I love crisp fried chicken, but not the mess that goes into making it. Cookbook author Nagi Maehashi feels the same way. When I saw her recipe for Crazy Crispy No-Oil Chicken, I thought it sounded promising, but I didn’t expect it to wow me the way it did. It seemed too simple for that: skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs, salt and pepper cooked in a nonstick skillet. That’s it.
It’s the technique that turns a simple piece of poultry into a dish I now crave. You place the chicken skin side down in the skillet, cover it and cook it, undisturbed, for 10 minutes. Then you uncover the pan and cook it for 20 more minutes until the skin is crackling crisp and golden. You flip the chicken over to give the other side a sear. And you’re done.
Get the recipe: Crazy Crispy No-Oil Chicken
“It’s something I learned through Japanese cooking,” Maehashi said of the technique, which allows the chicken to cook in its own fat. She finds it not only tastier, but thrifty, too, because no oils are required.
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In her debut cookbook, “RecipeTin Eats Dinner,” which grew from her popular RecipeTin Eats site, she explains her goal this way: “I want to show you how to make vibrant recipes made with everyday ingredients, spanning cuisines from around the world as well as classic comforts. Delicious recipes with the ‘wow’ factor that are simple to make, cost effective and can often be prepared ahead.”
Her golden retriever, Dozer, who is featured on the cookbook cover, has been at her side since she launched her website in 2014. She now has more than 4.6 million followers. In 2021, she started RecipeTin Meals, which makes more than 100,000 fresh meals a year for the poor, in Sydney. The meals are delivered through an organization called One Meal.
“I always hoped I could do some kind of charity, just involved with a not-for-profit, but I never expected to be in a position to do what I am able to do. My work supports my food bank, and I hope to do that forever.”
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She takes pride in those meals being nutritious and freshly made, and wants people to realize it can be easy to cook that way at home, making your own sauces, for example, rather than buying ones filled with salt, sugar and preservatives.
Maehashi, 45, was born in Japan and moved to Australia when she was 3. She grew up eating delicious food at home, but she doesn’t have heartwarming stories of standing at her mother’s elbow in the kitchen. “I didn’t help in the kitchen,” she said. “I didn’t even do the dishes.”
At 18, however, she left her mother’s house for a job and reality set in.
“It was a shock to the system that there wasn’t a delicious hot meal on the table every night,” said Maehashi, who worked in corporate finance. “I taught myself how to cook, found I enjoyed it and started throwing dinner parties. Even if I had a really long day at work, I’d get home at 9 o’clock and make dinner.”
Share this articleShareNow that it’s her full-time job, she still loves it just as much. “I can cook and shoot all day. Give all the food I cooked at work away and come home and start cooking. That’s my downtime.”
That doesn’t mean she is spending a lot on food, nor does it mean making multiple trips to the grocery store and stocking up on expensive pantry items. She recommends building a pantry with a dozen or so staple spices and condiments as well as mastering a few basic sauces.
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Cooking from scratch doesn’t mean starting from scratch each time. She cites the classic Chinese brown sauce as an example: “With a dash of this or that, it can become an orange sauce or a ginger-garlic sauce. … The end result looks so different and tastes so different.” The same is true of Italian comfort foods. She takes a basic marinara, and with a little tweak — fresh basil, parmesan or something to add a little heat — it takes on a fresh flavor.
In her cookbook, which features recipes from around the world, she cross-references ingredients, so that when home cooks end up with a leftover food, they have a recipe that allows them to use it up.
Each recipe includes a QR code that takes you to one of the 132 videos she shot — over six weeks — specifically for the cookbook. A quick video can show in a few seconds what it takes 100 words to explain, she said. She also prides herself on writing recipes that anticipate the home cook’s next question, a skill the comment section on her popular website helped her develop.
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“I have a big hang-up about recipes working,” she said. “The whole process of explaining it to people and making sure it works for them as well — I get a real satisfaction out of it.”
Then why a bound, paper cookbook when the online interaction of video and comments is so useful?
“I really struggled with the idea of whether I should put all of the effort into making the cookbook,” she said, adding that in the end, it was a somewhat sentimental decision.
“I liked the idea of having a physical thing that could be there in the kitchen and gifted,” she said, noting that thinking of the cookbook opened on the counter made her feel as though she could be in the kitchen with her readers.
While she may not have learned cooking techniques from her mother, she remains inspired by her.
“Even though my mother worked full time, we dined like royalty because she was so creative in the kitchen. And this is why I know it’s possible to make great, fresh food even if you’re short on time and on a budget.”
Get the recipe: Crazy Crispy No-Oil Chicken
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