Eoghan’s butter chicken with daal and garlic naan

Eoghan’s butter chicken with daal and garlic naan

Serves 4 people

Butter Chicken

For the chicken marinade

500g Deboned Chicken Thighs
200g Yoghurt
1tbsp Salt
1tbsp Garam Masala
1stp Cumin
1tsp Turmeric
1tsp Cayenne Papper
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Thumb Ginger

Pureé the garlic and ginger and mix well with yoghurt and spices. In a mixing bowl, toss with the chicken thighs and ensure even coating throughout. Leave refrigerated overnight.

Sauce

1tbsp Garam Masala
1tbsp Madras Curry powder
1tsp Cayenne Pepper
1tsp Cumin
1tsp Coriander
1tsp Turmeric
1 stick Cinnamon
2 Star Anise
3 Onions (sliced)
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Thumb Ginger
1 Red Chilli Pepper
1 Can Tomatoes
Clarified Butter
500g Cream
100g Creme Fraiche

Sweat onions with a generous sprinkling of salt in clarified butter until lightly caramelised. Add pureéd ginger/garlic/chilli, and spices and continue to caramelise for around 10 minutes. Add canned tomatoes, cooking until reduced to paste and almost dried out. Remove from heat and blend with cream and creme fraiche. On a separate baking tray, roast the marinated chicken thighs at 200C for 10 min or until the yoghurt begins to caramelise. Combine with the blended sauce in a pot and allow to cook on a medium heat until the chicken is tender and cooked through. Season with salt to taste.

Split Pea Daal

500g split Peas
1tbsp Garam Masala
1tsp Cardamom
1tsp Cumin
1tsp Cayenne Papper
1 stick Cinnamon
2 Star Anise
2 large Baking Potatoes
1 Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Thumb Ginger
200g Tomato pureé
300g Kelp Dashi

Start by cooking split peas in a pot of salted boiling water, around 90 minutes. Roughly chop potatoes and roast with a pinch of Garam Masala and a splash of neutral oil at 220C for 15-20 minutes. Blitz onion/garlic/ginger until smooth and then sweat with spices and a pinch of salt in clarified butter in a pan until lightly caramelised, around 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook out for a couple of minutes. Add dashi and allow to reduce for a couple of minutes, before adding cooked split peas and potatoes. Season with salt to taste.

Garlic Naan

1 head Garlic
200g clarified Butter or Ghee
500g 00 Flour
15g Salt
30g Fresh Yeast
30g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
15g Sugar
185g Yoghurt
300g warm water

Cook clarified butter and halved head of garlic on a low heat for around 1hr until infused. Strain and reserve garlic butter for cooking.

Bloom yeast in lukewarm water (should feel around body temperature) and then add the rest of the liquid ingredients and sugar. Add the remaining dry ingredients and place in the bowl of a stand mixer attached with a dough hook. Mix on low speed for a couple of minutes to allow all ingredients to be incorporated before mixing on high until the dough starts to form a ball and comes away clean from the sides of the bowl. Place in a well oiled container and allow to bulk ferment overnight in the fridge.

Remove dough from fridge 1hr before you begin to cook. Portion dough into 80g balls and allow to rest on a floured tray covered with cling film. When ready to cook place a non stick pan on medium heat. Roll out balls on a floured surface with a rolling pin until thin and approximately the same size as your pan. Lightly grease the pan with the garlic butter and cook the flatbread one side until nicely charred. Flip over and do the same on the other side making sure to constantly keep brushing with garlic butter. Remove from the pan, add a final baste of garlic butter, season with flaky salt and keep under a towel until ready to serve.

Cynthia’s Marble Cake

Cynthia’s Marble Cake

Makes 8 portions

130 g All Purpose Flour
10 g Baking Powder
57 g Oil
150 g Sugar
2 Eggs
57 ml Milk
15g Cocoa Powder

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).

In a medium mixing bowl, combine sugar and eggs, until pale and creamy. Add in the milk, and stir to combine. Next add in the oil and mix in. Add the flour along with the baking powder, and fold into the batter using a spatula.

