Weekend chicken with a hot stuffing - a present for Giles and Kate

I am, largely, a lover of vegetables, grains and the like. But, as my friends have observed, I do roast a lot of chickens. Well, I've been out teaching tonight and come home to a few glasses of red wine and so I've come over all sentimental-like and feeling like writing a recipe for the estimable Giles and Kate.

You may shy away from cooking a chicken with stuffing in it. Maybe this is because you're concerned about getting them both at the right temperature and fretting about it. In which case, man up. But hey: there is another way. You just put hot stuffing in the chicken. Makes it less fiddly to ensure that both are properly hot and cooked through and it's also kind of sexy and earth-mothery to produce this big pan of golden stuffing and bird and just dole it out. So this is what you do.

Take a proper chicken - which is to say an organic (and free range) bird. Put it upside down (thus, breast side down) in a large roasting tin, having rubbed it with olive oil and salt and pepper. Now cook about 500g of couscous and, when done - but barely thus - add a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of crushed red chilli, lots of freshly ground black pepper, a good pinch of sea salt flakes, a handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped, a finely chopped garlic clove and the zest of a lemon. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken just before you put it in the oven. Oh - having first stuffed the bird with this mixture, well turned over and amalgamated. The oven should be on 200 and you roast the chicken on its back for half an hour, then you turn it over and cook it until its juices run clear when you pierce the bit where the thigh meets the breast.

 I should say that there will be plenty of stuffing to fill the bird and go around it, so you get some couscous which is soaked in all the delicious juices and very soft and some which has crisped and caramelised in the heat. This is all fabulous. You could serve some green vegetables alongside, but I'm not sure I could really be bothered. One idea is to roast some green beans with olive oil and chopped cherry tomatoes plus a couple of garlic cloves (which you then squish into the ad hoc sauce that's produced) and lots of black pepper. This will take about twenty minutes to cook and I will leave proportions to your discretion.

Serve in mighty helpings. Easy, hands off and sexy as f***. (I did say about the wine, didn't I?)

In honour of a new cooker

Well now: when you buy a new cooker -- here it is, except mine's cream coloured-- I suggest you have a cook in. What would I do? Try this.

1. A roast chicken. I know, I know. I am forever roasting chickens.

2. Some roast spiced potatoes. I'll call them masala potatoes.

3. Some proper cakes. Or one substantial number. With a bit of spice for the time of year.

4. A casserole or two.

Are you terribly impressed? I did a cookathon in between teaching lessons at home, making a 'Medieval Day' costume for a five year old (tip: pillow case, red and gold paint; giant sequins and curtain tieback...) and writing an article and it felt like a triumph. I am not, may I say, competitive mummy, but I do like to feel I am at home. Less of the blather and back to the recipes.

1. The chicken. Free ranger; roast upside down for the first 40 minutes or so and allow about 20 minutes for each 500g and then another 20-30 minutes  But do I ever time thus? No I don't. Give yourself time and you'll just know when it's done. It's instinct. The juices should run clear where the thigh meets the breast.

Variations thereon: try smearing the breast with buter between skin and chicken, rubbing it all over with a mix of best unsalted butter and good green pesro or rubbbing in a mixture of butter, ground cumin and coriander, salt and pepper. You could stuff the cavity with a stack of unpeeled garlic cloves and add sprigs of robust herbs such as rosemary branches plus a little sage. Tarragon is great with chicken: stuff the cavity with it, or strew it over the bird twenty minutes or so before coing time is up. Ditto thymes of all sorts. Great hot with the usual suspects, warm or cold. Remember to give yourself first dibbs at prising away the little stucky bits that have stuck to the roasting tin.

2. The masala potatoes. I've prepped these (just to the coating in spice stage) but will cook them later. Just peel or not, as you can be bothered, and then cut in half. Floury potatoes are what you want, not waxy ones. So, get a dish with a thin layer of sunflower oil piping hot and shimmering in the oven. Meanwhile, coat your potatoes in black pepper, flakes of sea salt, red chilli flakes and a heaped tablespoon or a garam masala mix. I like the Rajah or Bolst brands. Now, chuck the lot in the hot oil and roast until they are soft on the inside and crisp on the outside and sticking to the dish here and there. Cook them in a hot oven and possibly turn up the heat later to blitz them so they get really crisp. You will know your oven best.

