Some of my earliest memories are of my mum, Ellerie, and my dad, Bryan, in the kitchen cooking together. Dad was an airline pilot and spent a lot of time away from the family, but whenever he was home, he'd be alongside mum cooking and talking about food.

In my family, there was always excitement about food, and so it was something that interested me from a very young age. Having my friends over could be a bit of a nightmare, because it was totally normal for us to be eating things like calves' liver or chicken stuffed with oysters, which not many other kids would have encountered.

There's a photo of me cooking at a family barbecue at the age of eight dressed in a chef's apron and hat, and I think I always knew that I wanted to become a chef and have my own restaurant. On family holidays, I'd find my way into the hotel kitchen, and then I'd lie awake at night designing the kitchen I would one day have in my restaurant. At 12, I got a job helping to wash dishes in a local Italian restaurant. I don't think I even cared if they paid me. I was just so excited to be there.

This is my dad's recipe for Sage Chicken. The sneaky part to this recipe is putting the sage under the skin of the chicken so it doesn't burn while the chicken cooks, whether in the oven or on a barbecue or grill.

SAGE CHICKEN

4 chicken legs

20 sage leaves

1 clove garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

Flaky salt to taste

1 Tbsp butter

1. Preheat the oven to 185 C. 2. Using your fingers, gently separate the skin from each leg and place four leaves of sage under the skin on the top side of each leg and one leaf under the skin on the underside of each. Likewise, distribute the slices of garlic evenly under the skin of the legs. Season with salt and cracked black pepper, both under and over the skin. Ad Feedback 3. Heat an ovenproof frying pan or grill pan and melt the butter until it bubbles. Place the legs skin-side down in the pan, then place in the oven on the bottom shelf and cook for 25 minutes, turning once, until golden and cooked through, then serve.

Recipe reproduced with permission from Simon Gault Homemade (Penguin, $60).

- © Fairfax NZ News

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