Divide the batter into two equal portions. Into one portion, add the cocoa powder and mix to combine.

Grease your loaf pan with oil, then pour in the batters, alernating with each, to create a pattern like a checkerboard. Repeat with the remaining batter, adding the opposite color inside each section. Take a knife and drag it across the cake creating swirls in the batter

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees F) for around 35-40 minutes checking that a knife comes out clean from the center before removing from the oven. Cool on a wire rack and serve in nice, thick slices!

Minestrone soup with corn bread and honey butter

Minestrone Soup. Wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, corn bread and hot honey butter.

For 4 people

Wedge Salad

Ingredients:

1 head iceberg lettuce (1/4 per person)
50 g crumbled blue cheese
¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
4 strips bacon
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt

Method:

Frist, to make the dressing, in a small sauce pot on the stove, slowly melt down the blue cheese over medium low heat. Once just melted, remove it from the stove, and use a small whisk or a fork to incorporate the sour cream, buttermilk, mayonnaise and lemon juice until it comes together as a smooth dressing. Season the dressing with salt and pepper to taste. And if you have them around, the addition of chopped fresh herbs like parsley or chives always adds another layer of flavour.

Using an oven preheated to 160°C or a pan over medium heat on the stove, cook the bacon until its browned and well crisped. Once cooked, transfer the bacon strips to a paper towel to soak up any excess grease, and all them to cool. Crumble the bacon into bit with your hands or chop it fine with knife.

While iceberg makes for the classic wedge salad, this works equally well with baby gem or romaine, so feel free to use your favourite variety. Wash your head of lettuce and quarter it lengthwise, keeping the core intact. Place the wedges onto plates and pour the dressing liberally overtop. Then top the salad with bacon bits and serve!

Minestrone Soup

Ingredients:

1 onion
4 celery stalks
3 carrots
20 white button mushrooms
½ a head of cabbage (or any hearty green you have around)
3 cloves garlic
3 bunches of broccoli rabe
100 g chick peas
10 new potatoes.
140 g pasta (tubetti or macaroni work great, but use what you have on hand)
½ a sprig rosemary
1 bunch lemon thyme
1 parmesan cheese rind.
2 liters chicken stock
Freshly cracked black pepper
Salt

Method:

Cut the onions, celery, carrots, button mushrooms, cabbage, scallions, garbanzo beans, and new potatoesinto a dice of equal size, roughly 1 cm square. Mince the garlic quite fine. Place the chicken stock, the parmesan rind the diced potatoes and a good few pinches of salt into a large pot and bring it up to a boil on the stove, then turn the heat down to a simmer. The potatoes will take about 15 minutes to cook through until tender. So wait a few minutes to drop the pasta in for its recommended cooking time, which is probably somewhere around 9 or 10 minutes. When the potatoes are about halfway there, throw in the rest of the vegetables, and keep simmering. Now take the time to pick and chop the aromatics herbs. Once the potatoes and the pasta are cooked, remove the pot from the stove and fish out the parmesan rind. Season the soup with more salt and pepper to taste, stir in the aromatic chopped herbs and grate a bit more parmesan cheese over top after its portioned into bowls.

Corn Bread and Honey Hot Sauce

Ingredients:

280 ml milk
55 g melted butter
50 g vegetable oil
1 egg
206 g all purpose flour
156 g cornmeal
50 g sugar
9 g baking powder
5 g salt

For the hot honey butter:

200 g melted butter
100 g honey
50 g chili oil (or your favourite hot sauce)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 190°C. For the cornbread, first, in two separate bowls, combine all of the dry ingredients, and all of the wet ingredients together, then consolidate the tow, whisking well, but be careful not to over mix the batter! Grease an appropriately sized baking pans with butter and pour the mixture in. Bake the cornbread at 190°C for 20-25 minutes of until a cake tester comes out clean and the surface has baked to a golden yellow-brown. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool, if you can wait that long…

For the honey butter, combine all the ingredients together (being a bit cautious with the heat, depending on the chili oil or hot sauce your choosing to use!) Cut the cornbread into squares and drizzle the honey butter over top.

