When cook and food advocate Scott Gooding and his wife, former actor, writer and director Matilda Brown, opened The Good Farm Shop in Sydney’s Brookvale in 2021, they wanted to make good food convenient. And by “good” they mean food made from natural ingredients produced sustainably with kindness towards the planet, animals and humans. The Good Farm Shop sells ready-made meals without preservatives that are abundant in organic ingredients – think chicken and leek pie, beef cheek rendang, and cauliflower cheese. Convenience is key, which also means the store sells curry pastes and sauces to make home cooking easy.
The couple’s newly released The Good Farm Cookbook hews to the same ethos: it’s a thoughtful compendium of 80 recipes that are nutritious, planet-friendly and straightforward. Just like this peri peri chicken, which is on the table in mere minutes.
“This recipe gets rolled out a lot in our house,” Gooding writes. “The little kids haven’t taken to it just yet, but they will in time … and while we wait, there’s more for Til, Tashi [Gooding’s son and Brown’s stepson] and me. We also sell this as a ready-to-use marinade at The Good Farm Shop – it’s just so versatile.”
The Good Farm Shop’s peri peri chicken
Serves 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes, plus 4 minutes resting
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
⅓ cup (80 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
6 garlic cloves, minced
2–3cm piece ginger, peeled and grated
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp dried oregano
Juice of 1 lemon, plus extra for drizzling
800g boneless, skin-on chicken thighs charred
Lemon halves, broccolini and radicchio wedges, to serve
Method
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients except the chicken, lemon halves, broccolini and radicchio. Mix thoroughly. Add the chicken thighs and mix to ensure they are well coated with the sauce. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Heat a large ovenproof frying pan over medium heat and add the chicken. Cook the fillets for 3–4 minutes, or until the chicken is caramelised, before turning over and cooking for another 3–4 minutes on the other side. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 5–7 minutes until cooked through. Transfer the chicken to a chopping board. Allow to rest for 3–4 minutes before roughly chopping. Drizzle with some lemon juice, season and serve with charred lemon halves, broccolini and radicchio wedges.
Images and text from The Good Farm Cookbook by Scott Gooding and Matilda Brown, photography by Cath Muscat. Murdoch Books RRP $39.99.
