Week 9 - Roast Chicken

This is the recipe my staple roast chicken is based on and it really hasn't changed much from the first time I tried a roast for my friends up in the snowfields. It may seem like a lot but this meal was so simple to make and is a favourite of the Sunday roasts in our house.

I thought I would try a new way with beets, usually it's just beets with seasoning in foil so this balsamic sounded interesting. They turned out so sweet and were a nice change instead of heavy roast vegetables. Also something I learnt recently is you can eat beetroot leaves, they are so yummy just try using them like spinach.. with garlic and butter!

This gravy really is the best, the flavour you get from the roast vegetables, plus I added the chicken wings, is amazing. It can get a little runny so make sure you leave it on the hob for a good 10-15 minutes if you like your gravy with a little more colour and substance.

Chook ready to be cooked!

Coming out of the oven

Dinner!

Book: Ministry of Food for the Chicken & Gravy and Return of the Naked Chef for the Beets

Recipe: Perfect Roast Chicken with Balsamic Beetroots and Gravy

Ingredients: 

Serves 4-6

Chicken

1.6 kg higher-welfare chicken

2 medium onions

2 carrots

2 sticks celery

1 bulb garlic

olive oil

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon

1 small bunch fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or a mixture

Gravy

1 heaped dessertspoon of plain flour

1 wine glass of red or white wine, or a good splash of port or sherry

1 litre of stock

Beetroots

455g fresh raw beetroots, scrubbed


10 cloves of garlic, unpeeled and squashed


1 handful fresh marjoram or sweet oregano, leaves picked


salt, freshly ground black pepper


10 tbsp balsamic vinegar


6 tbsp olive oil

Method: 

Chicken

Take your chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes into the oven. Preheat your oven to 240°C/475°F/gas 9. There's no need to peel the vegetables just give them a wash and roughly chop them. Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled.

Pile all the veg and garlic into the middle of a large roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird. Carefully prick the lemon all over, using the tip of a sharp knife (if you have a microwave, you could pop the lemon in these for 40 seconds at this point as this will really bring out the flavour). Put the lemon inside the chicken's cavity, with the bunch of herbs.

Place the chicken on top of the vegetables in the roasting tray and put it into the preheated oven. Turn the heat down immediately to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes. If you're doing roast potatoes and veggies, this is the time to crack on with them, get them into the oven for the last 45 minutes of cooking.

Baste the chicken halfway through cooking and if the veg look dry, add a splash of water to the tray to stop them burning. When cooked, take the tray out of the oven and transfer the chicken to a board to rest for 15 minutes or so. Cover it with a layer of tinfoil and a tea towel and put aside. Now is the time to make your gravy.

Beetroots

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas 6. Tear off a strip of kitchen foil big enough to hold the beets in a parcel. If the beets are large, cut in half to speed up their cooking time; if small, use them whole.

Place them in the middle of the foil with the garlic and marjoram, season generously with salt and pepper and then fold the sides of the foil into the middle. Before you seal the parcel, add the vinegar and olive oil. Scrunch or fold the foil together to seal at the top. Place in the preheated oven and cook for around 1 hour, until tender. Serve in the bag at the table.

Gravy

While your chicken is resting using a spoon, carefully remove 90 per cent of the hot fat from the tray by angling it away from yourself and scooping off the fatty layer that settles on top.

Put the tray back on the hob over a high heat. Add the flour, stir it around and, holding the tray steady with a tea towel in one hand, use a potato masher to mash all the veg to a pulp – don't worry if it's lumpy. You can rip the wings off the chicken and break them up into the tray to add more flavour at this point.

When everything is mixed and mashed up, add the alcohol to give a little fragrance before you add your stock (the alcohol will cook away). Keep it over the heat and let it boil for a few minutes. Pour the stock into the tray, or add 1 litre of hot water. Bring everything in the pan to the boil, scraping all the goodness from the bottom of the pan as you go. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until you've achieved the gravy consistency you're looking for.