Mette’s fried plaice

Mette’s whole fried plaice

For 4 people

2 large whole plaice or 4 small whole plaice (or other small flatfish)
Ryeflour
Neutral oil
50 g butter
Salt

500 g new potatoes
Lemonthyme
Salt

Salad
500g of whole peas
½ head of black cabbage
1 bunch (or 10 pieces) of green asparagus
1 bunch (or 10 pieces) of radishes
4 spring onion
150 feta cheese
1 bunch or 1 pot of watercress

Salad vinaigrette
1 handfull of parsley leaves
1 tbsp honey
4 tbsp olive oil
Lemonjuice from ½ lemon
Salt

Butter sauce
200g whitewine (dry and fruity)
200 g cold butter (cut into small squares)
1 glas (around 50g) of capers
1 handfull of each dill, parsley, chives and ramson (or other herbs)
Zest from 1 organic lemon
Salt
Pepper

If you get a whole fish, start by removing the small spike in the top of the fins of the right side of the fish to avoid any injuries. Continue to remove the head with a knife. Then, on the back of the fish (the white side), make a cut from the top to around halfway down the fish, following the fins. Cut through the bones but not the dark skin on the front side. Turn the fish around and use a towel to pull the skin off. Leave the white skin on the back side on. Use a pair of scissors or a knife to cut of the fins and the tail. Rinse the fish and remove any blood under cold running water and dry the fish with a towel. Alternatively, buy the fish already skinned or ask your fishmonger to do it for you.

Prepare everything for your salad. Remove the peas from the husk. Break of the bottom of the green asparagus, where it snaps naturally, and cut them into approximately ½ cm wide pieces. Rinse the radishes under cold water and cut off most of the green top and the bottom. Cut them into quarters. Clean the springonions and cut off around half of the green tops. Slice them thinly. Pick the tops of the watercress. Break up the feta cheese into smaller chunks.

Mix the salad vinaigrette. First pound the parsley leaves in a mortar and then mix in the honey, the olive oil, the lemonjuice and the salt. Mix all the prepared ingredients for the salad and add the vinaigrette. Toss everything together and put into your serving bowl.

Prepare for the buttersauce. Chop all the herbs for the buttersauce. Drain the capers from the liquid and chop them roughly. Grate the zest from the lemon. Bring the wine to a boil, and let it reduce to about a fourth.

Rinse the potatoes under cold water and boil them in salted water with a few sprigs of lemonthyme. Boil until ”al dente”, for about 5-10 minutes depending on the size. Then turn off the heat and let them sit in the hot water. Drain the potatoes from the water when tender. Roughly pick a small handfull of lemonthyme leaves and tops.

Make the buttersauce. Slowly add the squares of cold butter to the simmering wine one by one while whisking. Once all the butter is incorporated and the sauce is becoming slightly thicker add the chopped herbs, the capers and the lemonzest. Season with salt and pepper. Keep it on low heat.

Place the ryeflour in a large tray. Dredge the fish in the flour on both sides. Heat up a large non stick pan and add neutral oil. Add the fish (in a large pan you can cook two fish at a time) to the pan with the white skin facing up. Fry until golden and flip it with a wide palet knife. Add a spoonful of butter and baste the top off the fish. Cook the fish a couple of minutes on both sides or until just cooked. Check by making a small cut by the bone in the middle.

Take the fish of the pan, season with salt and serve on individual plates with a slice of lemon. Add a bit of the cooking butter from the fish to the warm, cooked potatoes together with salt and the fresh lemonthyme leaves and tops. Serve with the salad and the warm buttersauce.

Thomas and André’s cod fish soup with roasted and fermented vegetables & pretzels

Thomas and André’s cod fish soup with roasted and fermented vegetables & pretzels

For 4 people

Fish soup base

1 liter fish stock
50 g tomato purée
1 chili
4 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
25 g 38% creme fraiche
25 g egg yolks
Vegetable oil

Finely mince the chili and garlic. Then, in a medium sized pot, preheated on the stove, sauté the chili, garlic, tomato pure and smoked paprika in a bit of the vegetable oil until they become aromatic and toasty. Add the fish stock to deglaze the pot, and then turn the heat down to a simmer, letting it reduce a little bit. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the crème fraiche and egg yolks until well combined, then, pouring in a steady stream, whisk that mixture into the warm soup base. The egg yolks and creme fraiche will thicken the soup and give it an unctuous and creamy texture.

