Inside Nat's What I Reckon's cookbook Death to Jar Sauce: Rad Recipes for Champions

Pizza party

Ingredients

Dough

• 300g Tipo '00' flour or strong plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 3/4 cup (180ml) warm water
• big pinch of sea salt flakes
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 7 g sachet dried yeast
• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 50g semolina flour or polenta, to dust bench

Pizza sauce

• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• small handful fresh basil leaves
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 400g can good quality peeled tomatoes (San Marzano if possible)
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• pinch of salt

Topping

• 150g mozzarella (the hard stuff, or even grated)
• 2 balls buffalo mozzarella, torn
• 150g prosciutto
• fresh basil leaves
• handful of baby rocket
• shave of parmesan cheese if you like
• chilli flakes, optional

Method

1. For the sauce, heat olive oil in a saucepan over a low-medium heat and sauté the garlic for a minute or two, then add basil, tomato paste, the tin of tomato shit plus the sugar and a good pinch of salt and simmer for 10 minutes until thickened. Blend it, stick-blender style (it may be easier to blend it in a jug as there isn't a lot of sauce), and set aside to cool completely, then put it in the fridge.
2. Have that 180ml jug of lukewarm water ready to party. Dry the kitchen bench and dust with flour. Make the dough by sifting your flour into a large bowl. Make a hole in the centre if you like, and away we go with the water, salt, sugar, yeast and olive oil, combining with your hands. Once that's roughly a ball of annoying shit, dump it on the floured bench and knead it for at least five minutes.
   
3. Place the dough in a lightly-oiled bowl, cover in plastic wrap and store somewhere warm for at least an hour until doubled in size. After the amount of time your patience will allow, lightly punch the dough in the centre to release the air - you're not trying to fight the dough, so take it easy, tough guy. Now, separate the dough into two bits.
   
4. Crank your oven as hot as it goes and bang a tray or pizza stone inside.
   
5. Dust your bench with semolina flour or polenta and plonk the first ball on it. So, the idea is that you wanna try work the ball of dough from the inside outwards to make a base. Gently massage it by splaying your fingers outwards, slowly pushing from the centre towards the edge and shifting the base about until you flatten it out into a shape that looks like a pizza-able surface.
   
6. On goes a tablespoon of cold sauce from earlier. Take it easy on the - a wet sloppy mess is not what we are chasing - so a tablespoon or two of sauce should be enough to spread evenly over the base with the back of a spoon.
   
7. I like to use fresh buffalo mozzarella but it can get a bit watery if you go too hard with it, so play around with it a bit if your first pizza comes out a touch cheese wet. If you wanna play it safe then only put it on the pizza after the base has been in the oven for a few minutes already, or alternatively use a harder mozzarella.
   
8. Now, depending how you like your pizza, you can add the meat now or once it comes out the oven to let the heat from the pizza cook it through. Let's say you'll wait, so pull out the hot stone or tray from the oven and carefully drag your baking paper masterpiece onto the hot one, then bang it straight back into the oven for 10 minutes.
   
9. Pull it out, add your prosciutto, basil and rocket and shave with fresh parmesan. You can even sprinkle over chilli flakes if your feeling tough. Repeat with your second pizza base. Way to go, what a journey. The Ninja Turtles would be proud.

The (chicken) wings of love

Ingredients

Wings

• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp ground white pepper
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 1/2 tbsps sweet smoked paprika
• 2 tsps cayenne
• 2 tsps dried thyme or dried oregano
• 1 tbsp salt flakes
• 600ml buttermilk
• 1.2kg chicken wings
• 2 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/2 cup cornflour
• enough vegetable oil to half fill a deep saucepan (1L or possibly more), to deep fry

Chipotle mayo

• 300ml vegetable oil
• 2 tsps Dijon
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 tbsp finely chopped chipotle in adobo (from a tin), or 2 tsps chipotle powder
• 1 lime, zested and juiced, plus extra lime wedges to serve
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• salt, to taste
  

Method

1. Chipotle mayo, let's rage. To save you a bit of time, let's go for this stick blender technique. Bang everything except the egg and salt into a narrow jug or container that's just wider than the head of the blender.
2. Gently crack in the egg over the oil and other ingredients before placing your not yet blending blender in over the mixture, gently pressing it down right to the bottom. On a medium-high setting kick the blender off and slowly pull it from the bottom to the top until voila, mayo. Season with salt, to taste. Refrigerate.
3. Combine the spices together in a small bowl with the salt. Now remove 2 tablespoons of the spice mix you just made and put them into a big bowl with the buttermilk. Stir together to combine.
4. Using a sharp knife cut small incisions in the wings. This will help you look tough and also help the wings cook a little quicker. Add the chicken wings to the buttermilk mix and give them a good toss about in it. Cover and bang in the fridge for at least an hour but preferably overnight.
5. When it's time for you to cook the wings, you'll need to remove them from the fridge for about 45 minutes (or thereabouts) beforehand to come to room temperature.
6. Combine the two types of flour in their own large bowl with the rest of that spice mix you set aside. Now, coat the wings real well in the flour and spice mix, shake off the excess and set onto a plate or tray ready to cook.
7. Get yourself a large saucepan or your deepest pan and half-fill with oil. We wanna bring this to the pretty specific temperature of between 150 and160C.
8. Now, carefully either with tongs or a metal slotted spoon (and not with plastic cutlery), carefully lower some wings into the oil and cook in batches of 8 minutes each, remove and set aside on a wire rack above a tray and lightly sprinkle a pinch of salt over the wings. I use my oven shelving rack over a deep roasting tray because, to be honest, I don't own a tray with a wire rack that fits. Do not use paper towel!
9. If you're worried and you wanna check that the wings are a safe eating temperature, insert the thermometer into the thickest part and if it reads 75C or more, you should be sweet.
10. Serve the wings with the mayo and smash into your hungry face. Give the occasional one a squeeze of lime over at some point ... it goes pretty well with 'em.

