and it's really neat being right here on
a farm and being amongst it and i'm leading the cows at the moment so
we're leading them down to a new bit of pasture so they've got some nice fresh
pasture and it's so neat being so close we're so
lucky to get this really in-depth look at a farm here in
the Waikato so this region is just so well known for
its dairy famous all over the world in fact
for the quality of dairy coming out of here but
this fully organic and raw milk selling farm what a
neat place to be i keep looking over my shoulder because i can just hear the
cows coming up behind me
being here in the fields with the herd is really magical it's almost meditative
just listening to them munch on the grass
and they are having such a good time like you can really
feel the enjoyment we're just talking to Siah and Ellen about the
the diversity in the pasture so um he was saying that if you
grab a bunch and you pull it and you hear that sound that comes up with
pulling that um bunch of grass you can tell that it's really mineral rich
the diversity in the pasture with the different plants and grasses means that
the cow can eat what it feels it needs so
with the traditional conventional farms they'll usually just have one or two
types of grass but with organic farming there's a whole range of
different foods that the cows can eat like Thomas was talking about
to suit their own bodies and they're just really loving it you can tell
they're just heads down going for it
so we've just been out in the pasture with the girls we've been learning all
about this amazing milk they produce and now it is time
to buy some of the milk so the milk that is dispensed from these
vending machines so milk vending machines
is fresh every day so obviously those girls get milked every day
and then the milk comes straight into these vending machines
so it's a really neat setup you can buy your glass bottles in different sizes
and then you slip your money in and your milk comes out
so with raw milk in New Zealand you can only buy it
at the farm gate or have it home delivered so these guys
have this shop just set up right outside the farm
and people just swing in grab their milk from the milk vending machine
okay so i got my one litre glass bottle and now it's time to grab the
milk so ... instructions insert cash so pop my $5
in so i'm getting a litre so it's $3
doesn't like my fiver there we go line up your clean bottle
with the milk nozzle
and then select appropriate volume of milk for your bottle size
one litre
and there it is one litre dispensed from the machine i think this is absolutely
brilliant um that you can self-service with milk straight from the machine like
that oh look at that now it's totally sterilizing itself so
the the practices here are very uh heavy for sterilization etc
because this is raw milk so it's unpasteurized so
there's a lot of effort goes into the cleanliness of everything and that's
really cool to see as well so i think what i'm gonna have to do is
take a swig of this straight from the bottle
my god
oh it's so sweet oh it's beautiful that is without a
doubt the freshest milk i've ever drunk that was milked this morning
incredibly fresh and the taste is it's very deep it's got a lot of like
layers of flavor it's it's oh the creaminess the sweetness
oh man that is so good we're gonna make something of this i think for breakfast
tomorrow so i better not drink it all but
that is one hell of a bottle of milk
we left last night just as it was getting dark so we made our way to a
camping site it's now the next morning we are by a lake but there is a
serious fog rolled in overnight so it's just starting to break a little bit
but at the moment we're just in a blanket of white on a beautiful
cold crisp still morning so we thought let's make porridge with that milk so
use the raw milk to make a big hearty steamy bowl of porridge in
this really cold weather i think it'll go perfectly for that all
right let's get in the van get making some porridge
i've just grabbed the milk out of the fridge and it is all
separated so we've got cream on top it is quite hard to show on camera but
there is a line just sort of by my finger and above that is all the
the thicker creamier milk first thing we're going to do put it in our coffees
and then it's going to go in the porridge okay so we've got rolled oats
from the South Island we've got some rhubarb and we've got
Alexander Organics raw milk so full milk with the porridge into
the pot top it with some brown sugar and rhubarb
super simple
the porridge bubbled up beautifully really
thick and creamy and i'm just gonna pop a dollop of rhubarb on the top and then
sprinkle some brown sugar this is gonna be epic
we thought since we're staying on this beautiful lake let's eat breakfast
right on the water this porridge looks unreal so nice and creamy brown sugar