Cod fish

200 g cod filets
40 g fermented greens
2 tomatoes
10 g tomato purée
½ a chili
1 clove garlic
20 g parsley
1 lemon
salt/pepper to taste

The fermented greens can consist of anything you have on hand, be they leftovers from the fridge like radish tops or wilting scallion greens, just season the greens in manageable pieces with 4% of their weight in salt, pack them tightly into a jar, weigh them down and let it sit out on your counter for a few days to sour. We’ve used mustard greens for this recipe. (But even then, this filling works great with sauerkraut.)

Once you know what you’re doing for the greens, preheat your oven to 200°C. Remove the skin from the cod filets and cut the fish in to small chunks, roughly 3 x 3 cm in size. Place the tomatoes, garlic and chili in an oven proof fry pan and roast them in the oven until caramelized, which should take roughly 20 minutes. Blend the fermented greens, tomato purée, tomatoes, chili, garlic and parsley to a paste with a hand blender (if you don’t have one, mince it finely on a cutting board to get close). Season the mixture with salt, pepper and lemon juice and the zest of ½ a lemon. Mix the paste with the diced cod and set it aside in a bowl in the fridge for 1 hour to set up.

Roasted vegetables and zucchini cream

2 heads fennel
5 scallions
½ a zucchini
1 leek
2 white onions, peeled
½ a head of celeriac, peeled
2 big handfuls kale
Thyme
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1 lemon
Smoked paprika

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Wash all the vegetables before you start cutting them up.

Dice the celeriac, fennel, scallions, leek and onions into bite sized pieces (roughly 1½ x 1½ cm squares). Marinate the diced veggies in olive oil, salt and pepper then place them in an oven proof pan or baking tray and roast them in the oven until tender about 20-30 minutes.

Tear the kale in to largeish pieces, and once the roasting vegetables are done cooking, mix the kale through the pan fresh out of the oven; the heat from the vegetables will gently cook the kale and wilt it. Turn down the oven to 160°C, and bake the zucchini in 1 large piece for 1 hour. Once cooked, while still hot, blend the zucchini to a purée, and season it with salt, pepper, lemon juice and smoked paprika.

Pretzels

567 g OO flour
317 g warm water
7 g fresh yeast
12 g salt
28 g softened butter
4% lye solution (1 L of water with 40 g of lye dissolved in it, be careful!)
Coarse salt

In a large mixing bowl, crumble the yeast into the warm water and stir to dissolve. Add the flour and salt to the liquid and knead until all the dry bits have been absorbed. Add the butter and continue to knead until you achieve a silky, smooth dough that cleans the sides of the bowl. Moisten a kitchen towel and cover the bowl to let the dough rise in a warm corner of space for 30-45 minutes. Portion the dough into appropriately sized balls and let them rest on the counter for 15 minutes. Shape the portions either into a pretzel form, by rolling the balls into a snake with the palm of your hands and looping them, or whatever other shape you’d like (they even great as dinner rolls).

Transfer then to a lined baking tray and refrigerate them uncovered for at least 1 hour but no more than 4. Take the time now to preheat the oven to 240°C. Once rested, remove the pretzels from the fridge. Carefully dip each pretzel into the lye solution for 8 seconds (please use gloves when working with this this concentration).

Remove and shake off any excess liquid before placing the pretzels back onto your lined baking sheet. Depending on the form you shaped, now would be the time to score or snip your pretzels. Sprinkle their tops with coarse salt and bake them for 10-15 minutes, or until the pretzels are burnished brown. Remove them from the oven and rest them on a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.

To serve

Put your fish mix and vegetables into a pot of the cold soup base and gently heat it up over medium heat to a simmer. Adjust the soup’s seasoning with salt and acidity with lemon juice. In heating up the soup, you’ve already started the cooking of the fish, and once it’s up to a boil it will be cooked through, so there’s no need to cook it any more than that. Portion the soup into bowls and serve with a side dish of the warm pretzels and a healthy dollop of the zucchini cream.

