Another Roast in the tiny...tiny oven

Recipe #59: Perfect Roast Chicken with baked potatoes and spicy greens.

I had been craving Roast Chicken for weeks now and finally FINALLY I got it. The frozen chook spent the day in the fridge but didn’t defrost one bit so it was stuck in the microwave. I know, I know... please don't judge. It came out with bits cooked and ewww it looked hideous. But we we're not going to have hideous chicken for dinner, no not at all. We were having Perfect Roast Chicken. I microwaved two tiny lemons after stabbing them a good few times then stuffed them up its bum with some fresh rosemary, covered the chook in olive oil and lots of S&P. Placed it on top of 3 carrots, an onion and a bulb of garlic which was roughly chopped.

It was then time to go into the oven and cook for 1 hour and 20min. I part boiled the peeled potatoes and scrapped the outsides to make them crunchy, covered them in olive oil and threw them into a foiled tray with a good dowsing of S&P and a handful of garlic cloves. They were then bunged in the oven after the chicken had had about 40min cooking.

This is how I did the next bit because I have a small small oven at home but if your lucky and have a normal sized one or even a large one (oh so jealous!) you can do it your way. Once the chicken is nearly cooked, I swapped the potatoes and chicken around so the potatoes can crunch up and got all my ingredients ready for the greens. Once the potatoes have crunched up; the chicken came out to rest while the gravy was simmering and the spicy greens were steaming. I served it up steamng hot and all that was left to do was... Eat, Laugh and Love.

Spicy greens.
- About a tbs of extra virgin olive oil
- Pinch of chilli flakes
- A handful of frozen peas
- 2 zucchini’s chopped into rough large-ish chunks
- A good handful of green beans
- Small bunch of fresh parsley
(Really you can use any greens you like; this is what we had in the fridge and freezer)
- A glass of white wine
- S&P
- Nob of butter
- squeeze of lemon juice (optional)

How To: Heat up a frying pan on medium heat and add some extra virgin olive oil. Add the chilli flakes for about a min or until you can smell them then add the greens (all of them inc parsley) and white wine. Give it a good stir and S&P-ing then add a nob of butter and place a lid on it to steam. Turn the heat down to a low simmer here until the wine has nearly cooked away and the butter has melted. Quick taste and add more seasoning (you can add the lemon juice here) and enjoy.

Jamie's Gravy How To: Take your chicken out of the pan it cooked in and spoon out some of the fat if there is too much. Stick the tray over the hob and start to squash all the goodies that the chicken was sitting on into a mush. Add 2 tbs of plain flour and stir until all cooked away. A splash of white wine and cook the liquid off then add some water. Keep on the hob for about 5-10 min until thickened and tasting amazing. Season to taste.

mmm yum :)

Brushetta, Julie & Julia... does it get any better?

Over the weekend I attempted to make Granola (Recipe #45) for the 3rd time. First time I added currants which made it a little too sweet, the 2nd time I didn't add fruit and it was delicious over greek yoghurt so I thought I would make again since I had eaten the 2nd batch and was craving more. Yes well it sounded a great idea until the over powerful oven decided to burn the buggerey out of it. So I'd say that this third time lucky did  not work. The kitchen smelt like burnt-ness to I thought I would leave it for another weekend and make brushetta and watch Julie and Julia. (Fantastic afternoon may I say!)

For dinner I cooked the Perfect Roast Beef (Recipe #46). I placed the veggies in the bottom of the pan, placed the beef on top and cooked it for 1 hour while I went to basketball. Worked out perfectly.

We had roast veggies, yorkshire pudding and gravy. YUM.

True of false? It's not the size that matters, its the way you use it.

It's 5:55am by my mac clock. In other words there is no sane reason why the fuck I am awake right now. And do you want to know the worst reason of all?? All I can think about when I try and get back to sleep is the Chocolate Swirl Croquembouche from Masterchef. Crazy??! mmm I think I am on my way if not already there. 


Anyway, apart from the dreams of toffee and caramel and sinking my teeth into crunchy puff balls with silky custard all night (sounds a little erotic and I assure you it was!) But since I am up nice and early (why do people call it 'nice and early'?? its NOT NICE!!) I thought I'd make the most of my time at home since my work computer has every site that is remotely useful blocked.


Blog note: I cooked this roast dinner one Sunday night a few weeks back before the blog was started but for goodness knows why my mission had. 


Recipes 13, 14, 15, & 16: Perfect roast pork with Roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots, Yorkshire puddings and a consistently good gravy.  (I have been reading Julie Powell's "The Julie/Julia Project" and having all the recipes in French sounds so much more exotic and grand then anything sounds in English).


Firstly the pork goes into the small oven, resting on a bed of veggies and herbs. After this was done I started my roast potatoes, parsnip and carrots. These needed to be part cooked by boiling them first. Low and behold the water took 15 min to boil but I had already peeled them which could have been done while the water was boiling but I didn’t read the recipe all the way through or plan the tiny oven disaster that is my mothers kitchen to a T. 


While I was suppose to put the vegies in the oven 20 min after the meat has gone in, the veggies went in about 50 min after the meat was cooking which meant that everything in the tiny oven was running late. 


Next was getting the Yorkshire pudding batter ready as it has to sit for 30min. This I could do as the veggies still had an hour left to cook and the meat would be done in half an hour. And I still needed to make the gravy and cook to the Yorkshire puddings and carve the meat and make sure that the crackling was crackly. 


The pork was overcooking the veggies weren’t browning and it was about 8pm now. At this point I don't know how you can make a Jamie roast dinner with all the trimmings in one oven. Oh thats right!.... if you have a normal size oven your fine!!!


After a glass of cold water and a lot of goooss-fra-baa I was ready to get back in the game. 


The meat came out and crackly crackling was removed, covered in foil and then the pan which had the meat juices and bed of veggies was put on the hok where flour, wine and stock was added. Everything was mushed with a potato masher and left to simmer. Next the muffin tin was put in the oven to heat, then oil was added in the muffin sections and put back in the oven to heat up further. 


By now I have complaints from mum and Tristan that they're hungry and its getting too late to eat dinner. I had suddenly found men's skill of selective hearing.


The gravy was sieved and put into a jug, the batter poured out into the muffin tin and back in the oven. It is about 8.30pm now and the Yorkshires need to bake for 15min with no disturbing allowed. I carved the meat, served it and the Yorkshires started burning. Shit! By now mum and Tristan were sitting at the table waiting patiently (patiently my arse!). Dad was getting in trouble putting butter on the dinner table in case any one wanted any.

So after disturbed the puddings I got out the veggies and served them with the now cold pork. When the puddings were done everything was sent to the table and dinner was served. 

Cold pork with luke warm gravy and hot veggies with slightly oily Yorkshire puddings. Dinner was eaten at 9pm but apart from late night indigestion I think it was mostly a success. Everyone was v polite and said they enjoyed it.  I think if i had given them dog food they would have said it was nice they were so hungry.