The Perfect Sunday Roast

For this one I will describe the perfect roast chicken perfect meat for most peoples appetites

Ingredients
• 1 x approximately 1.6kg chicken, preferably free-range, organic or higher welfare, can cook smaller if required.
• 2 medium onions
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 1 bulb of garlic
• olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lemon
a small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or a mixture of all.


To prepare your 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

To cook your chicken
• 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

To carve your chicken
• Remove any string from the chicken and take off the wings (break them up and add to your gravy for mega flavour)
• Carefully cut down between the leg and the breast
• Cut through the joint and pull the leg off
• Repeat on the other side, then cut each leg between the thigh and the drumstick so you end up with four portions of dark meat
• Place these on a serving platter
• You should now have a clear space to carve the rest of your chicken
• Angle the knife along the breastbone and carve one side off, then the other
• When you get down to the fussy bits, just use your fingers to pull all the meat off, and turn the chicken over to get all the tasty, juicy bits from underneath
• You should be left with a stripped carcass, and a platter full of lovely meat that you can serve with your piping hot gravy and gorgeous roast veg

Perfect Roast Potatoes.

boil up some maris piper potatoes or similar good quality potatoes, enough to feed all that will be eating suggest 2 potatoes per person
once the potatoes have been boiling for about 10 minutes strain them off, and then by holding lid on pan rough up the surfaces of them
while your potatoes where boiling add the baking pan into oven with at least 2 ladles worth of cooking oil in it to get hot & smoky
then if got gas stove or electric place baking pan over heat so oil stays very hot & slowly tip in the potatoes while giving them their first baste of oil [covering]
place in oven at about 220c
after 20 minutes in oven redo the basting of them and also turn them if required
same goes 20 minutes later they should be cooked perfectly in 55 minutes if earlier even better
if at the 45 minute mark there is still oil left then tip it out so all you have left is the potatoes, this way they will dry out & really crisp up

add the ideal veg with wonderful gravy also yorkshires if wish & well ENJOY