Roast Dinner Party!

As per the title (Served 7)

Babbled Intro:
Ok, a bit of a daunting task to tackle documenting all of this on a blog but will attempt to! Had some friends round for a Sunday roast and I did the usual classics with a bit of a twist. I always would choose to cook chicken as it's what feels the safest option for me. not just because I'm fussy with meat but because I have sussed the cooking times and have never got it wrong (Touch wood). I always try variations of classic vegetable sides to keep it interesting, this carrot recipe always gets lots of remarks and goes down very nicely. Not sure how helpful the below will be to anyone, as more a description of my dishes than a recipe but here we go.

Menu:
Roast Chicken with Sage&Onion Stuffing
Roast Potatoes (My way)
Mashed Carrots in Star Anise and Honey
Brocolli steam with soy sauce (No recipe listed below)
Homemade Chicken Gravy
Dessert - Cinnamon Apple Crumble with Home-made Custard

Roast Chicken with Sage and Onion Stuffing:

• The stuffing is a Mrs Beeton recipe and only really works with a food processor in my opinion. Peel then boil 4 large onions for 3 minutes. Add 10 sage leaves to the pan and continue to boil everything for 2 minutes. (By boiling the ingredients you take out the bitterness and the flavours aren't too over powering.

• Blitz these in a food processor until they're roughly chopped. Then stir in one egg, 125g breadcrumbs, salt and pepper, 50g butter.

• I then put this mixture in a large sandwich bag, then cut the corner and pipe the mixture into the chicken as per the below picture (Yes it looks glamourous but it makes the whole process much easier trust me). You could just spoon in the mixture of course. I then rub olive oil, salt and pepper onto the chicken I cut up some sage and sprinkled that on the chicken and put in the oven. (Tip - to make sure the chicken goes a lovely golden colour, cook the first 10 mins of the cooking time at the hottest oven temperature then resume at 180c for the rest of the cooking time. (Thanks to Kat's mum for that gem) I always go by the cooking times on the labels and add 15 mins for this stuffing.

• I put any leftover stuffing in a dish to cook separately in the oven for 30 mins (I drizzle some olive oil over to stop if burning.

Roast Potatoes (My Way)

• I always par-boil the potatoes for 7 minutes, then after draining, let them sit to steam dry. I add olive oil and onion salt at this time and shake the pan to roughen up the potatoes edges.

• Heat some butter in a baking tray in the oven and once melted add the potatoes and roast for approx 40 mins until golden and crispy (Shake/turn the potatoes half way through.)

 Mashed Carrots in Star Anise and Honey
(A Tana Ramsey recipe which is really gragrant and sweet)

• Cut the carrots into chunks then boil with a couple of star anise in the pot. (Approx 30 mins)

• Once cooked, drain the carrots and remove the star anise.
• Add a chunk of butter and a tablespoon of honey then mash everything together.

Homemade Chicken Gravy

• After you have removed the chicken to carve, leave the juices in the baking tray and skim as much of the fat off as possible.
• Add a couple of tablespoons of plain flour to the juices and whisk over a high heat. 
• Then add approx 1 pint of chicken stock (I use the bottles of condensed liquid stock) and continue whisking on a high heat.
• I then add some white wine if available and a fresh herb, in today's case sage since I had some leftover.

• I then sieve this into a jug but you can leave it as it is, if you wish.

Cinnamon Apple Crumble with Home-made Custard (Serves 5)
(I prefer to stew the fruit before cooking the crumble as a whole dish in the oven but you could just prepare everything into a dish, add the crumble topping and then cook) 

• Peel and chop 5 large bramley apples
• Put in a pan over a medium heat adding some brown sugar, half a cup of water, splash of brandy (Adds an extra warmth to the taste) and a good sprinkling of cinnamon. Cook, stir until a thick brown gooey mixture.

• Put this in an oven dish and sprinklle over saltanas.

• Then in a mixing bowl rub together 200g plain flour, 100g butter and 100g brown sugar (Caster is also fine) Put this on top of the stewed apples.
• Cook for approx 30 mins in 180c oven. (If you prefer the topping more golden then grill for a few minutes.)
• To make the custard, I heated 500ml of single cream and milk (half of each, but you could use all cream), then cut a vanilla pod lengthways and added to the pot of milk/cream. Heat gently and just before boiling point remove and cover for 20 minutes.
• In a seperate bowl whisk together 5 egg yolks with 1 tbsp of caster sugar.
• Add the creamy mixture (removing vanilla pod) to the sweet yolk mixture whisking all the time.
• Pour mixture back into the pan (riinse and dry the pan first) then bring to the boil whisking continually. Do this until the mixture thickens (Approx 10 mins)
• This is fine to serve now but I lower the pan into cold water (like a mary's bath)and then whisk for 2 mins, then put back on the hob to warm up. (This just makes it even thicker).

My Conclusion / Review:
Everything was cooked nicely, even the broccoli which I normally end up over-cooking. For some reason everything just seemed ok to me and nothing special, maybe I played it too safe or should have had more dishes? But I was trying to keep it easy so I could socialise and drink lots of red wine before and during the meal. (Which I managed to very nicely, thank you :p). The definite winners were the chicken and carrots at the main and the dessert went very quickly, especially the homemade custard!

James's Verdict:
"7/10 - A lovely roast, you always know what you're getting. I like red wine."