Why Easter is better than Christmas

Giant butter bunnies, feijoa skin cordial and a recipe for slow-cooked lamb that tastes even better resurrected the next day.

Whatever hemisphere you live in, I reckon Easter is the ideal holiday for people who love food. It’s not the chocolate, or the hot cross buns. It’s not even the giant butter bunny sculptures appearing at the supermarket. It’s the prospect of either a) the delights of spring or b) the joys of autumn - and (if you’re lucky) a decent chunk of time in which to cook and eat them.

Not to be outdone by their butter Father Christmas, the bakers at Wellington City New World have gone one further with a butter Easter Bunny.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since a recent email conversation with

Kelly Gibney

(talking about food with Kelly ahead of her on-air chats with

Jesse Mulligan

is a delightful bonus of my day job). Kelly says Easter is one of her favourite celebrations, in terms of food. I think she’s right, because it feels much less pressured than Christmas (thanks maybe to the absence of end-of-year exhaustion) but there are just as many opportunities to cook and eat to your heart’s content.

When I was a child Easter was all about going to church first and foremost. We’d prepped for it in the six weeks of Lent beforehand - no meat on Fridays and no treats at any other times. Hot cross buns were only eaten from Good Friday onwards (looking back, they weren’t on sale much before Easter anyway) and there were ABSOLUTELY no Easter eggs until Easter Sunday (and not until after mass, of course). Mention that to people now and they look at you like you’ve escaped from a dangerous cult.

But there were always good things to eat (and eating fish on Good Friday felt like a luxury rather than a hardship). Maybe that’s why I like to make a fuss at Easter; it’s years of conditioning (even if I now cheat and eat hot cross buns early, though I’m not one of those savages who eats them in January). Having a few days off and a few people to spend them with is reason for celebrating in my book, whatever your religious affiliations. Here’s something to add to your feasting next weekend.

Obviously this isn’t a heavily styled and art-directed photo (I feel like it’s the slow-cooked lamb version of being papped coming out of the gym) but it gives you the general idea. It’s a very brown dish, but that’s not a bad thing!

Slow-cooked Cypriot lamb à la Denise with minted garlic yoghurt

My former boss

Denise Irvine

, a fantastic cook and general good egg, shared a version of recipe with me back in 2020. She based it on something her brother-in-law makes - and I’ve made some micro tweaks since then. It’s ideal Easter cooking - you can pretty much bung it in the oven while you do something else, then come home to delicious smells and general applause. What makes it even better is that the resurrected leftovers are exceptional, whether you eat them for lunch the next day or for dinner after your first day back at work. Add pitas, lots of hummus, some greens and a dollop of garlic yoghurt and you’ll discover that the second coming of this dinner is nearly better than the first time around.

No pomegranate molasses? Anoint the lamb with a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar and vinegar instead.

Serves 6-8 generously

3 large red onions, peeled and sliced

6 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

1 cup dried dates

A sprig of fresh rosemary

A couple of fresh bay leaves

1 leg of lamb, bone-in

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Salt and pepper

2 cups hot chicken or lamb stock

600g waxy baby potatoes, halved

2-3 Tbsp pomegranate molasses

Heat the oven to 160C. Put the onions, garlic, dates and herbs in a large roasting tin. Lie the leg of lamb on top. Drizzle over the oil and sprinkle with cinnamon, salt and pepper. Rub this all over the meat. Pour the hot stock into the tin. Cover tightly (with a lid, or foil) and cook for four hours. Add the potatoes and cover tightly. Return to the oven for another 30 minutes, then uncover. Brush the pomegranate molasses over the meat and return the roasting dish to the oven to cook uncovered for a final 30 minutes.

The meat should be falling off the bone at this point and the onions and dates melted into a sauce. Carve the meat and serve each diner some lamb, potatoes, onions and date sauce. Serve with a green salad and minted garlic yoghurt (recipe follows).

For the minted garlic yoghurt: put 1 small clove garlic, crushed to a paste with ½ teaspoon salt, 4 finely chopped spring onions, the finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and 1 tablespoon sumac in a bowl. Stir well to combine, then stir in 1 cup Greek yoghurt and ¼ cup finely shredded fresh mint leaves. Taste for seasoning and set aside. This can be made in advance and stored, tightly covered, in the fridge for a couple of days before using.

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Good Things

The best hot cross bun recipe

Making hot cross buns is heavily embedded in my list of must-do Easter activities. I’ve tried all sorts of recipes over the years, but the holy grail is Dan Lepard’s spiced stout buns recipe from Short and Sweet. There’s a version of the recipe here. Special bonus: you can drink the fortifying leftover stout or turn it into a Dark and Stormy Granita.

Feijoa skin cordial

Consider this your reminder to start saving your feijoa skins for feijoa skin cordial. You don’t need to binge eat the fruit - I keep a container in the freezer that I chuck the skins into, then cook them up when there’s a sufficient amount.

To make it, put 3 cups feijoa skins, a strip of lemon peel, 2 cups water and 1 1/2 cups sugar in a small pot set over medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar and leave to simmer very gently for about 25 minutes (or until the whole house is perfumed). Remove from the heat and leave to cool, then pour through a sieve into a sterilised glass bottle. Cover tightly and store in the fridge. To serve, pour a splash of syrup into a glass and top up with ice and soda (or a splash of vodka or gin). Makes about 500ml syrup. Keep in the fridge and use within three weeks, or freeze in ice cubes.

‘I did not know hummus was Mexican’

On the face of it, a comedy about an undocumented Palestinian American living in Texas feels like a bad joke. But Netflix series Mo manages to tiptoe a very fine line between tragedy and joy, trauma and absolute silliness, with beautifully drawn characters and great dialogue. The first season landed back in 2022 so I may be telling you something you know already - if not, I recommend it for some Easter viewing.

Next week on Fancy Butter… more autumn eating.