Currabinny cooks: Three quick and easy takeaway recipes for New Year's Day 

Try naan bread pizza, katsu curry and char siu pork with rice

You'll never dial in again once you've tried our katsu curry.

New Year's Day and probably most of the days that follow, are usually a time spent nursing sore heads, setting ambitious intentions whilst spending as much time as possible on the couch and eating food that you preferably haven’t had to cook yourself. Takeaway food is never more appropriate than in the first few days of a new year. 

January is a long old slog. It is cold, grey and full of boring resolutions about exercising more and celebrating less. Why do we do it to ourselves? It is in January more than any other month that we need the comfort and security of our bad habits. One of our ‘bad habits’ is getting a takeaway.

The first cultures or civilizations that have seen an early concept of the takeaway restaurants are the Greeks and the Romans. Here, one could find stalls on the roadside or in a market that would sell food meant to be eaten somewhere else. You couldn’t just sit before the stand to enjoy your meal.

The first recorded instance of food delivery comes from Italy in 1889, when King Umberto and Queen Margherita succumbed to laziness and called upon Raffaele Esposito to deliver a pizza to them at their palace in Naples.

During WWII, a more modern style of delivery evolved in the UK where a system was set up for food to be delivered to families that had lost their homes. The government in the UK provided hot meals to families all around the nation as a way to keep up the country’s morale.

After the war ended, this idea was adopted by the private sector in the United States, and the modern take-out delivery service was established.

After years of being stuck in a food delivery black spot in early January while we are down in Currabinny, I started to reluctantly make my favourite takeaway dishes at home. I see this as a sort of compromise between indulging in bad habits without actually indulging in bad habits. None of these recipes are challenging, require too much effort or ingredients and are generally quick to make.

Naan bread pizza

recipe by:Currabinny Cooks

This idea, like a lot of sinfully indulgent ideas came from Nigella Lawson. This one takes just 10 minutes

Servings

2

Preparation Time

 5 mins

Cooking Time

 5 mins

Total Time

 10 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 2 shop-bought plain naan breads

• 6 tbsp good quality passata

• 2 cloves garlic, crushed

• 1 red chilli, very finely diced

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 200g fresh buffalo mozzarella, sliced

• 60g Parmesan, grated

• Fresh basil leaves

• Sea salt and black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

2. Lay the naan breads on a lined baking sheet. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the passata, crushed garlic, chilli and season with sea salt and a good few crack of black pepper. Spread this sauce over the base of the naan breads.

3. Sprinkle over the dried oregano and then lay the slices of mozzarella on top. Finally sprinkle over the grated Parmesan.

Char siu pork with rice

recipe by:Currabinny Cooks

This simple dish boiled rice and the most delicious, sweet, sticky, caramelised char siu pork is my idea of heaven

Servings

4

Cooking Time

 25 mins

Total Time

 25 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 350g pork fillet

• 1 pak choi, halved lengthways

• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 2 tbsp grated ginger

• 50ml light soy sauce

• 50ml rice wine

• 3 tbsp muscovado sugar

• 2 tbsp hoi sin sauce

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil

• 40ml honey

• To serve:

• Boiled rice

Method

1. Combine the marinade ingredients in a large bowl. Cut and stab the pork fillet all over so that it is well and truly puck marked. Place in the marinade bowl, coating it all over and cover in the fridge for no less than 5 hours. Ideally you would leave it in there overnight.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°C.

3. Remove the fillet from the marinade (reserve the marinade) and place on a rack over a roasting tin in the preheated oven. Pour hot water into the roasting tin so that it is filled halfway. Roast for 20 minutes, turn the pork over and brush some more of the marinade all over it. Reduce the oven temperature to 180C and roast for a further 20 minutes. Turn the oven off, cover the pork in tinfoil and leave in the oven.

4. Steam the pak choi using a bamboo steamer over a wok filled with water on a medium high hob or use whatever steamer you have. The pak choi should only take around 3-4 minutes to steam.

5. Remove the pork from the oven and slice with a sharp knife.

6. Boil the reserve marinade in a small saucepan and leave aside. Divide some cooked rice between two serving bowls. Place the pak choi on top along with a few slices of pork, a few spoons of the marinade sauce and a sprinkling of sliced spring onion.

Chicken katsu curry

recipe by:Currabinny Cooks

Chicken katsu curry is an incredibly simple dish of panko-breaded fried chicken, sticky Japanese rice and curry sauce.

Servings

2

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 20 mins

Total Time

 35 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, finely sliced

• 2 fat cloves of garlic, crushed

• 1 tbsp medium curry powder

• 300ml of good chicken (or turkey) stock

• 1 teaspoon of honey

• 50g plus 1 tablespoon of plain flour

• 1 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp mirin

• 2 organic chicken breasts, skinless and boneless

• 1 organic egg, beaten

• 100g panko breadcrumbs

• 300g sticky Japanese rice/sushi rice cooked to serve

• Sea salt

• Vegetable oil

Method

1. Fry the onion in a little oil on a large frying pan over medium high heat until soft. Add the garlic and fry for a further 5 minutes. Stir in the curry powder, tablespoon of flour and chicken stock. Season with a good pinch of sea salt and stir regularly for around 15 minutes until the sauce starts to thicken.

2. Stir in the honey, soy sauce and mirin and cook for a further 5 minutes before taking off the heat. Keep the sauce warm while you prepare the chicken.

3. Pound the breasts with a rolling pin until flattened and then season lightly. Put the 50g flour, panko breadcrumbs and beaten egg in three separate shallow bowls. Dip the chicken in the flour, egg and then breadcrumbs so that they are well coated. Heat half a finger of vegetable oil in a wok until very hot and sizzling. Dip the breasts into the hot oil, frying for around 3 minutes on each side so that they are golden and crispy. Remove to a chopping board and slice on a diagonal.

4. Place a good fist size ball of sticky rice on each serving plate and place the sliced breasts on top. Pour over the curry sauce generously and enjoy.