Most chefs spend their time perfecting new recipes. Toby Wilson has built an online following by doing the exact opposite.
The Sydney chef and founder of Ricos Tacos has gone viral for recreating some of Australia’s strangest retro dishes, digging through vintage cookbooks to test everything from baked bean cheesecake and Vegemite spaghetti to ham and pineapple dip and salmon mousse.
Toby joined Weekend Sunrise to share one retro recipe that’s actually worth bringing back: a hearty chicken cobbler topped with cheesy mustard scones.
—
Ingredients
Chicken filling
- 6 chicken thigh fillets, cut into large pieces
- 2 onions, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced
- 150g shiitake mushrooms, sliced
- 1/2 bunch cavolo nero, kale or spinach, stalks removed and chopped coarsely
- 6 sprigs of thyme
- 100g flour
- 400ml chicken stock
- 150g creme fraiche
- 1 tsp salt
- 30g butter
- 30ml olive oil
Scone topping
- 300g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 100g mature cheddar, grated
- 150g full cream milk (plus a little extra for brushing onto scones)
- 50g butter
- 40g dijon mustard
Method
- Preheat oven to 190°C fan forced.
- Add butter and olive oil for the chicken filling into a wide saucepan and heat over a medium heat before adding onions and garlic, stirring regularly and cooking through until translucent.
- Dust the chicken pieces with flour and add in with the onions, turning up the heat to medium high. Stir every now and then to prevent the chicken from sticking, aiming for a nice golden brown colour. Toss in the cavolo nero and mushrooms and stir for around 2 minutes to combine all ingredients. Pour in the chicken stock and reduce temperature to low and gently simmer away for around 25 minutes. Season with salt and add creme fraiche at the end, stir and simmer away for another couple of minutes until nicely combined and creamy. Adjust liquid at this stage; we want it slightly runny, if it is too dry then there will be no sauce left for the scones to soak up.
- To make the scones, rub the butter and cheese into the flour in a large mixing bowl until it resembles coarse, wet sand. Add salt, pepper, milk and mustard and bring it all together without overworking the dough, under a minute of mixing is ideal. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and pat it down and shape it into a roughly 1.5cm thick rectangle or oval.
- Cut out scone shapes (use your imagination here, there are no wrong shapes. Circles look nice and neat and big wedge-shaped triangles look great too).
- Pour chicken mix into an ovenproof dish and top with scone shapes, brush scones with remaining milk and cook in oven for 25 minutes.