Ceviche on the beach, eh?

Ingredients

• 500g raw kingfish, snapper or barramundi fillets, skin-off and pinboned
• juice of 3 limes
• zest of 1 lime
• 1-2 jalapenos, finely chopped (or 2 long regular chillies)
• pinch of sugar
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed/minced
• salt and pepper
• 1 tsp Tabasco, plus extra to taste
• 2 tbsps good-quality extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 baby Lebanese cucumbers, thinly sliced
• 250g small cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 bunch coriander, stalks and leaves, washed and chopped
• 4 spring onions or 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 large avocado, cut into 2cm pieces
• corn chips and a good mate to share a cold one with
  

Method

1. Firstly, it would make sense to chat about the fish. There is a long list of fish you can use for this, but by far my favourite is fresh kingfish if you can get your hands on it. Frozen fish is going to probably be considerably less rad, so fresh should be your motto here. Make sure whatever fish you buy has been boned thoroughly. Cut your fish into slices, cubes or small shapes of other types of fish.
2. Grease up the deck chair and get ready to recline, 'cause here comes the real easy bit: in a bowl of its own, combine the lime juices (*Hot tip* roll the limes under the weight of your palm to loosen up the juice in the fruit before cutting and squeezing) and the zest with fresh jalapeno or chilli, along with a pinch of sugar, a minced clove of garlic, salt, a crack of pepper and a teaspoon of Tabasco sauce. Bung in your oh so creatively shaped fish designs and gently toss your artwork through all that shit. Now bang it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. This is where the magic happens, Dave-o. The acid from the limes 'cooks' the fish in its own special way.
3. Pour your olive oil into a bowl, add sliced cucumbers (again at your artistic discretion, Picasso), along with the tomatoes, coriander and spring onions or shallots.
   
4. Very gently toss the cubed avo through the whole lot a few times and that will do ya. At the 10-15 mark you want to introduce the fish to the salsa and diced avocado. THAT. IS. IT.
5. Serve with some non-committal corn chips and a cold beer.

Wake and don't bake orange and lemon cheesecake

Ingredients

• 1 orange (half for juice, one for zest)
• 2 lemons (two for juice, one for zest)
• 200g Scotch Finger or Digestive bickies
• 100g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 500g cream cheese, at room temperature (block form, not spreadable)
• 140g caster sugar
• 1 cup thickened cream
• 1 tsp ground Dutch cinnamon, or just normal cinnamon

Gear

• 20cm-ish round springform cake tin

Method

1. Doesn't hurt to get your zest sorted before anything else here. Zest the orange and one of the lemons into a bowl, and keep just a pinch of them to one side in its own spesh bowl.
2. There are a few ways we can start this party. We need to bust up the bickies into a breadcrumb consistency somehow. A food processor pulsing them apart does a champagne job of it, as does bunging them in a clean tea towel and bashing them to breadcrumb-sized bits with a rolling pin. I use a food processor.
3. Grab most of the citrus zest and add it to the crushed bickies.
4. We need to melt that butter next in a small saucepan over a low heat, but don't heat the too much - just melt it, Michael. It needs to be cool enough to mix thoroughly into the biscuit mix as well.
5. Grease up the cake tin with butter and, cut a piece of baking paper to fit the base - it can help make serving it a little bit neater, but it's not a crucial move. Tip the buttery, zesty, biscuity mixture into the tin. Now press that biscuit orange butter flat across the base. It can help to use something that has a super flat top on it to help press it down. Give it a good press flat and whack it in the fridge for a moment.
6. Grab a bowl and an electric mixer if you have one (though a whisk is fine too), and work the cream cheese apart as you add the sugar and make it into a heavy paste. In a second bowl you're going to need to whip the cream. Beat/whisk until the cream is getting nice and thick, at which point the cinnamon goes in along with the cream cheese, orange and lemon juices. Give it a good mix together until it's really bloody thick yet smooth enough to be able to spread across the base.
7. Grab that cake tin out of the fridge and spoon in the mixture evenly across it with a spatula or a spoon. Sprinkle over the orange and lemon zest you set aside from earlier. Back in the fridge we go and now we wait. The truth is, overnight is the best, but 4 hours might be enough if you're in a pinch.

• Death to Jar Sauce: Rad Recipes for Champions, by Nat's What I Reckon. Penguin Random House Australia. $34.99