A British Institution

Cooking a roast dinner can be fairly challenging, and I give great amounts of kudos to all the women (or men) all over the British Isles who cook a sunday roast every single week, for it is no mean feat.

I have been meaning to cook a sunday roast with my friends ever since I moved back to the UK over a year ago, and this week I finally got round to it. The real challenge of a roast is making sure that everything is ready at the same time.

The first thing you should cook is your protein, we opted for chicken, stuff the chicken with a lemon, that has been skewered with a knife and with a few thyme stalks, and top with thyme sprigs, oil, and salt and pepper, massaging the oil into the bird.

Prep your veg. Quarter and parboil the potatoes, cooking them until they are still firm, but are almost cooked through. Toss the potatoes, and other root vegetables in oil and seasoning, and cook them separately in the same oven as the bird.

Now you can turn your attention to your green veg, I cooked broccoli and green beans, separate the broccoli into florets, top and tail the green beans, and set them aside ready for cooking later. Around now you can start making your yorkshire puddings, I have already detailed how to make the perfect yorkshire puddings here.

Finally, you just need to cook your green veg, and make your gravy. Lightly steam the broccoli florets until they are tender and cooked through. Cook the green beans in lightly salted boiling water, and when they are cooked drain them, and add a large knob of butter to the pan and a few cloves of crushed garlic, stirring until the butter has melted and been infused with the hot pungent garlic.

Finally, make your gravy, you can do this one of two ways, if there are no pan juices, you can just use granules, which will make a perfectly fine gravy, or you can deglaze the pan in which the chicken was cooked.

Add the drippings with a little white wine. Slake a little flour with some stock and add it to the pan. Reduce over a medium heat, whisking in some stock if needed, until you have a thick and luscious gravy.

Getting everything adequately cooked, and ready at the same time is no mean feat, luckily the only items which require any precision are the chicken and the yorkshire puddings, with everything else you have a fair amount of leniency.

All thats left is to enjoy this british institution, perhaps with a glass of chilled chardonnay and a board game.

ingredients

1 chicken

oil

salt & Pepper

A few sprigs of thyme

1 lemon

1 kg potatoes

500g green beans, trimmed

1 kg parsnips

1 head of broccoli

1 recipe yorkshire puddings

The Perfect Yorkshire Pudding

My grandmother always made wonderful yorkshire puddings, light and crispy they are a must with any roast dinner, and are a quintessential comfort food for many people.

You'll have to forgive me the slightly hyperbolic title, of course there is no such thing as a perfect yorkshire pudding, everyone's tastes will be slightly different, but these are pretty good nonetheless.

There are a few secrets to follow when making yorkshire puddings, and if you follow these you should have no trouble making them, and your puddings should rise every single time.

Start by making your batter, this is very simple as it contains basically three ingredients. Eggs, milk and flour, with a dash of salt. Recipes vary on how many eggs to use, I say that 2 eggs for about 12 yorkshire puddings is right, not too rich, but enough to give them lift.

My first tip is to let the batter rest before you cook it. About half an hour minimum, what I generally do is make the batter before I start cooking a roast, and leave it in the fridge until it needs cooking, this usually gives it about an hour of resting.

Fill the wells of a muffin tin with about a centimetre of sunflower oil, or alternatively with beef dripping. My second tip is to heat the fat in the tin until it gets really really hot, and starts to smoke. It needs to be so hot that when the batter is poured in it starts to bubble and spit, and rises up the sides of the wells.

Put the tray with the batter into a hot oven, for 20 minutes. My third tip is to leave the oven door closed until they are fully cooked otherwise they will start to sink, the batter will fill with grease and they won't become crisp.

Remove them from the tray with a fork, and serve with a roast, filled with gravy.

ingredients

115g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 medium eggs, beaten
290ml milk
vegetable oil or dripping for cooking