GUEST SPOT: BEN LIPPETT
garlic yoghurt roasted chicken legs with dressed cucumbers
Ciao amici,
I’m writing to you from bed on my last day in San Francisco, a mammoth pack ahead of me and an unwavering commitment to getting one last meal (highly recommended Bahn Mi if you must know) here in Berkeley before we leave for the airport in a few hours - she’s a girl with a dream.
I’ve been touring around the US for the last few weeks, spending time in New York, LA and now San Francisco, promoting my book In for Dinner (on the extremely low off chance you didn’t know - I wrote a cookbook!) It’s been a really incredible trip, packed full of book shop events, a supper club, many a meal out and a lot of really life affirming conversation. I’ve had the best time meeting readers in each city, sharing stories of cooking with flatmates and discussing food writing, the restaurant scene, hospitality in general and our collective love of good food. I’ll be sharing more of my time in the US on here soon, food recommendations will abound. It’s felt like a real privilege and an honour to be able to do this trip, so I’d like to say a big thank you to every single one of you for reading this newsletter, your support means more than you know, and I love writing to you each week.
Having said that - we actually have our first ever guest writer today on The Late Plate - what a thrill! And who better to kick things off than Substack legend himself Ben Lippett of How I Cook. I’ve long admired Ben’s work, his recipes straddle the balance between being easy to follow, whilst carrying some technical heft, teaching new techniques and skills along the way. If you enjoy Ben’s writing here, you should definitely check out his debut cookbook here, also called How I Cook, which comes out on September 1st. This week’s recipe is beyond delicious and I can already see myself cooking it as the first meal home from the states.
I’ll hand it over to Ben now and look forward to sharing something new and delicious with you next week.
Sending love,
Rosie x
Hello!
I am thrilled to be guesting this week on The Late Plate! I’ve been a reader of this newsletter and a fan of Rosie’s warehouse-forward cookery for a very long time. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Ben, and I write a newsletter of my own called How I Cook. I’ve cooked in restaurants all over the world, worked in-house at food magazines and online media publications and I’ve written hundreds of recipes. But that’s all work. The words, ideas and images that make up How I Cook aim to show you how a chef cooks in their home, and offer you a guide to really good home cooking. Every week, on a Friday, I put out a recipe to try on the weekend. I cover tips and tricks, technique, flavour, when to use olive oil and when to use butter, how to use every part of a roast chicken, how to fillet a fish and cook it beautifully, what music to listen to while you cook and maybe even what wine to drink. Now and then I’ll recommend a good book, too. Speaking of books, I’ve just written one! My debut cookbook, How I Cook: A Chef’s Guide To Really Good Home Cooking, is out on the 2nd. Preorder a copy for over 100 recipes that’ll leave you with the skills, knowledge and techniques to chop, fold and sauté your way through anything with confidence and competence.
So what am I bringing to this issue of The Late Plate? Well, for me nothing works harder for you in the kitchen than a humble chicken leg. A chicken leg might be the ultimate Wednesday night ingredient. Seasoned with salt and olive oil and slung into a hot oven, 45 minutes later you’ve got a chickeny, delicious, textural delight that is happy alongside a whole host of easy garnishes. Sure, you could just use oil and salt, but if like me you always have the dregs of a tub of yoghurt in the fridge, why not further transform those chicken legs into ultra-tender, charred, gnarly flavour bombs with the magic of an acid marinade. All you need is that tub of yoghurt and a few hours.
Yoghurt marinades tenderise and enhance the flavor of meat through a magical combination of natural acidity, increased enzymatic activity and moisture retention. Yoghurt? Acidic? Yes, actually - it is. The acid present in yoghurt (lactic) breaks down the meat’s proteins over time, resulting in a far more tender end texture after cooking. We’re doubling down in this recipe by adding citric acid too, in the form of lemon juice. The elevated fat content in a good quality yoghurt also contributes to moisture retention and flavor enhancement, fat equals flavour, after all. Toss the legs with the yoghurt marinade first thing in the morning, before you go to work, and by the time your keys hit the front door at 6pm, they’ll have completely changed and be ready for the oven.
If you look at your yoghurt as a blank canvas, flavour-wise, you can lean into heaps of different directions. I’ve gone heavy on the garlic and lemon here with just a few supporting actors to bring the dish to life. I love the hum of dried mint and sweet smoked paprika is welcome regularly in my kitchen. Turmeric brings great colour and a subtle bitter character, too. This is a very garlic-forward recipe, so tweak at will. Fancy trying something completely different? Go nuts. You can blend herbs into your yoghurt, add grated ginger, orange zest, lime juice, grated apples or pears - anything goes. I’d avoid adding very large whole spices, they can burn in the oven and be unpleasant to eat. Coarsely crush at a minimum.
Once the legs are marinated, it’s time to cook. There are plenty of ways to roast a chicken leg, but my go to is the “hot and fast" followed by the “low and slow”. The two temperatures achieve two ends. The first portion of the cook is there to build as much maillard reaction on the chicken and yoghurt as possible. Once we’re happy with the colour, we drop the heat significantly. The lower temperature and time will transform the tough bite of the ‘just cooked’ muscles in the chicken into something approaching a braised texture. The legs will be juicy and tender, with 360° caramelised flavour on the outside. After a short rest, they’re ready to go.
Serve these chicken legs over rice with simply dressed cucumbers, and you’ve made yourself a midweek meal for the ages.