3. The cake. I got all nostalgic here. So here, in honour of my late mum, is something she would have liked. It's based on one from a book she used: Been Nilson's The Penguin Cookery Book. It is an almond fruit cake. To me, anything with almond in it feels like a celebration. You need a moderate oven and an 8'' tin then...

MAKE A SPICED ALMOND AND FRUIT CAKE

Cream 200gm of unsalted butter with the same volume of caster sugar. Then add 4 large eggs, 200g of ground almonds and 100g of plain flour. Mix all in well as you go. To this you add 150g of sultanas and the same of raisins and then 75g of mixed peel. Again, mix it in well. Now you have a choice: either 25 of preserved ginger or a tablespoon of ground ginger and then, finally, the grated rind of half an orange and the grated rind of half a lemon. Stick the lot into a tin which you have lined with greaseproof paper and cook for about 3 hours. At this point, if you put a skewer into the centre of the cake, it should come out clean. Turn it out of the tin when it's cool.

4. Right: a chicken casserole. Would you be horrified to know that, a while ago, I had in front of me almost 6 kg of skinned chicken drumsticks? That's the cooking ahead thing; if I don't do it, it'll be tits up round here by Wednesday. But say you had 3 kg, which would be more than enough for 4. Try this

First, brown your chicken pieces in a large pan. You may need to do this in batches. Or, hey: just skip this stage altogether. Put to one side. In the same pan, add a little sunflower oil and then add 2 finely chopped celery sticks or hearts, 3 chopped carrots, four finely chopped garlic cloves and a finely chopped onion, much in the manner of an Italian soffrito. Cook gently until all are softened. Now, add the chicken and toss it all about. At this point --because we are going for an all in one so that all you have to do is dole everything out at the table (or wherever) with no extra fuss-- add five peeled and roughly chopped potatoes. You want these to be in substantial pieces so that they do not disentegrate into the casserole, though. So maybe better in half or whole if they are small. Stir carefully, add a big fat pinch of sea salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, a couple of bay leaves and then cover the mixture either with a decent white wine or half and half water and white wine. Something dry, I think. Alternatively, cover with water, but add a couple of teaspoons of Marigold bouillion powder and stir carefully. Bring the pan to a high heat and then either turn it right down, simmering for an hour on the hob or a little more if you transfer it to a casserole dish, as I would, for the oven. Making it a proper casserole, then. Because it's the acts of baking and roasting that make me feel better, most of all.

A chicken roast dinner of sorts

Now, I had a large free range chicken and I here is what I did: this ensures wonderful succulent meat.

Roast chicken with a hot stuffing.

Take the chicken out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature while the oven heats up to about 230c. While this is happening, take about six slices of bread -- I happened to have half a wholemeal loaf and a slightly elderly white baguette. I dried this in the oven for five minutes and then broke it up in a bowl. Then, I added two chopped red apples, four peeled and chopped cloves of garlic, two chopped satsumas, a very large pinch of nutmeg (or grate it fresh) and a little salt and freshly ground black pepper..

Now, put your chicken into the oven (in a dish, obviously), breast down. This procedure keeps it moist. If you've been following my writing for a while, you will surely know that I harp on about this and also, I suppose, about chicken. Cook the chicken for around 45 minutes. Around this time, put some water on to boil in the kettle, pour it into the stuffing to bind it only when the water has boiled, take the chicken out, turn it right side up asnd stuff the cavity. Now put the chicken back into the oven for about another hour --depending on the size of the bird. So, two points: the chicken cooks upside down first to allow the juices to percolate through the breast, which is the dryest part. Then, the stuffing goes in hot, which serves to moisten the meat further and also makes it easier to predict when the bird is done. You will probably have leftover stuffing: just cook it separately: it will take only about 20 minutes top cook and crisp.

Roast potatoes, broccoli, bread sauce, not gravy today..