Changes Made: Unfortunately had no celery, but would usually pop it in the gravy. Also no foil so tried to cook the beets in baking paper, which turned out fine. I am also a big fan of butter under the skin of the chicken so I added this step after seasoning and massaged into the breasts. 

Results: Amazing.. as usual! I actually really loved the beets instead of an array of roasted vegetables, we also had some potato bake on the side which was good too. The chicken was so tender and the lemon squeezed over at the end gave little bursts of contrasting acidity.

The carrots for some reason did not soften much when roasting in preparation for the gravy so did not get a chance to mash up much.

Next Time: Slice the carrots a little smaller. 

Week 3 - 6 Hour Shoulder of Pork with Red Cabbage

Double Jamie recipe this week, including the one that inspired it all; 6 hour shoulder of pork. This was a dish that I cooked Christmas day and while being a great success taste wise it was also very easy to cook.. score! Pretty much just salting the pork, crackling up the skin, then let it roast all day with the end product being more like pulled pork than a roast. 

The one major hick up while cooking that was after turning the oven down after crackling the skin.. it turned itself off! I noticed an hour lately and it only meant that it took even longer to cook and we did not get to eat it until the next day. Be organised.. you have been warned (and do not sit around and book holidays to Thailand when you are supposed to put meat in the oven).

Adding the balsamic

After an hour of cooking

My huge shoulder just coming out of the oven

Meat just falling apart

The finished product!

Book: Pork is from http://www.jamieoliver.com.au and the Cabbage from Cook with Jamie.

Recipe: 6 Hour Shoulder of Pork with Red Cabbage braised with apple, bacon and balsamic vinegar

Ingredients: 

Pork - Serves 4 - 6

2kg bone-in shoulder of pork, skin on
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cabbage - serves 4

olive oil
250g bacon, finely sliced
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, bashed
1 onoin, peeled and sliced
2 good eating apples, peeled and chopped into 2.5cm pieces
1 red cabbage, outer leaves and core removed, chopped into irregular chunks
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
150ml balsamic vinegar
a knob of butter
a handful of chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Method: 

Pork

Preheat oven to 220°C. Place pork on a clean work surface, skin side up. Get a small sharp knife and make scores about a centimetre apart through the skin into the fat, but not so deep you cut into the meat.  Rub salt into the scores.

Brush any excess salt off the surface then turn over and season the underside. Place your port skin side up in a roasting tray and pop into the oven. Roast for about 30minutes or until the skin is bubbling and crackling. At this point turn the oven down to 170°C , cover with a double layer of foil and pop back in and roast for another 4 and a half hours.

Take out of the oven, take foil off and baste meat with the fat in the bottom of the tray, if you want this is a good time to add root vegetables. Just take the pork out and add the vegetables and place the pork back on top. Continue roasting for another hour.

Carefully move the pork to a serving tray, cover and let it rest. Feel free to now use the pan juices to make a nice gravy, just add water or stock and stir on the stovetop. 

Cabbage

Pour a good glug of olive oil into a saucepan, get it hot and add the bacon and fennel seeds. Cook until golden then add the onion and continue to cook, with the lid on, for a few more minutes until golden and sticky. Add the apple, followed by the cabbage chunks, salt and pepper and the vinegar, and stir everything together well. Put the lid on and continue to cook on a low heat for an hour, checking and stirring every so often. Pop the butter on the top, sprinkle over the parsley and your done!

Changes Made: When preparing my ingredients I realised the herb that I thought was fennel was in fact cumin seeds, which is also good with pork and actually worked out quite well with the cabbage. Unfortunately one apple bought turned bad, not the greatest time for them! 2 would have been better. No parsley as I forgot, but for me, it is often an afterthought anyway.

Results: Once again this pork was amazing, even though both times I have cooked it something went wrong the end result was great. And the cabbage.. oh my goodness, this dish was so simple and I think will become a regular side dish to many things. It was sticky and sweet but not too overpowering as to eat with a roast.

Next Time: The cabbage could have been cut smaller in order to reduce a little more. Once again.. be prepared! Don't let your oven turn off and do not book holidays when it's cooking time.