Head chef at the Onley Arms in Stisted Mark Reynolds shares his recipe for Malaysian chicken salad
Head chef Mark Reynolds joined the Onley Arms two months after it first opened. ‘I’ve been here just under a year,’ explains Mark. His name is synonymous with several well-known Essex eateries including The Fox & Goose, The Blue Strawberry in the min-1990s and also The Waterfront in Chelmsford. Mark explains how he aims to give people want they want to eat and some of the most popular dishes on the menu are the homemade fish cakes and burgers. ‘It’s not how I started my career, but it’s important to give diners want they want,’ says Mark. ‘However, to offer a good food selection we also do a mid-week special offering three starters, mains and desserts and it changes every few weeks. So you might see on there liver and bacon, plus fresh fish from the local coast.’ The restaurant can cater for 180 on a busy day, but in the past Mark has been used to cooking for 500 to 1,000 people in any one sitting. ‘This place is still busy, but a tired chef is not a good chef, so this place works well for me now.
Here Mark shares his recipe for one of the Onley Arms’ most popular starters…
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 chicken fillet
20ml of mayonnaise
½ lime zest and juice
40ml of madras paste (Pataks)
5ml of toasted sesame oil
5g of plain flour
10g of coriander
2 poppadums
200g of Julienne (thin strips) of red pepper, red onion, mange tout, carrot and spring onion
Method
Cut the chicken fillet into thin strips then marinate in half of the madras paste and leave in the fridge for at least an hour. Mix the mayonnaise with the remaining madras paste, sesame oil, lime juice, lime zest and coriander. Take the chicken out of the fridge and toss the strips in the flour, then pan fry in sesame oil for a few minutes until crisp and fully cooked. To serve, mix the Julienne vegetables together with the cooked chicken and flavoured mayonnaise then plate up in a funky bowl and top with crisp, fried poppadums. This dish can be served as a starter, main or a sharing platter.
Chef’s tip:
When we serve this in our restaurant we recommend complementing it with a glass of either our Riesling dom Viticol or perhaps our Picpoul de Pinet Aurelie, as both wines are fresh, crisp and zesty.
Get the taste
The Onley, The Street, Stisted, CM77 8AW
01376 325325. www.theonley.com
