Today I am at home nursing damaged Ribs after a sparing round with a young deck hand, after hours. So nothing flash today folks. I have a loaf of Natures fresh and a packet (that cost a packet) of Chipolatas sausages from Waitangi Store. I also have some local Chatham Island limestone Karaka potatoes with are already peeled cut into chips and slowly sweating in canola oil in a pot, on the diesel stove. Take the sausages and put them in a roasting pan and in the oven, similarly the oil sweated chips in another tray and place in the oven. Cook till crispy. Butter a plate of bread, and serve the sausages and chips in the tray to your mates while they watch the ‘Food Truck’ on sunday night on channel One!

Simple fare cooked well never fails to impress a customer even if you havent made a stuffing, which we will today! A simple one..

Take your nice big plump skin on, fillet on, double attached chicken breasts from Tegal and cut down the middle and trim a little outside excess fat you dont need, but keep a good healthy amount off skin on for your locals to chew through before they bite into the pocket stuffing!!

Put you chicken aside in the chiller and gett your green board out and dice up an onion finely. Melt half a block of diced butter and gently fry off with a teaspoon of blended garlic clove, add seasoning (a touch of chicken buillion doesnt hurt) and a pinch of dried herb. For seasoning today I will mortor pestle rock salt and fresh rosemary for a bit of english pub Jamie Oliver style. Add a touch of fresh cream  and chicken stock, then add a couple of cups of light bread crumb (try Panko crumb). Bring the mix to a soft sticky doughy consistency and place in a disposable piping bag (or just stuff it in with your fingers). Take you chicken from the chiller and place skin down on a yellow chopping board slice in a pocket from the top with a small utility knife. Be carefull not to make an exposed hole in the centre of the breast. However not a problem if you do because this stuffing shouldnt leak to much, only juice will. Fill the breasts from the piping bag (or fingers) and place bag in the chiller.

Now cut up your preferred selection of fresh vegetables. I will use Cauli, Broc, Carrot, Courgette and Admiral Gardens Silverbeat. Take the Cauli and dig out with a knife the centre leaving the cauli easy to pull apart by hand. break away the florets and split the larger ones. The tip of the Cauli can be portioned by site with a knife to give similar sizes as the whole florets and split larger ones. A similar approach is taken with the broc, except you cut the stalk and pull away the florets . Make sure all your pieces are similar in size for cooking evenly. Peel your carrots and nip the ends of your courgettes, cut in half and cut into angle batons. The thick end of the carrot into three the thin end into two, the courgette cut in two twos. Take your silverbeat and run the knife along the stalk to take only the juicy green leaf. Layer the leaf on top of each other and slice roughly. Heat a large wide water pan till boiling and drop and cook each lot vegetables consecutively. Make sure your water is salted to your liking. In your sink fill a large bowl with cold water, now take a large hand net and scoop out each lot of veg consecutively as you cook them and drop each lot into the cold water. Make sure you refill your cold bowl each time between lots of vegetables! Ayeee!!

On the back of the stove your already have slow cooking peeled Ilam Hardy potatoes for mashing with butter cubes, a pour of cream, fresh-cut curly parsley and salt and pepper to taste. If you don’t want to mash yours then this potato is best uncooked in the pot and left to finish cooking itself at room temp without any water cooling. If you get them right, the outside will have chapped slightly with a perfect cooked center. Then by adding a dash of reduced cream, garlic butter and fresh parsley, you will have a cream chapped Ilam Hardy’s. Toss them before you serve them and the exterior starch of the potatoes will combine with the cream and garlic butter to form a saucy outside!

Now take your chicken breast and sear skin down in a hot cast iron pan, flip for 15 seconds and place in a 240 degree oven. Find your hot spot in the oven for a whole chicken breast. Cook till firming and juice has dripped liberally into the pan. Remove from oven and add a brown butter rued Campbell’s chicken stock already hot in another pan and pour into the hot roast chicken pan. Place back into oven for three minutes untill pan jus gravy has formed. Serve the chicken breast on top of the veg and potatoes with gravy poured over top and a rosemary garnish. Close the lid on the takeaway container and write with black vivid on top CB (chicken breast) put this in the plastic bag with the butter chicken meal and the medium Rib Eye chips and salad meal with both garlic butter and mushroom sauce and two eggs. OH Yeah Wait!!! Karen!! Heres the last-minute fresh battered blue cod meal straight from the fish processing floor two hours ago! Cheers, I’m sure Porshas aunty will like this one!! Ayeee!!

