All Hail the Roast Chicken

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last posted.  I’ve been busy – himself and I recently got married so I’ve had other things on my mind.  The wedding was amazing! (thanks for asking!)

Himself requested roast chicken as we hadn't had a roast for a while – with all the trimmings including Yorkshire pud and roast veg.  Luckily I had a wee chickie in the chest freezer from a recent Feather & Bone visit.  I thawed it out, stuffed thyme, garlic and butter under the skin, rendered the flap of fat cut from the opening in a small saucepan, poured that over the chickie skin then seasoned generously with salt (and then I may have salted and eaten the crispy bit that was left in the wee saucepan after the rendering ;-)).  I then stuffed a ¼ of a lemon in the cavity along with the rest of the thyme and garlic. 

As it was only 1.3kg I cooked for an hour at 220, took it out and rubbed butter on the skin then I rested it loosely covered with foil while the Yorkshire puddings were cooking (in beef suet also sourced from F&B which I’d previously rendered down).  I made sure all the fat was melted and smoking hot before adding the Yorkshire pudding batter (350ml milk, 1 cup flour, 2 eggs, a generous pinch of salt then rest for 30 min)

IT WAS DELICIOUS!! Himself reckons it was one of the best roast chickens (and yorkies) he'd ever had.  Truly, you can taste the difference between those poor, flaccid, intensively raised chickens and the ones we buy from F&B - and Yorkshire pud in animal (specifically beef) fat are so very superior to ones cooked in oil... light as a feather and the flavour!! OMG.  Obviously lashings of gravy made from the chicken drippings…

It was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Yum!  Happily there was enough left over for my favourite roast chicken and gravy sandwiches today (the only sandwiches I actually like). It certainly reminds you why roast chicken was such a treat 50 years ago...  Bring back meat as an absolute treat instead of something you just eat every night because you can.

Did I say it was yum?

I’ll be making chicken stock out of the carcass tonight.

It’s Himself’s birthday today.  I’m cooking a blackened rib eye (1 500g aged cutlet for the 3 of us) plus Neil Perry’s onion rings (many thanks Mrs Feather for the cookbook!), crumbed bone marrow, aligot, asparagus, aoli and Eton mess… I’ll keep you posted.