JACK'S POINT POUSSIN

 Jack’s Restaurant is on Lake Tewa’s edge, below the craggy peaks of The Remarkables mountain range at Jack’s Point, Queenstown.

Chef Mathieu Lagarde and the team at the newly reopened restaurant specialise in working with seasonal, local produce.

Cooking over charcoal forms the core of a menu, packed with exciting dishes that can be shared or enjoyed alone.  

1 POUSSIN SERVES 2 

Make a brine by placing 50g of table salt with 250ml of water in a pot, then boil. Cool down until below 5°C. Butterfly the poussin and place in cold 20 per cent brine for eight minutes. Rinse and dry. 

Blitz any marinade ingredients which aren’t already ground and combine. Marinade the poussin for 24 hours with the peri-peri marinade. 

To make the peri-peri sauce, season the capsicum and red onions with salt and drizzle on olive oil. Grill both capsicum and red onions on a barbecue until they start to char. Then place in a tray with the raw garlic, season with olive oil and salt, and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes. 

Blitz in a blender, add red wine vinegar, lemon zest, chilli, paprika, oregano, salt and pepper. Blitz again until smooth. Transfer mixture to a saucepan, add the bay leaves and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Take the bay leaves out and put the sauce back in the blender, emulsify with the olive oil, season with lemon juice, and add more salt if needed. 

On a barbecue, grill the poussin at around 250°C for approximately 15 minutes, continually flipping it to get a grilled caramelisation but not burned. Brush it with the marinade during the cooking process. (Oven is also suitable for cooking the poussin.) 

Let the poussin rest for six minutes, then cut in half and then brush one last time with the marinade and season with flaked salt. 

Place the peri-peri sauce next to the cooked poussin. 

Poussin

1 poussin – young chicken 

100g peri-peri marinade (see below) 

50g peri-peri sauce (see below) 

Peri-peri marinade 

15g smoked paprika 

15g onion powder 

15 g garlic powder 

5g dried parsley 

15g ground coriander 

5g ginger powder 

5g ground cardamom 

1g cayenne pepper 

15g salt flakes 

100ml olive oil 

Peri-peri sauce 

2 red capsicum 

1 red onion 

4 garlic cloves 

60ml lemon juice 

30ml red wine vinegar 

5g lemon zest 

5g red chilli 

2.5g smoked paprika 

5g dried oregano 

1 bay leaf 

5g salt flakes 

2.5g ground black pepper 

 150ml olive oil