‘This cookbook is a celebration of the fun Jock would have in the kitchen’

In this extract, the late MasterChef star’s final recipes are revealed.

Comfort food: Jock Zonfrillo’s limoncello chicken bake

After we lost Jock in 2023, I wanted to work on projects that had meaning and left a genuine legacy of the extraordinary person who was the centre of our world. Something his children could hold and be proud of. This cookbook, filled with his favourite recipes, was at the top of my list. To decide which recipes to include, I first went to our memories as a family – meals we’d ask for on our birthdays, the ones he made with the kids, and what he loved to make for friends. Those are the recipes we’ve chosen to share with you here.

Food brought Jock so much joy; it gave him focus as a young man, and it gave him purpose throughout his life. This cookbook is a celebration of the fun Jock would have in the kitchen. It was also fun to bring this book to life, and I hope you feel the same as you start cooking from it.

— Lauren Zonfrillo. Recipes by Jock Zonfrillo.

See too Jock’s swordish polpette and spaghetti recipe here.

Jock Zonfrillo.

This is an edited extract from Recipes to Remember by Jock Zonfrillo (Simon & Schuster Australia, $55). Photography by Rob Palmer. Risotto photo by Lauren Zonfrillo.

Linoncello chicken traybake

Chicken bake is the perfect one-pan dish.

Recipes to Remembe.

Ingredients

• 1.8kg chicken
• ¼ cup limoncello
• 2 red onions
• 1 each red, yellow and green capsicums
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 dried chilli, chopped
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon colotura (Italian fish sauce – can be substituted with Asian fish sauce)
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1kg small chat potatoes
• 3 lemons, halved
• 3 sprigs basil
• 400g cherry tomatoes, on the vine

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 200C. First, sort out the chicken. Pat it dry with kitchen paper and remove the wishbone if you’re working with a whole bird – it makes portioning easier. Chop it into 8 pieces, or use marylands or drumsticks. Whatever works. Just make sure everything’s roughly the same size so it cooks evenly.
2. Pop the chicken into a bowl with a couple of generous pinches of salt and the limoncello. Get your hands in there and give it a good mix. If you’ve got the time, let it sit for an hour – it will brine slightly and stay juicy. If not, 10 minutes will still do the job.
3. While the chicken’s soaking up the good stuff, chop your onions into wedges and your capsicums into large, even chunks. In a separate bowl, whisk together the garlic, dried chilli, honey, mustard, olive oil, colatura and red wine vinegar. This is your traybake magic. Grab a large roasting tin. Scatter the potatoes over the base, followed by the onion, capsicum and lemon halves. Nestle in the chicken pieces on top. Tuck the basil sprigs around the tray and drizzle everything with your honey-mustard dressing.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, then add the cherry tomatoes (leave them on the vine) and bake for another 20 minutes until the chicken is golden and cooked through. Serve it straight from the tray. It’s rustic and impossible not to love. Serves 4