Please help me cook a roast dinner… with these ingredients

[BonjourMonsieur]

Okay, I am a terrible cook and actively avoid cooking. Usually my husband does all the cooking but I need to do a roast dinner for friends and I’ve no clue where to start!

These are the ingredients I have:

Potatoes: are these too small to do roasties with?

Carrots: I wanted to do honey glazed carrots. Do I cut the ends off and peel first?

Chicken: what’s the easiest way to roast this without poisoning everyone? I have a meat thermometer. How many should this one feed? Weight is 1.738kg

Thanks all! 😃

The potatoes will be great for roast - I would par boil them for 10mins, no need to peel & then put them on a pre heated tray with some olive oil, seasoning & garlic/rosemary if you have them (do without the garlic & rosemary if you don’t)

The chicken will have instructions on of how to cook it, just follow them to the letter and honestly you’ll be fine, you just put it in the oven and leave it.

I’m not an expert on honey glazed carrots so hopefully someone else will know :)

good luck!

Potatoes I wouldn’t bother peeling as they look more like new potatoes they won’t fluff up like roasties, so part boil for 15mins then add to a roasting tin with with oil for 35/40mins

carrorts wash then cut the ends and cut lengthways. I part boil then leave them soaking in honey & butter than add to thr potatoes for final 10-15mins

chicken should have instructions on it? I don’t eat meat so can’t help with that

Don’t bother it’s not worth the hassle

Are those large new potatoes? If so, cut them in half and roast in their skins for about an hour.
If they are old/maincrop potatoes, peel then cut into roast potsto size. Then put in cold water, bring to thd boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Whilst they are simmering, put oil into a roasting tin and put it into the hot oven. Drain the potatoes, and shake around in the colander to fluff the edges, then tip them into the roasting tin and roast for 45 minutes.

Take the chicken out of the fridge, unwrap it and leave to come to room temperature. Then cook according to instructions on packet (will be about 20 minutes per 500gms plus an extra 20 minutes. Temp 180C). Allow 15 minutes to rest before serving. So allow 90 minutes for roasting plus 15 minutes resting.

Yes, cut the ends off the carrots and peel.

Good luck!

Remember to pre-heat the oven, ie turn it to the required temperature and wait till the 'on' light goes out - can take 20 minutes in some ovens! Use fan setting if you have one, it's quicker.
I've never done honey glazed carrots but why not just dice them, boil them and add equal quantity frozen peas just before the end - something green on the plate is nice for roast dinner.

How many are you cooking for? Do you have any stuffing in the cupboard, any frozen veg?

Looking at it, I’d say the chicken needs about an hour and twenty . Check Instructions though on packet. You’ll know it’s done when the wings loosely come off.
cook at about 180.

If you have lemons, cut into quarters . Place inside the cavity. It will keep the meat moist and give it a nice taste.

get some knobs of butter and place over the top of the chicken, season with salt and pepper and if you have any garlic granules sprinkle them on too. It’ll give you a crispy skin.

Just an easy way really. No fuss and make sure you hear the oven beforehand .

Good luck

I agree with pp re the potatoes, cut in half, par boil then roast sprinkled with oil, garlic, rosemary.
Cook the chicken as directed on the packaging, if the legs are tied up with string I cut the string and wriggle the legs open away from the body, when it looks cooked stick a knife down the side of the leg and see if the juices run clear if your still not sure lift some of the breast up and see if it's cooked through, no pink bits.
Carrots, top and tail then slice long ways, boil until they are nearly cooked, still a bit firm , drain, put on a baking tray, drizzle honey and pop under the grill for a few minutes so you still get the flavour of the honey

For the carrots, I would peel and slice both ends off then slice into coin shapes- boil until softened, drain water then add a knob of butter, splash of pure orange juice and some honey, then stir and keep it on a heat (stirring occasionally) until the butter and orange juice have reduced away.

If you follow this method you'll get lovely gravy too which will just need to be thickened afterwards with a little flour. Peel and cut up a couple of onions into thick slices and put them in the bottom of your roasting tin, put the chicken on top and smear a little oil on the breast. Fill the tin with cold water up to the top of the onions. Cook at 190° for 20 mins per 500g plus 500g.

Ignore this poster. She’s angry because she’s getting her ass handed to her on her own thread where she threw out half her roast after only an hour.

This is a nice way to roast baby potatoes
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smashed-roasted-new-potatoes

As for chicken I'm a huge fan of spatchcocking. Flip it over, cut out the backbone with a pair of scissors and then flatten the chicken. It works because when you cook a chicken you want to cook the legs more (as the higher temperatures on legs render the fat and tissues in the legs which make the texture better) and the breast less so it doesn't get dry and stringy. A whole chicken though has the breast more exposed to heat and the legs more sheltered which is harder to cook, but a spatchcock bird has the legs on the outside and more exposed to the heat, and the beasts more protected in the middle. It reduces cooking time as well.

A meat thermometer is a great thing to have. Getting food to a safe temperature is due to both temperature and time. Heating chicken to 74°C will kill everything instantly, but your chicken texture won't be great. It's equivalent to heating the chicken to 66°C for 2.8 minutes, which would be much better texturally, and as chickens are so large, the temperature will keep rising when resting. Here's a table for which temperature and time ratios will result in the chicken being fully cooked.
Temperature Time

136°F (58°C) 68.4 minutes

140°F (60°C) 27.5 minutes

145°F (63°C) 9.2 minutes

150°F (66°C) 2.8 minutes

155°F (68°C) 47.7 seconds

160°F (71°C) 14.8 seconds

165°F (74°C) Instant

@BonjourMonsieur dont forget to season your chicken. Salt, pepper, thyme, garlic powder, and maybe some paprika all over, under, and inside the chicken.

Please don't put garlic on it , some people hate the stuff

This is a great site, you put in the weight of the chicken and the time you want to serve and it gives you a list of instructions, timed minute by minute

www.cookipedia.co.uk/recipes_wiki/Meat_cooking_time_calculator_Metric

Yes!! I was trying to make it more simple but this is how I do it 😋😋😋

How many people are you cooking for as that chicken doesn't look very big, have you got other vegetables. How you got enough potatoes and carrots ?

Do you have any more veg? Frozen peas, cabbage, beans or anything green? Just carrot and potato is a bit meagre IMO, especially if having guests over. Do you have some gravy to go with it?

The BBC website has lots of basics and 'how to' which might be useful:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/cookery

You need more veggies! Stuffing! Hassleback works well with those potatoes

I’ve got green beans? So carrots potatoes, green beans and the chicken? Is that enough? I was going to attempt to make gravy with the chicken juices. Do I just add flour to the juices and boil it? I’m so bad at all this 🤦🏻‍♀️

It has to feed 4 adults. We have 4 kids too but I can always pop freezer food on for them, worst case scenario. Also, you can’t buy stuffing where I live (not UK).

Can you buy some ready made cauliflower cheese ? Could do with another vegetable and some stuffing really

If you have some stale bread, whizz it in the processor to chunky crumbs, the mix with some chopped herbs, a bit of lemon zest and an onion that you've roughly puréed with a pinch of salt and half a cup of water. Bung it all in a buttered oven dish and bake along side the chicken for the last 30-40 minutes. Stuffing ✔️

Do you have any bisto or gravy mix or chicken stock?

A gravy recipe is at the bottom of this recipe:
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/classic-roast-chicken-gravy