Our Matariki Table: Celebrating with Boil Up, Rēwena & Kōrero

Our 2025 Matariki Table

I think my favourite Foodprint tradition is our Matariki shared lunch. This is something that we’ve done as a team for the last few years. Selfishly, it’s to aid in my own learning with Matariki, but I get the sense that the team enjoy coming along on the journey, and this year was no different.

Since the last couple of weeks have been so cold, my initial thought was that this year's lunch should be soup, and I’d try to source some rēwena bread to go with it. This quickly morphed into me feeding a rēwena starter for the last couple of weeks and making a Boil Up.

Now, before anyone comes at me for the lack of authenticity around the following recipes, I’m going to start by saying that within the Foodprint team, we’ve got a lot of dietaries, I mean a lot. We’ve got a seafood allergy; a nightshade allergy; a dairy and gluten free; a dairy and gluten free vegetarian; and a plant-based (that’s me). We’re only a team of five, so that’s at least one food restriction for everyone. It’s not a big deal for us and we easily make it work, but it does mean that we have to adapt recipes to fit.

A key part of our shared lunch tradition is to incorporate ingredients that align to each of the four te whetū o Matariki - the stars of Matariki, that represent the food growing realms. These are:

🌟Tupu-ā-nuku - soil

🌟Tupu-ā-rangi - forests

🌟Waitī - fresh water

🌟Waitā - oceans

For more on the stars, see here. And to catch up with other ways we’ve celebrated Matariki, see here.

Now, onto the recipes! This is a doozy of a post, so if you manage to make all of these, I applaud you and would love to see your versions!

Rēwena Bread

I have never made sourdough before, I much prefer to rescue mine from the pros. I was given a bug once, which I promptly killed 😬. I had a quick look online and found this Rēwena recipe that was my inspiration and instruction, but with a few tweaks as below. If you’re not gluten-free or allergic to nightshades, feel free to use the link, rather than the recipe below. 

My first two bakes were, shall we say, learning curves. But at the time of writing this, I’ve now done four bakes and it’s fair to say they just keep getting better. I think the maturity of the bug has helped, but I’ve also switched to using a combination of flours.

Rēwana Loaf

Starter Bug

Ingredients

1 Medium-sized kūmara

1 cup gluten-free flour (I mostly used Edmonds GF flour for this recipe, unless otherwise stated)

2 teaspoons white sugar

1.5-2L Water

Method

1. Wash the kūmara and leaving the skin on, cut up into 2cm pieces. Boil in 1.5-2L water until it’s soft, this may seem like a lot of water, but you'll will use it all. Do not add salt to the water.

2. Once cooked, strain the kūmara from the water, keeping the water in a jar!

3. Mash the kūmara and allow it to cool.

4. Once cooled, place two generous tablespoons in a bowl and add the flour and sugar as well as ¾ Cup of the kūmara water.

5. Mix into a paste, cover with a teatowel and leave in a warm spot (a sunny kitchen bench or even a hot water cupboard are great places for it in the cooler winter months).

   
   
   
   

Feeding your Rēwena Bug

Day 1: Add ½ cup flour, 2 tsp sugar, ½ cup kūmara water and ¼ cup hot water.

Day 2: Add 1 cup flour, 2 tsp sugar,½ cup kūmara water and ¼ cup hot water.

Day 3: Add ½ cup flour, 2 tsp sugar, ½ cup kūmara water and ¼ cup hot water.*

Day 4: Add 1 cup flour, 2 tsp sugar, ½ cup kūmara water and ¼ cup hot water.

Day 5: Add ½ cup flour, 2 tsp sugar, ½ cup kūmara water and ¼ cup hot water.*

Day 6: Baking day! The bug should look bubbly now; if not, repeat day 1 and bake on day 7.

Notes on Feeding Your Bug

Water: I was storing my kūmara water in the fridge, so I then used hot water, combining them to become ‘warm’ before I added to the mix. I ended up with the perfect amount for the above quantities. If you have quite a bit of water, you can use 3/4C Kūmara water at room temperature or if you run out, you can use 3/4 C warm water.

Flours: On about Day 3, I was out of GF flour, so I substituted with Tapicoa flour. This is a key ingredient of many GF flours, including the one I was using, so it was totally fine as a substitute.

Bake: The original recipe said bake day was day 5, but my day 5 bake was a total flop, so I think another day is a good idea, especially given the winter temperatures. If you were starting this in the summer months, Day 5 might be ok for the first bake.

The Bake

For my first bakes, I have halved the quantities from the link above and adapted based on the feel of the dough.

