Photo courtesy of Lyle’s

Yellow Tail Aguachile

Photo courtesy of MNKY HSE

METHOD
To make the citrus dressing:
1. Squeeze orange and make ginger juice in a juicer
2. Mix orange, ginger juices and passion fruit
3. If needed add some sugar to taste
To make the pickling liquid
1. Dissolve the sugar in the water
2. Add the vinegar.
3. Thinly slice the jicama and add to the pickling liquid
To prepare the yellow tail
1.Clean the yellowtail under running water and slice thinly
To Plate
1. Plate the yellowtail with the jicama, slices of chilli and coriander cress
2. Finally, add the citrus dressing

INGREDIENTS
66 grams of Yellowtail
1 litre of water
1 kg of sugar
1 litre of rice wine vinegar
20 milliliters of fresh orange juice
200 milliliters of passion fruit juice
25 milliliters of ginger juice
5 slices of jicama
3 slices of serrano chilli
3 slices of thai chilli
1 small bunch of coriander cress

By MNKY HSE Executive Head Chef Pablo Peñalosa Najera

Tonkatsu crumbed pork, radish salad

Serves 2

Photo courtesy of Sosharu

METHOD
First, make the Tonkatsu sauce by stirring together all the ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside to allow the flavours to develop.
Lay the pork loin fillets on a chopping board, fat side up. Tap the fillet with the back edge of a knife to create some soft notches in the meat, before pounding them on both sides with the flat side of the knife to flatten them. Slice 1cm notches into the fat of each fillet, and season on both sides with salt and pepper. Fill a pan with the vegetable oil, and begin to heat to 180C – if you don’t have a thermometer, test the heat by sprinkling a few panko crumbs in – they should bubble and rise to the top. Whilst the oil is heating up, you can begin the bread-crumbing process. Line up 4 plates on your kitchen counter. Put the flour on the first plate, the beaten egg on the second, the panko breadcrumbs on the third, and layer some paper towels on the fourth plate. Take a pork loin and dredge it in flour on both sides, shaking off the excess. Next, dip it in the egg, coating on both sides. Finally, lay the fillet on the panko breadcrumbs, piling the breadcrumbs on top of the pork with your fingers and gently pressing it into the meat. Repeat for the second pork loin. Once the oil is at temperature, carefully slide the pork loin fillets into the pan. Cook for about 4 minutes until golden, before removing from the pan with a slotted spoon and leaving on the paper-lined plate to drain.
Slice the radishes as thinly possible, preferably with a mandolin. To create the salad dressing, mix all the ingredients together, using a hand blender to emulsify, and season with salt and pepper. Dress the radishes in the dressing. To serve, slice the Tonkatsu into 1 inch strips, and place on the plate along with a heap of the radish salad and an extra dab of Dijon mustard, if you like. Top with around 2 tbsp of the Tonkatsu sauce (or serve on the side in a small bowl).

INGREDIENTS
For the Tonkatsu:
2 pork loin steaks (about 150g each)
2 eggs, beaten
50g flour
100g panko breadcrumbs
1l vegetable oil, for frying
Salt to season
For the Tonkatsu sauce:
1/3 cup ketchup
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
¼ tsp garlic powder
For the radish salad:
50g round radishes
50g kohlrabi
50g breakfast radishes
For the salad dressing:
25ml white wine vinegar
150ml olive oil
Salt & pepper, to taste

PEAS & TICKLEMORE

Serves 4

Photo courtesy of Lyle’s

METHOD
Using a pestle and mortar, combine half the chervil with salt and grind until bright green and broken down. Combine the olive oil, apple juice and cider vinegar to make the salad dressing. Chop the mint leaves roughly. Mix with the peas and add dressing, a pinch of pepper and the chervil salt to taste. Plate the peas and spread into a thin layer. Cover the peas with thinly sliced Ticklemore. Mix the pea shoots in the same bowl, using the shoots as a tool to mop up whatever is left in the bowl so they’re lightly dressed. Put the pea shoots on top of the cheese. Finish with the flowers and picked chervil leaves.