Mirek’s roasted chicken

During the time we’ve been closed, some of our team members have been cooking some wonderful meals at home. In this way, we would like to share some what they are up to inspire your own home-cooking and to stay connected to you, too. This week, our Australian sous chef, Mirek, is sharing his roasted chicken recipe for you to cook and enjoy at home:

Mirek’s roasted chicken with chicken gravy

1 organic whole chicken (approximately 1.5kg)
1/2 bunch tarragon
100g butter (softened)
2 table spoon breadcrumbs
1 clove garlic
1 lemon
Neutral oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Finely chop the tarragon and garlic. To the softened butter, add the tarragon, garlic, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and the zest and juice of lemon. Mix to combine, then transfer to a piping bag (or a small plastic bag you have at home). Pipe the butter between the skin and flesh of the breast. (You could also use your hands, but the piping helps to get into all the nooks and crannies.) Massage the butter around so it spreads evenly.

Rub the bird with neutral oil and season generously all over – don’t be shy! Tuck the wings under the bird to avoid burnt wing tips and truss the chicken legs. Place the chicken on a roasting rack and pop in the oven.

After 20 minutes (or when you have a lovely brown colouring over the skin of the chicken), turn down the oven to 200°C and continue to cook for another 20-25 minutes.

Remove the chicken from the oven and set aside to rest on the rack while you make your gravy.

For the Gravy:

250 ml chicken stock (made from the carcass of our last roast chicken by covering the carcass with water, bringing to the boil, skimming impurities and reducing by half) or the instant stock.
1 table spoon of flour
1/2 bunch tarragon, chopped
Drippings from the roast chicken

Scrape the drippings from the chicken into a pot and bring to the boil. Add flour and whisk to incorporate. Pour in the chicken stock and whisk together to emulsify. Take off the heat and stir through the tarragon.

Serve the chicken and gravy with a simple salad and mashed or roasted potatoes.

We would love to see what you make, tag us @nomacph!

Alice and Fejsal’s White Bean Stew with Pita Bread and Baba Ganoush

During the time we’ve been closed, our team wanted to find a way to cook for each other and stay connected from a distance. Each week, two of our chefs have volunteered their time to cook take away meals for the team and their families. The prepared meals get picked up each day in shifts, just outside the restaurant – enough time for a quick smile and wave hello. We’ve done this over the past month, and the meals have been so delicious that we’d like to share some of our recipes to stay connected to you, too.

Pita Bread

500 g all-purpose flour
300 g water
30 g olive oil
30 g fresh yeast
25 g salt
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon yogurt
1 teaspoon sugar
olive oil for brushing
(plus any seasoning you like to finish the pita bread, we used a spice mix of black pepper, sumac, coriander seeds, and a touch of salt, but rubs like Za’atar or Baharat would be great too)

Using a sieve, sift the flour into a bowl to ensure there’re no lumps, and add in the salt and sugar too.

Combine the liquids and fresh yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer and set it to low speed for 3 to 5 minutes with a whisk attachment. If you don’t have a countertop mixer, this can of course also be done hand.

Slowly add in the dry ingredients at low speed. When everything’s in the bowl, bring the mixer to medium speed for about 3 minutes or until the dough comes together. Then finish mixing at high speed for 1 minute to develop the gluten a bit more. (If you’re doing this by hand, knead the dough for 3-5 minutes.)

Transfer the dough to a baking tray dusted with a bit of flour and keep it covered with a wet towel and cling film and let it proof at room temperature for 1 hour.

Once the dough has risen, use a knife to cut out 50 gram balls (a bit bigger than a golf ball) and place them onto a floured countertop. Shape the portions of dough by forming a cup with the palm of your hand rolling the them on the counter in a circular motion until they form tight balls. Once they’re all rolled out, place them back onto the tray, again covered with wet towels and cling film and let them proof for 30 minutes more.

Once proofed, place each ball, one at a time, onto your countertop dusted with flour and roll them out with a rolling pin into thin flatbreads, about 1.5 cm thick.

