Tuesday, 27 March 2012

A Traditional British Sunday meal

Photo by Adrian Burke

I have been a bit neglectful with the blog in this past week, as the amount of work doubled and left me with no spare time to play in the kitchen. My husband, Dean, is away for 2 weeks, and that means that on top of my own work, I am solo with the household chores and child care. All the meals in our house, at the moment, are the same old easy-and-quick-to-make stuff.

At the weekend, I had no energy left to even think about what to cook. It was then that I was rescued by  our neighbours and very close friends Alistair and Michelle (the Hallam family), who invited us for a traditional Sunday roast chicken. What bliss!  I’ve then decided to share with you the beauty of that wholesome meal.

Not satisfied with cooking a beautiful lunch, Alistair decided to bake some scones for us to have with clotted cream and jam for the afternoon tea. I can’t stress enough how delicious they were.

The whole day was sensational! The meal, the weather, the company, the drinks, the children playing happily in the garden, and the very short walk home after an afternoon of indulgence. Thanks Az, Mich, Jaz and Max!

I have another week of hectic schedule ahead of me. While I still can’t play in my kitchen, I will leave here some of the tips and tricks Alistair uses to make a lovely and juicy roast chicken.

I promise to be back in full swing, with our regular posts, in two weeks time.

After leaving the chicken marinating overnight, time to
wrap it in tinfoil and put in the oven
Baste the chicken
Root vegetables ready to go in the oven
Turn the vegetables over once
Stale brown bread to make the stuffing...
Now baked and ready to be eaten
Roasted vegetables on the way to the table
Az proudly presenting his delicious roast chicken and stuffing
Not only beautiful to look at




To the beginning of an enjoyable Summer!
Roast Chicken by Az Hallam

The day before he cooked the dish, Alistair put some butter with garlic between the skin and the breast of the chicken. He then drizzled the chicken with olive oil and seasoned well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird. He would normally add sprigs of rosemary and some lemon, but had run out this time.

The next day, he cooked the chicken wrapped in tin foil for about 1h10min at 180º C – basting about three times during the cooking. He then removed  the foil  separated the juice to make gravy,  basted the chicken one more time and left it to brown for ½ hour.

Stuffing

For the stuffing, he used 5 thick slices of stale brown bread (approx. 200g). He sautéed shallots with garlic and red pepper in olive oil. He then added the crumbled bread and sundried tomatoes and seasoned with salt, pepper and dry herbs, like thyme and mixed herbs. He then added water to it (100ml), stirred and baked the mixture in the oven for ½ hour.

Alistair served the chicken with roasted vegetables and bread sauce.
Simple and flavoursome. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.

The main ingredient and its functional properties 


Chicken (Gallus domesticus): You can read the functional properties of chicken on my previous posts: here , here and here.


The beautiful scones, clotted cream and jam
yum!

The children had a ball



Till after Easter!
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2 comments

  1. Nice history, nice food, nice post

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Tutu! You have been to that garden before, remember? Bjs

    ReplyDelete

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