Sweet, succulent & spicy

Petra Galler is a 32-year-old talented baker who’s first book Butter, Butter was published by Allen & Unwin in April this year. I was drawn to the book because of its stunning photography (Melanie Jenkins, Flash Studios) and tempting combinations of flavours. I caught up with Petra recently in Auckland.

‘My arteries are only just unclogging’, she laughs heartily down the phone, ‘We’d fall on the baking after the shoots and just eat. It was an intense 10 days, which we loved, and it was sad when it was all over, although perhaps better that it was!

‘My mother is from a farm in Havelock North. She wasn’t much of a cook when I was growing up – she’s getting better, we think. When I was 7 years-old I asked her if we could make a cake, then asked if I could do the whole thing, and she left me to it, and it worked out quite good – so they said!

‘We are Polish Jews on Dad’s side. My grandmother, Zaza, was in Auschwitz for four years. She was my favourite person in the world, so hilarious, and naughty, and open-minded. A modern thinker, generous with her time, everyone loved her. Sometimes Dad says to me, ‘Well I guess you are just like my mother!’, so I get away with a bit more. She was glamorous, and she didn’t like to cook. She’d order in food. Her one dish was savoury crepes with mayo, chicken, bacon, spinach and half a pound of butter, and smothered with parmesan, of course. So good! She was a force feeder – you couldn’t leave until it was all eaten. Her thing was seeing everyone well fed. I’ve connected with that and I find it really gratifying.

‘We are not religiously Jewish, but we are culturally Jewish. I started at Kadimah (Auckland school) at 4 -years-old. Dad worked 100 hours a week. (‘Dad’ is David Galler, an Intensive Care Specialist at Middlemore Hospital until 2021, and a published author himself). He’d come into my bedroom before he left for work with pita pockets stuffed with bacon. We’d have a chat, eat them, and he’d go off to work and I’d go off to school. Dad does a lot of cooking. I used to cook with him when I was at home, and we’d spend hours planning what we were going to make. We can all eat in my family, and we all love food!

‘I studied for a BA in psychology for two years, but I’d be sitting in lectures planning my dinner. I grovelled my way into a job at Sunday Painters restaurant in Auckland’s Ponsonby Road. It was an all-female kitchen, and I loved it, so I abandoned my degree, foolishly, or not – I love food too much. Then I travelled. I loved being in London with my aunt. My brother Max lives there now, and he and his partner are expecting a baby in September. We are all looking forward to that.

‘I ended up in Melbourne, cooking on the grill in restaurants. Then I moved into patisserie, and you’d never get me back on the grill now. Hospitality is such a hard grind. You work your butt off.  I’ve had amazing bosses over the time, but you give everything, and you often don’t get anything back. You are expected to drop everything in your life and work as if it is your own business, and there’s not much recognition. That’s just hospitality, they say, but it is so driven, so sexist.

‘Melbourne is really, really bad. After 6 years in patisserie, I decided to come back to New Zealand, and not to go back in a kitchen, but I needed to work and there was a job at Peter Gordon’s Homeland. I assumed, you know, Peter Gordon, big name, he’d be telling me what to do and it would be more of the same. But he just said, ‘Oh darling, you decide!’. It was so different, so refreshing. He gave me such freedom. I worked at Homeland for 2½ years as head patisserie chef, working on my book part-time while I was there.

‘I’m working for myself now and don’t think I would work in a commercial kitchen again. Although it’s more stressful being freelance, it’s liberating not being tethered to a job. And when it’s for you, you don’t mind how hard you work. I’m holding Pop-ups every few weeks now.

‘At a Pop-up, things usually start nice and easy, but it’s hard on the nerves, like having a birthday party and wondering if people are going to turn up. With 20 kg of cakes and baking to sell, you are hoping you are not going to have to eat the lot yourself. But I make my favourites, Russian Honey Cake, Madeleines, Babka, and savouries as well, and the crepe cake. The crepe cake has become my signature cake, but it is such a chore to make standing there doing all the crepes. Making one is okay, making four is boring!