Ingredients

1 cup rēwena bug

1 cup warm water

1 cup gluten-free flour, +¼ C reserve

1 cup quinoa flour, +¼ C reserve (could also use another GF substitute, ideally from a whole grain like brown rice, buckwheat or sorghum)

2 tbsp sugar

Method

1. Add all ingredients, except the flour reserves, to a large mixing bowl.

2. Mix until you get a doughy consistency, adding the reserve flours if you need to (I needed to).

3. Mix for a good few minutes so the dough really comes together and everything is mixed in, then keep mixing a bit longer.*

4. Take about 2 Tbsp of dough and mix it back into the bug. Cover your bug back up and put it somewhere warm.

5. Once it’s all mixed, set aside, covered in a warm spot for at least 2 hours to proof. It won’t double in size like a wheat-based one would, but it will still rise a bit.

6. Lightly grease a baking tray (I’ve been cooking my loaves in a cast iron frying pan, which works wonders), tip the dough and smooth out the shape. Score around one side with a sharp knife and bake at 180℃ for around 40 minutes. 

7. Remove from the oven and enjoy while it’s still warm smeared with kawakawa butter and boil up (see below for both).

Notes on The Bake

The Dough: It won't have the same consistency or elasticity that you might be used to if you've baked bread with wheat flour.

Kneading: The original recipe calls for 10 mins of kneading at step 3. I tried this on my first bake and because of the GF flour, it was just a real mess. The dough did come together really well, but not in the same way you’d expect a wheat-based dough to. If you had a mixer with a dough hook, that would be ideal, but I do not. Kneading bread is about working and stretching the gluten; for GF, you just want to make sure it’s well mixed. If you are using wheat flour, you will need to knead this and I suggest following the link above.

Flours: By the time of my fourth bake, I only had about ¾ C of quinoa flour left, so I blitzed about ½ cup of brown rice into flour to make up the quantities.

Variations

By the time my fourth bake came around, I was already introducing a third flour, as above. And I also added around 1/4 Cup of mashed Kūmara. This added to the consistency and was a really nice touch. You could definitely play around with the quantities of kūmara or other veggies - potato, olives etc.

I will keep my bug GF, but I am keen to try a bake using wheat flour soon.

The rēwena is definitely on the sweeter side for bread. I will add some salt to a bake, which will give a different taste.

Boil Up

Turns out, this year was full of firsts for me. I’m ashamed to say that I’d never made a Boil Up before, but the good news is that it’s very easy! This one was vegan (see notes on food allergies/requirements above) and given the rēwena bread and the GF requirements, I felt like I didn’t need to / wasn’t game enough to try dough boys.

The Boil Up, being the main event, is where our whetū-representing ingredients shine.

Admittedly, it's hard to get a good picture of a Boil Up!

Ingredients

Tupu-a-nuku:

2x kūmara (I had one red and one purple, which added a depth of colour)

1x onion

Tupu-a-rangi:

Piece of pumpkin (mine was probably about 1/16, but use what you have

1x leek

~2 tsp Kawakawa powder or leaves. I used this one

Waitī

Watercress or Pūhā

~2 L Water, or if you prefer stock (see notes below)

Waitā

~2 tsp Kelp Salt, I used this one

Method

1. Cut up all of the vegetables (except the watercress or pūhā) into 2cm cubes, and add to a large pot.

2. Cover with water or stock.

3. Add kelp salt and kawakawa leaves.

4. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a medium-low heat and let it simmer for 1.5-2 hours. The vegetables should be cooked right through and starting to go soft. 

5. Taste test the liquid and add more kelp salt and/or kawakawa if needed.

6. Roughly chop the watercress or puha and add it for the last 10 minutes of cooking. 

7. Remove from heat and enjoy with rēwena bread.

   
   

Notes on Boil Up

Vegetables: Any vegetables will do; root vegetables are ideal. It's a great way to use up what you have.

Watercress or Pūhā: I added mine after turning off the heat and left the pot to cool overnight.

Stock: I opted not to use stock as I wanted the flavour from the kelp salt and kawakawa to shine. If you didn’t have these, I would highly recommend adding stock for flavour.

Traditional Boil Up: Would have meat or fish, including the bones, to add flavour.

Kawakawa Butter

Add a sprinkle of kawakawa powder to soft (vegan) butter and mix together. Lather over the rēwena bread.

The Meal

Karakia

Of course, we had to open our meal with a karakia, and this one was thanks to our Tuhi Stationery Diaries.

Karakia mo te Kai

Nau mai ngā hua

Nau mai ngā pai

Nau mai ngā nui

Kia haware ia

Welcome to all things that have grown

Welcome to all things that are good

May they be plentiful and abundant

We’d love to hear about your Matariki celebrations and traditions!

Mānawatia a Matariki!