If you want to know how to make an easy complete meal filled with healthy and satisfying ingredients , I will show you how ,step by step .

I will show you how to complete this easy meal and include replacement ingredients as well. This meal is suitable for everyone. I hope you enjoy making this complete meal as much as I did.

(Commonly known as a ‘Boil Up’ in New Zealand)

INGREDIENTS REQUIRED

· Meat-Pork , Mutton , Lamb , Corned Beef

· Potatoes and or Kumara ( Sweet Potato )

· Puha ,Watercress and or Cabbage

· Pumpkin

· Doughboys

PREP TIME: 20-40MINS

COOK TIME: 2-4HRS

Choosing the cut of meat will be according to your own preference and budget.

For this particular boil up I used Pork Bones as they were on special but I have used a variety of meats, sometimes it just depends on what you feel like eating or what’s in the freezer. I will list a few cuts and while you may know it as ‘something different’ in your country basically it will be still be beef, pork or lamb.

Wash Vegetables under gentle running water.

For the purpose of this article I will concentrate on the preparation of Watercress ,the same process can be applied to Puha ( a weed to some people ,but full of nutrients and laden with iron )

Wash Watercress ( as described in vegetable process above ) , usually I have been fortunate in collecting it myself from beside the river or a generous friend has shared their bounty but even if you get it

The Important thing to mention here is that solid cuts of meats or meat that usually needs longer cooking to tenderise will take time , the best shortcut here would be to cook the meat the night before ,slowly simmering for a couple of hours is not hard to do while watching TV or some other leisure.

After washing refresh water and as the watercress soaks sprinkle some salt over to kill any minute bugs which may cling to the odd

Now gently squeeze and bruise the watercress ,breaking the firmer storks as you do so. This action just helps the finished product be not so chewy or stringy on eating. Should only take a few minutes or so ,it also gives you an an opportunity to pick out the odd blade of grass or dead leaf etc.

The washed watercress is now ready to place into a large pot ( I use a stock pot ). If the meat is not already in this pot add it now . If the meat was in the pot already theres probably already hot water etc but just add a little more.

You will see by the photos that it looks like Ive overdone it on the water cress but Ive included a 2^nd picture showing how the water and boiling will quite quickly reduce the size.

At that point just reduce the heat a little ,so that it’s still boiling, but not as rapidly.

Cabbage ,wash ,cut in half , slice out( v-shape splice) the hard core part on a angle ,then quarter and put that into the pot with meat already cooking.

After cooking greens have reduced ,place lid on and continue to

Now prepare (my favourite) doughboys, these are similar to dumplings but not so soft and don’t have butter or any fat in them (although you can add some of the stock from the meat) if desired when mixing up the doughboys.

Traditionally these tasty morsels ( after 2 hrs of being in the boil up they absorb other food flavours) never had baking powder added to the mix ,but I have noticed over the years some cooks will add a tsp or so to puff them up a bit ( your choice ). I do both .

This meal years ago was often cooked outside and away from the modern kitchen of today so that is why things like baking powder would not have been used.

Making doughboys is not difficult and it certainly becomes easy and natural with each attempt.

So long as they have plenty of cooking time, they should taste just fine, they are just one of things that you will look back on and think what was I so worried about.

Wash and peel ,place into a second pot , you could add these quite easily to the main pot but it’s a little easier to serve from a second pot since the volume is usually quite large all round.

Now once the vegetables have cooked ( 20-30min) everything is ready to eat ,but the beauty of this ‘Boil Up” is that it can be left to simmer or easily be re-heated later .

Next days re-heat is even more delicious.

Freezing portions is especially great too ,and makes all that effort worthwhile and nutritious.

 Inexpensive ,nutritious and satisfying!!