‘There is usually a queue before the Pop-up opens, which is heartening, and always a relief. People buy a whole cake, or just a slice, or some madeleines, and buy a book, and I sign it for them. Once it gets going, it’s really fun to do, and a great way to meet people.

‘A lot of the recipes in the book are ones I have made all my adult life. I enjoyed writing the book and wanted a story voice to come through with the recipes, to tell the history, but sometimes I’d sit at the computer, and I couldn’t write. I had to be patient, as the introductions were so important. They are quite personal, and evoke memories, and they needed to come out right. I wanted the photos to be moody, edgy. I definitely have committed to the edgy look! 

Butter, Butter  by Petra Galler

Published by Allen & Unwin RRP NZ$49.99

A few words from Petra’s introduction to her book:

‘The expression, ‘Everything in moderation. Including excess’, is something my father always said when we were growing up. I can’t think of a better approach to sum up cooking and the way I strive to live. Balance is beautiful but sometimes balance in baking can be so much better when it tilts towards more. More spice, more flavour, more crunch. Big, bold and bolshy.

‘I have never had any formal training to speak of. From a young age I devoured cook books, researched recipes and food trends for hours at a time and, although I have spent a decade working professionally as a chef, as far as baking goes, I consider myself more or less self-taught.

‘There may be some recipes and flavour combinations in this book that you haven’t tried before but I urge you to be bold, and experiment with something new to you. There is so much more to baking than banana cake.’

There are three fab recipes from the book featured here: Mexican Chilli Chocolate Tart Blackberry, Rose and Citrus Loaf with Labneh Mushroom and Gruyere Galette

Premium Subscribers Cookbook Competition

To be in the draw to win a copy of Petra’s fabulous book, send your answers to the following five questions to [email protected]

What degree did Petra abandon for a love of working in food?

Where has Petra spent most of her working career?

What was her grandmother’s classic family dish?

What sort of pastry is used in her recipe Mushroom and Gruyere Galette?

What sort of paste is used in her recipe Blackberry, Rose and Citrus Loaf with Labneh?

Review Butter, Butter by Petra Galler, Published by Allen & Unwin

Butter, Butter

Butter, Butter is a sturdy, hardback 192-page book printed on quality paper. The photography by Mel Jenkins (Flash Studios) is exceptional. There are 65 recipes: 11 are savoury, the rest are sweet. The recipe introductions give context, family history, tips and serving suggestions. Every recipe is photographed. There’s a 2-page intro, and a thorough index spread over 5 pages – if you know anything about cookbooks, you would be right in thinking a 5-page index for 65 recipes is very generous; it means you will be able to find everything in the book, easily. The book has a marker ribbon you can use to help find a favourite recipe.

Petra Galler is a striking-looking young woman, and apart from numerous photos of her hands and arms chopping, mixing and serving, there are only three full-page images of her in the book. Phew. Many books these days are more about the look of the cook than the content. I could sum up the book by saying, expect the unexpected (in the photographs, too!), but that might be doing it a disservice. Highly recommended.

Recipe content

There are plenty of recipes from Petra’s Jewish background, and an interesting mix of Eastern European, Middle Eastern and European recipes, alongside a smattering of American, South American and Australasian recipes. Here’s a handful of ideas that caught my fancy: Babka swished up into Chocolate and Orange Babka Bun; Black Sesame Cake; Medovik Honey Cake; Pistachio and Orange Cake; Persian Love Cake; and Fennel and Fig Spiced Semolina Cake. That’s just the cakes! (Even carrot cake gets a rev up and is turned into Chai Spiced Carrot Cake with Cardamom Cream Cheese Frosting.) There’s fudge, ganache, labneh frosting, pomegranates, rose water, poppy seed, orange blossom water, saffron, pistachios, tahini, blood orange, marsala and maple syrup. Then, there’s the savoury section, and though it is smaller, it’s got some tempting recipes: Turkish Bazlama flatbreads, Lebanese Fatayer pastries, a shallot Tarte Tatin, a zucchini filo pie, and more.