INGREDIENTS
200g podded peas
60g pea shoots
60g Ticklemore cheese
40 wild pea flowers or 16 nasturtium flowers
8 sprigs chervil
12 mint leaves
120g olive oil
40g apple juice
40g cider vinegar
Salt and pepper

Chicken thighs in green olive & tomato sauce

Serves 4

Photo courtesy of The Palomar. Imagery credit: Helen Cathcart.

This dish was born while we were in Jerusalem shooting the photos for this book, when my parents invited the whole gang for a Friday night meal. Needless to say my mama was ecstatic. “What should I make? Will it be enough? I’ll make three more salads! We need to make something extra special!” she exclaimed. As we chatted about what to make, I remembered a dish she used to prepare a lot when I was young: a simple side of tomatoes and green olives that I really, really liked. We decided to serve it for the gang as a braised lamb shoulder stew. The meal was very special, with lots of arak, lots of laughs and tons of excellent food. The recipe here is with chicken, but you can replace it with any meat, or you can serve it the original way as a vegetarian side dish. I really like it with some couscous, plain rice or freekeh.

METHOD
1. Start by rubbing the chicken with 1 tablespoon each of the Baharat and Ras el Hanout Spice Mixes and some salt, then set aside while you start the sauce. (You can do this the day before, then cover and leave the chicken thighs or legs in the fridge overnight — they’ll be even tastier.)
2. Heat a wide, shallow pan over a medium heat, add the oils and then the onions and sauté with a pinch of salt and the chilli flakes for about 10–15 minutes until the onions are nicely caramelized.
3. While the onions are frying, bring a medium-sized saucepan of water to the boil, add 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice and blanch the olives for 2 minutes. Drain and then repeat this process twice more. Drain for the final time and set them aside.
4. When the onions have caramelized, add the garlic and sauté for 2–3 more minutes. Meanwhile, heat up a large nonstick pan over a medium heat, add the thighs or legs, skin-side down, and let them crisp up as they slowly render their fat.
5. Add half the stock (or water) to the onions and garlic. Meanwhile, when the thighs are nice and crisp on the skin side, fl ip them and sear on the other side as well. Season with a touch of salt and pepper, remove from the pan and leave to rest.
6. Add the remaining stock to the pan and deglaze it with a wooden spoon, combining the residue from the pan with the onions, garlic and stock. This will add amazing flavour to your sauce. If you’ve gone for the vegetarian version, just add all the vegetable stock to the onions in step 5 and skip from there to step 7.
7. When the stock has reduced by half (i.e. when you’re left with about 500ml/18fl oz), add the tomatoes, blanched olives, sugar and the rest of the spice mixes. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Add the chicken and simmer for a further 20 minutes over a low heat. I like to turn the heat off and leave the dish to rest for at least 30–45 minutes before I serve, which binds all the flavours amazingly. Garnish with the chopped herbs and serve.

INGREDIENTS
8 chicken thighs or 4 whole legs (thighs and drumsticks)
2 tbsp Baharat Spice Mix
2 tbsp Ras el Hanout Spice Mix
Salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 onions, thinly diced
1 tsp chilli flakes
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
250g (9oz) plain pitted green olives (my favourites are Manzanilla)
8 garlic cloves, sliced
1 litre (1¾ pints) chicken or vegetable stock (see p.123 for homemade), or water if you can’t get any (but do make the effort here to make some stock, it really lifts this dish up)
Pepper, to taste
2 x 400g (14oz) cans very good-quality chopped tomatoes (get the Italian stuff — they know their tomatoes)
1 tsp sugar
Handful of chopped parsley
Handful of chopped coriander

Book credit: The Palomar Cookbook by The Palomar is published by Mitchell Beazley, £25 www.octopusbooks.co.uk