You can bake the pita breads in a very hot oven set to 250° Celsius, on a BBQ, directly on hot coals, or in a hot, dry pan on the stove until they puff and the dough is cooked from within, which should take just a few minutes.

Once cooked and while still hot, brush the pita breads with a bit of olive oil and season with a sprinkle of salt and seasonings of your choice.

White Bean Stew

500 g large white beans, soaked in ample water overnight at room temperature
2 large carrots
1 large leeks
1 head fennel
2 scallions
1 white onion, skin on and cut in half widthwise
5 large leaves kale, per person
1 head garlic, cut in half widthwise
3 sprigs rosemary
4 sprigs dill

4 sprigs parsley

2½ L vegetable stock
olive oil

lemon juice to season

With your bean soaked overnight, drain them of their water and transfer them to a pot to simmer in the vegetable stock, which can be made from vegetables you have in your fridge; staples like onion, carrot and celery all work well. Don’t season the beans with salt yet as they’ll take a very long time to cook. Bring the beans up to just a boil and then drop the pot to a simmer over low heat.

Pick the leaves off the sprigs of dill and parsley and reserve the tender tips to use as garnish to finish the soup. Reserve the herb stems too.

Cut your carrots, leeks, fennel and scallions into small pieces, roughly the same size of the beans. Roast them in a pan with olive oil over medium-high heat until they’ve lightly caramelized but haven’t fully cooked, and then set them aside.

In the same pan, take the onion and the head of garlic and char them, cut side down until they blacken. Once charred place them in a small piece of muslin or cheese cloth along with the herb stems, and the rosemary and tie up the parcel with kitchen twine (like a sachet) to infuse into the stew for the rest of the cooking period, at least 30 to 45 minutes.

Cut the leaves of kale into 3 cm wide strips and toss it in a bowl with enough olive oil to coat the leaves lightly. Place the chopped kale onto a baking tray, evenly spread out, and roast it in the oven until the edges begin to brown, then take it out and set it aside. Take the time now to also chop the majority of the leaves of picked dill and parsley.

When the beans are ¾ of the way cooked, to the point that they have just a bit of bite to them, add your chopped vegetables and keep simmering the stew on low heat until everything is pleasantly tender. Remove the sachet of aromatics and finish the stew with the chopped herbs. Season the stew with salt, a bit more olive oil, and some fresh lemon juice to taste. Add the roasted kale just before serving it, and top the portions with the reserved herbs.

Baba Ghanoush

4 medium sized eggplants

2 yellow bell peppers
3 scallions
2 cloves garlic
1 small bunch parsley
Tahini

Olive oil

The key to making good baba ghanoush is to char the eggplants well, either on the barbecue or directly on hot coals (if you don’t have a barbecue you could do this over the flame on your stove top, or under the broiler in your oven). Turning them often, char all sides of the eggplants’ skins until well burned. Don’t be afraid here; the char is needed to impart a smoky flavor to the finished dish. Once charred, if they aren’t yet juicy and knife tender all the way through, you can finish them by cooking them in the oven at around 170° Celsius. Once cooked, allow them to cool to the point where you can handle them, and then peel the eggplants, discarding the burnt skins. Chop the flesh into rough 1 cm chunks with a knife and reserve.

You’ll also need to cook the yellow pepper and scallions on the barbecue and directly on the charcoal (alternatively on your stove top or under the broiler), but not to the point of severely charring like the eggplant—the point here is to get a bit of char on their surface and allow the vegetables to and steam through from within. Coat the vegetables in a bit of olive oil first to help with the cooking. When the vegetables are cooked to your liking, remove the seeds from the peppers, but keep the skin on and chop them and the scallion to the same size as the eggplant flesh (charred pepper skin is delicious in the baba ghanoush). Also save all of the delicious cooking juices that come from the pepper! You can use it to dress a salad.

Finely mince the garlic and the parsley tops (the stems can also be sliced thinly for a bit of crunch and freshness). Then mix everything together, season with the tahini and olive oil, as well as salt to taste.

We would love to see what you make, tag us @nomacph!