Cookbook 198: Recipetin Eats Dinner

I have an admission. Prior to opening this cookbook I had no idea who Nagi Maehashi was nor what Recipetin Eats was. I saw a lot of people raving about the cookbook, but despite my terminal online-ness and love of recipes and good instructions, I had completely missed this whole show, which is my loss. To make up for it I bought Nagi Maehashi’s Recipetin Eats Dinner and cooked from it the next weekend after it arrived.

I made two main courses and one dessert (over a couple of nights because time) and one main worked perfectly, another needed a bit of adjustment (on my side, I think I used the wrong sized dish) and the dessert was amazing. Four and a half stars out of five.

Baked Creamy Feta Risoni (serves 5)

Ingredients:

Roasted tomato

• 500g cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 red onion, finely sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp cooking salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Creamy Risoni (orzo)

• 500g risoni
• 1 litre low-salt vegetable or chicken stock, hot
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 tsp cooking salt
• 200g Danish feta, crumbled
• 2 lightly packed cups basil leaves, finely sliced

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C or 180C fan forced
2. Roasted tomato – Toss the ingredients in a 33 x 22cm baking dish, then roast for 25 minutes
3. Risoni – Add the risoni, stock, water and salt to the baking dish. Stir, then shake the pan to spread the risoni out evenly
4. Bake – Cover with foil, then return to the oven for 20 minutes or until the risoni is tender
5. Finish – Remove from the oven. It will seem like there is too much liquid, but have faith! Stir briefly to loosen the risoni. Add three-quarters of the feta, then stir until it is partially melted – some can remain as smeary lumps. It should be quite creamy like risotto. If it’s too thick, add a splash of hot water.
6. Serve – Stir through basil leaves, crumble the reserved fets on top, then serve immediately!

Notes on this recipe:

• The flavour was great. Mine was a little watery which was either my fault for not heating the stock prior to adding it (I missed that step) OR because I got the size of the dish wrong. I’d take the baking dish size as a minimum and you could probably go a little bigger.

Chicken Fricassee (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 4 x 250g skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
• 4 x 150g chicken drumsticks
• 1 tsp cooking salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 60g unsalted butter

Creamy mushroom sauce

• 300g smallish white button mushrooms, halved
• 2 brown onions, halved, then sliced 6mm thick
• 1 fresh bay leaf (or 1 dried)
• 3 thyme sprigs (or 1/2 tsp dried thyme)
• 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 125ml chardonnay wine
• 750ml chicken stock
• 1/4 tsp cooking salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 170ml thickened cream
• 2tbsp roughly chopped parsley (optional)

Method:

1. Brown chicken – Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Melt the butter over medium-high heat in a very large, deep frying pan (or similar) with a lid. Add the chicken thighs, skin-side down, and cook for 4 – 5 minutes until the skin is golden brown. Turn and cook the other side for 1 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Add the drumsticks to the pan and brown them as best you can. Transfer from the frying pan to the plate with the thighs.
2. Creamy mushroom sauce – Add the mushrooms, onion, bay leaf and thyme to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes until the mushrooms are lightly golden. Add the garlic and stir for 30 seconds. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine, chicken stock, salt and pepper and stir, scraping the base of the pot to dissolve the brown residue (fond) stuck to the pan into the sauce.
3. Simmer covered – Return the chicken, skin-side up, to the pan with the sauce. Once the sauce comes to a simmer, adjust the heat so it’s bubbling gently (not rapidly) but constantly. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Simmer uncovered – Remove the lid and let the fricassee simmer for a further 20 minutes. The chicken will be booked when the meat’s internal temperature is 72C or slightly higher.
5. Finish sauce – Transfer the chicken to a plate, leaving the sauce in the pan. Add the cream to the sauce and stir. Once the sauce comes back up to a simmer, taste it and ad more salt if desired.
6. Serve – Return the chicken to the sauce, then remove the pan from the stove. Sprinkle with parsley (if using) and serve with mashed potato or pasta

Notes on this recipe:

• Delightfully creamy and very tasty. Very similar to another dish I regularly cook – Margaret Fulton’s Smothered Chicken (well my version of it). This was easy to make and a good dish for entertaining.

Apple Crumble (serves 5 – 6)

Ingredients:

Apple filling

• 1 kg of granny smith apples, peeled and cut into 1.5cm cubes
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 100g white sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp lemon juice (or water)

Topping

• 1 cup rolled oats/oatmeal (quick cooking is ok)
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 lightly packed cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 125g unsalted butter, melted
• pinch of cooking salt

To serve

• vanilla ice cream

Method:

1. Filling – Place the apple in a bowl, sprinkle with the flour, sugar and cinnamon, then toss to combine. Pour the lemon juice over the apple mixture and then toss again. Spread out evenly in a 1.5 litre baking dish.
2. Topping – Place the ingredients in a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until clumps form, like wet sand. Spread the topping over the apple, using your fingers to make it crumble, if required.
3. Bake – Bake for 35 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, cover loosely with foil to keep warm and let stand for 10 minutes before serving (this allows the sauce in the filling to thicken slightly).
4. Serve – Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Notes on this recipe:

• This was a really well balanced apple crumble recipe. Sometimes they are too sweet or the ratio of apple to crumble is all wrong, but this one completely nails it
• It’s going to be my go-to apple crumble recipe (though I’ll probably add more cinnamon because I’m like that).