all over it stewed up some rhubarb look at the
beautiful pinkness in that rhubarb and we've got the more of the raw milk
so we're just gonna douse that onto the porridge oh yes
and let's go straight in there bit of everything
oh oh that's good porridge oh so good making that with that milk
i love porridge as a winter breakfast and i couldn't think of
anything better than standing on this lake with this porridge
but using that milk so being at the farm yesterday afternoon standing in the
paddock with the cows that that milk came from
and a very small herd makes up their their raw milk herd so
every single cow that was around us and we were filming is exactly the cows that
are making this milk every day so it was milked
yesterday this morning we're eating it with our
porridge standing here right on this lake
we're not that far from the farm at this point so we're still
right in the heart of the Waikato unreal i mean
far out
that is so good and it's blimmin amazing in the coffee too
what a way to start the day i mean i couldn't think of anything better
and we're now heading down the road to do some more filming so i'm going to
enjoy this porridge here on the lake sun coming out and then
we'll go get some more food down the road
we've traveled about 20 minutes from the campsite to a town called
Kihikihi and we've come here to visit a bakery
now New Zealand is a nation of bakers every town will have
at least a couple of bakeries they're very very popular because we're lovers
of pies and we love sweet treats but this particular bakery
is very well known in the Waikato they are five generation family bakers
the great great great great grandmother i believe
is reputed to be the first female baker in New Zealand
so let's get in there
this is a classic New Zealand
bakery there are a lot of pies on offer and kiwis are big eaters of
savory pies we used to be a British colony so i think that's where the
that is where the the pie making and pie eating um comes from that tradition
they have all sorts of ones so mince pies
steak and cheese pies classic also mince and cheese pies
and then over here some gourmet pies and then in terms of the sweet treats
classic kiwi offerings lamingtons lolly cake and some really good looking
cream donuts
so we've got a mince and cheese pie
classic kiwi favorite and then i'm a sucker for a cream donut
look at that stuffed full of cream
baked goods collected so they've got a couple of little tables there but
generally with bakeries here in New Zealand it's
takeaway food so we've got the pie and then that long
doughnut gosh this is a very busy road i might
talk to the camera and then cross the long donut we're gonna go find a
spot to chow down for a bit of a morning tea snack
we've found a stunning spot down by the lake to enjoy our pie and long donut
pies are a national obsession in New Zealand and they're one of the foods that i miss
most when we're not here back home mince and cheese is
my default flavor it's my favorite filling beef mince cooked in a
thick gravy and then cheese encased in flaky pastry
so i'm just gonna load it up with tomato sauce because i
am a tomato sauce fiend slip that lid back on okay let's get a
taste of this thing
mmm
mainly pastry in that mouthful beautiful pastry
very flaky buttery golden let's get another
another bite
mmm
that's really good it's a really sort of um
wet gravy but a ton of mince in there and then you've just got this
thick oozy layer of cheese over the top and with the tomato sauce
i just can't eat a pie without tomato sauce i have to have it
i feel like the tomato sauce cuts through the richness of the pie this is
good
and now it is time for the long cream doughnut i absolutely love these these are
another staple of New Zealand bakeries well we've had a little bit of a roll
over in transit so have we lost too much cream no we haven't
lost too much so you've got classic donut but done in a long form
and then they slice through it absolutely fill it like pipe cream in
there so fresh cream piped right through we've got a line of raspberry jam we've
lost a little bit of that in transit and then
covered in icing sugar so a classic donut
filled with cream and this is where things get nice and messy so
i can fully expect to have cream probably from about my hairline
to my chin
yes
taste of my childhood did quite well as well not covered in cream
that is so good so as we've seen in this video New Zealand's so well known for
its dairy so the cream is fresh and delicious donut's very
fluffy and then covered in the powdered sugar
so nicely covered in that icing sugar
so good
it's like the taste of New Zealand a mince and cheese pie
followed by a long cream donut and that was a very neat bakery so a lot of
history the bakers in that family have been
baking for five generations so heaps of history
and churning out great products this a very good cream donut
you