Today my friends we cook Butter Chicken!

I start by wetting my re-washed chux cloth, which I gently fold once in half and place on a clean work surface. Then I take a green chopping board (Veg Board) and fetch myself two white onions from the vegetable dry store (my changing room!) I peel these by hand like any good english trained cook and begin with a very fine slice with a sharp thin catering utility knife. The slice works from one side of half an onion, over and around the core of the onion (which I discard) making sure the onion doesn’t fall apart. I then twist the onion and begin to slice microscopicly fine across the slice. This gives me a nice Bruniose dice. similarly I fine dice some fresh ginger root and coriander stalk. I heat my heavy steel base pot at a medium heat with a dash of refined oil. Taking a block of butter, I cut on a white chopping board (Dairy Board) and cut three length way slices and dice in 12 pieces. I take eight cubes and drop in my nice warm pot. Once the butter has reached a gentle bubbling consistency, I drop in my ginger and a small spoon full of pre blended garlic cloves in olive oil and cook till light brown and gently sticky. This is called Natural Caramalisation. Quickly as the garlic has browned, I drop in my onion and coriander root. As the juice of the onion sweats into the butter, garlic and ginger, it forms the beginning of a sauce and prevents the garlic from ging black with burn. Now I can start adding seasoning to my sauce. By cooking salt into the base ingredients I help to release their natural flavour. By adding a sprinkle of brown sugar I add a sweet finish to counter any acidity added by a spoon full of tomato paste (which gives good colour to the end product) and a wooden spoon dollop of Asian Home Gourmet Tika Masala paste (which I prefer to the butter chicken paste option).

Now I have my base prepared I can set it aside and get my yellow chopping board (Poultry Board) and take my personally engraved non factory German hand crafted steel cooking knife designed and made for Victoria Knox in Germany and give it a quick sharpen with a diamond steel (a tempting option of steel for its fast convenience, however the diamond steel may take more of your blade over time, leaving you a bit short on the base of the knife when you reach 60yrs and declare yourself a Masterchef!!). I skin some chicken breast and dice in roughly 15 cubes depending on the size of the breast. Im using chicken breast today as I have chicken breast to roast to order tonight for some guests and by using one cut of chicken for both meals, I keep a fresher product over the week. If you’re at home try Chicken Thigh for a longer cooking time to extract more chicken flavour into your dish. The diced chicken breast is then added to the butter chicken base. Mix it through over heat untill all the butter, onion, garlic, coriander root, seasoning and paste have combined and the flesh of the chicken has just turned white. I then take half a litre of Campbell’s chicken stock, one small can of Kara coconut cream, and a half litre of cream. Bring these to the boil in a separate sauce pan, spoon your Butter Chicken mix into the creamy coconut stock and poach at a low heat untill the breast is just cooked, remove from heat and drop in you fine sliced coriander leaf (you may also decide to thick your sauce slightly here with cornflour or arrowroot) . I actually leave the leaf till a butter chicken is ordered by one of our local bar customers. I also serve this with Jasmine rice that is pre washed and cooked absorption method with a final rinse to cool! The rice is reheated in a microwave to order.If your at home and serving to the family or friends straight from the stove then use a boiling water pot for your final rinse of starch, then strain and serve hot!!

Just to finish with a condiment I serve with a deep fried wonton pastry instead of a popadom (only because I havent long distance freight ordered any yet) for a bit of Asian fusion lol… If at home fry in shallow oil and flip, also try a nice fruity chutney on the side!

This is not an authentic indian curry, but neither is the title of the dish and Im not trying to impress a hoard of indian chefs, only my local hearty Chatham Island locals! Ayeeee!!!

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