What to serve with this? I roasted some potatoes, which I had par-boiled and roughened up. First of all, they were roasted in hot oil and then lubricated further with some of the fine roasting juices from the chicken. I made a little bread sauce. This was made from half a white baguette, plenty of salt and pepper, a generous pinch of nutmeg, a small onion which I had studded with a few cloves (just like my mother might have done) and around 3/4 of a pint of milk. You may well need to add more milk as you go. Heat the mixture up very slowly, until it barely shudders, otherwise it will stick. Cook for ten minutes, keeping a close eye on it.

Elsewhere on the table, some broccoli and a few whole steamed carrots. I made no gravy, but we just poured over the juices from the roasting dish. Cranberry sauce to one side. Some sprouts with chestnuts would have been good instead of the broccoli, perhaps. You know, when your chicken is well cooked, you won't need to drench it with gravy. Nigel Slater has been telling us this for many a moon. And another thought: this was a cheerful and festive meal. It was the nutmeg, orange and apple that did it. We ate at the table with our boys and we ate in candelight, which is to say at a table lit by tea lights in tin cans through which they had punched lots of little holes. I hope they'll remember this stuff when they are grown, just as I do. Even if they are kicking each other under the table at the time.

Chicken photo courtesy of Annie Mole at www.flickr.com Thank you

The happiness associated with roast vegetables

Now, we had the full roast chicken dinner tonight, but I won't bore you with the chicken part of this because, I realise, I'm forever giving you recipes for roast chicken. So...I'll focus on the roast potatoes and parsnips and say that I'd be happy to have them all on their own, or with all kinds of other dishes. I'm speaking of potatoes roasted with whole garlic cloves and parsnips --roasted in a separate dish.

You could serve your parsnips and potatoes with a simple omelette, or with a pie of some sort --cold or hot - to cheer up some cold meat or to eat with some cheese. Sometime, I'll even cook a big dish of roast potatoes to have with salad and cheese. I favour them with Wensleydale or Cheshire cheese, perhaps.

Anyway, to make excellent roast potatoes, you should really peel and parboil. Take them to the point when their edges are roughened up, but their centre is still firm, then drain and give them a good shake. Then into hot fat and cook in a hot oven for forty to forty five minutes, perhaps shaking them once. Your fat of choice might be sunflower oil or another bland oil or perhaps some dripping if you have roasted a joint. Or, best of all, goose fat. Tonight --as with the parsnips that follow-- I cooked them in the fat and juices from the chicken when it was about three quarters cooked.

You could be really lazy about it and just give the spuds a good clean, don't bother to peel and then do the same. They would still be delicious but not, I think, ever quite so sublime. When I add garlic, it may be peeled but more often than not I just throw in whole unpeeled cloves. You can squeeze out that golden paste when all is done or just pick them up and eat them, skin and all. They will be sticky and sweet.

Now those parsnips. Here, you cannot get away without peeling. Another thing is that you need to try and avoid the really huge ones because they may be inclined to get a bit woody. Some people core them; I never bother, unless they are really ancient and I have forgotten about them. So, top and tail, cut them in half and just slide them straight into hot fat. Some recipes add honey. I feel that parsnips are so naturally sweet (there was a reason why they were substituted for bananas in recipes of wartime Britain and its subseqent period of austerity), that any sweetening is guilding the lily.

So, cook the parsnips, turning once, for about half an hour and then out they come. They will be burnished and quite sticky and caramelised at the edges and I will always eat one before the dish gets to the table!

By the way, for the best evocation of the joys of the roast potato, you might want to look at Nigel Slater's writing. I also just read his description in Easy Living Magazine of happiness being that last roast potato. I concur.

http://www.nigelslater.com/home.asp 

http://www.easylivingmagazine.com/

The rest of our dinner happened to be a roast chicken, which tonight I had stuffed with a sage and onion stuffing, carrots, broccoli and no gravy. We just poured the remainder of the chicken's juices over our potatoes. As I've said before, if you roast your chicken properly --I always say breast down for at least the first half hour-- you don't need anything to moisten it.

BUT I would have been happy with the potatoes and their friendly cloves of garlic plus the parsnips, salt and pepper and a little English mustard.

Thanks to Alexbrn over at Flickr for the photo. Wish I had time to photograph everything I cooked!