I had to write this for my dad, as I won't be here to do it any more. I'm not writing two things in the one day so it's going here also.
How to cook a perfect Roast dinner.
Taken and modified from “Jamie’s Ministry of food”
You’re looking at about 2 and half hours from start to table.
Ingredients
One of the following:
Pork Roast/Leg of lamb/Whole Chicken/Topside of Beef
2 Onions
2 sticks of Celery
3 bulbs of garlic
Rosemary and Sage and Thyme. Fresh if possible but dried will do. Don’t skip on the herbs, they may seem a bit flashy, but fuck it, you deserve it.
Spuds (Rosters or pinks)
Parsnips
Carrots
Sea Salt
Black pepper
Loads of olive oil
Flour and chicken stock (For Gravy)
Red wine. Buy one of those small bottles if you don’t like red wine. It is ESSENTIAL.
Peel the required amount of spuds carrots and parsnips. Place in pots and cover with water and a sprinkle of salt. (This maybe done the night before) Hold back 2 carrots.
Take the meat out of the fridge.
Get a roasting tray. Chop the 2 carrots and celery. (don’t bother peeling them. Waste of time.) Peel and half the two onions. Break one bulb of garlic up into cloves and place all in roasting tray. Throw in some salt and pepper and a bit of each of the herbs. You’re not going to eat this. The meat will sit on it when cooking and it’s used for gravy. For now leave the meat and this tray sitting side by side.
Stick the oven on gas mark nine.
Stick the heat on under the pots of veg. Once they start boiling, they will need about ten minutes, or until they are just about the fall apart. You can boil the shite out of the carrots though. Be careful if you have loads of supds as they will fall apart, especially the ones at the bottom. You might want to split them between 2 pots if you have loads. Same with parsnips. When done leave them in the colander to dry, no panic.
I like to give meat about an hour and a half and 20-25 minutes to settle before carving, so I stick it in the oven at 10:50. Give pork an extra 10 minutes. If you are doing chicken stick a lemon in the cavity, jutting out. This means the air inside the chicken heats up, cant escape, and part cooks the chicken from the inside out (meaning you don’t need to leave it until its dry and horrible to ensure its cooked through) Before putting your meat in the oven, cover it in olive oil and loads of salt and pepper. Sit it on your veg and put it in, as close to the top as possible.
Turn the heat down to six.
I use two ovens and two roasting trays when doing my veg. If you don’t need to cook as much food just use one tray and stick it in the oven with the meat.
This is how you do perfect roast veg.
Preheat your second oven.
Put out your two trays. Pour in a layer of olive oil so the base of the trays are cover. Take the other 2 bulbs of garlic. Break into cloves. With the back of a big knife crush each clove slightly. Divide evenly between the trays. Divide the rest of your herbs between the two trays. Salt and pepper. In your tray you’ve got olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and a mix of herbs. I like to get the veg on about half an hour after the meat. Before this, put the trays in the oven for a few minutes until the oil gets hot. Cut any massive parsnips or spuds in half down the middle. Evenly lay the spuds out in one tray. They must NOT be layered. If you have too many, it doesn’t matter, don’t put them in the tray it will ruin everything. Give your tray a few tosses another splash of olive oil and salt and pepper. Put it in the oven on the shelf below the meat. Do the same with the second tray and the carrots and parsnips. Bang it in the top oven. If you only have a small amount of veg or just one oven, they can all go in the one tray as long as they are not layered.
Meat is in at 10.50
Veg in at 11.20
At half 11, take the meat out and give it another covering of olive oil. Tip a small glass of water in around the veg it’s sitting on.
At 12 take out the veg and turn them.
At 12.15 or 12:20 take your meat out. If its done how you want it, place on a tray. Cover in Tin foil and a couple of tea towels.
Place your spuds on the top shelf of the oven and turn the heat up to nine. If you have veg in the top oven move them to the middle of the bottom oven
Boil the kettle and dissolve 2 chicken stock cubes in 500ml of water.
GRAVY. Put the tray that the meat roasted in and its contents over a low heat. Throw in a big table spoon of flour. Stir it up. Put in your chicken stock. Stir it up. Throw in half a glass of wine. While still over the heat, mash the fuck out of this with a spud masher. All those all those roasted veg and herbs along with the meat juices and fats and the wine and stock. Mash, mash, mash. Strain this whole mixture through a big sieve into a pot. AMAZING GRAVY.
It should be around half 12 now. I’d give the veg another 15 minutes and after that it’s at your discretion.
