To ask your ultimate roast chicken accompaniments...

[Newbie1999]

Making a roast next week. I’m a pretty good cook but rarely cook roasts. Want it to be gooood. Any tips, particularly for the sides?

I use the Jamie Oliver cheesy leeks recipe. It's very goooey and lucious.

www.deliaonline.com/recipes/collections/life-in-the-freezer/traditional-braised-red-cabbage-with-apples You don’t have to be too exact with the recipe though.

Mary Berry red cabbage recipe is good, and can be frozen www.thesun.co.uk/living/2206427/mary-berry-recipe-red-cabbage-christmas-dinner-bake-off/

A really good quality chicken
Pork, sage and onion stuffing
Bread sauce
Cranberry sauce
White wine gravy
Roast potatoes
Buttered and baked chantenay carrots
A green veg such as French or runner beans, mange tout or finely sliced courgettes lightly tossed is a little butter and oil.

Leek pudding! I discovered it via mn and it's delicious with roast chicken
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/06/steamed-pudding-recipes-fearnley-whittingstall

With chicken -
Bread sauce
A chestnut and pork stuffing plus a sage and onion for vegetarians.
Devils on horseback
Potatoes in duck fat
Roasted carrots, celeriac and parsnips with a maple glaze
Buttered leeks
Something green
Occasionally mashed swede, depending on numbers.

@Drbrowns there's a really good BBC Good food recipe but it creates extra pots to wash So I just fry off my leeks in butter & make a cheese sauce with added mustard. Add the cheese sauce to the leeks & walla...cheesy leaks. They're SO good.

Honey and mustard roasted carrots & parsnips. Breaks my heart when someone piles plain boiled on my plate

In this house it’s mostly about the roast potatoes...get those right and enough of them and they’re basically hypnotised.

I like stuffing with prunes and apples in.

Cauliflower roasted with garlic and coriander. A Delia Smith recipe I've been cooking for 25 years - cauli, garlic, crushed coriander seeds and olive oil. I swear my dh would eat a whole cauliflower to himself, and he normally hates it!!

I'm in Yorkshire and you have to have Yorkshires with every roast in this house 😋

You have to have yorkshires!!

My must haves are:

Sprouts (preferably roasted with maple syrup and bacon)
Sweet potato roasties
Carrot and swede mash
Broccoli
Stuffing (pork, cranberry and chestnut)

Bread sauce & pigs in blankets are for turkey, not chicken. And I wouldn’t do red cabbage either. Too strong a flavour. With a roast chicken I would do stuffing, roast potatoes, peas, roast or boiled carrots, broccoli & gravy. Could also have fine beans, leeks,

@Cocomelt Thanks so much. Must give them a go!

Sent too soon! Savoy cabbage is another accompaniment. And you could have mashed potato & mashed swede/carrot. Possibly Yorkshires but I’m a traditionalist & think they belong with roast beef.

Mashed potato and add some nutmeg , butter and cream .

Buttery mashed potato with lots of butter and some black pepper, Yorkshire puddings, cauliflower cheese, sweetcorn and carrots. Yummmmm!

So many good things already said. I love:

• a good onion gravy, with onions roasted alongside the chicken, blitzed with creme fraiche and marsala/wine, then returned to the empty chicken roasting tin with more wine to cook off. Add thyme or tarragon and maybe lemon zest if you feel like it.
• carrots cooked with star anise and butter.
• leeks cooked in butter and lemon (can you see a butter theme here?)
• courgettes braised with tomatoes and finished with basil and creme fraiche
• potatoes with rosemary and plenty of salt.

I also like cabbage fried quickly, with caraway seeds. Then you sprinkle over some tarragon vinegar right at the end and let it sizzle.

But so many things go well with roast chicken. IMO the main thing is to be generous with the butter as you prepare it. Ideally, you need to soften butter, mix in lemon zest and whatever chopped herbs you like (tarragon and thyme are always my favourites but you could go with rosemary if you like a stronger flavour). You need to gently pull up the skin around the breast and push the butter all over the breast. Don't break the skin. Then put the rest of the butter inside the chicken. Baste it a few times during cooking.

If you like a crispy skin, you need to stop basting when it's halfway cooked, and put lots of salt on the skin (so don't season with salt until then).

Roat potatoes, garlic, onion and carrots
Yorkies
Steamed peas and broccoli
Gravy, home made

What's a good pudding to go with RC?

Oh ... and if you want a nice stuffing for a roast chicken: sausagemeat, egg, breadcrumbs, chopped dried apricot, fried onion, nutmeg. Or you can also put in a bit of lovage. It's good!

STUFFING. Two kinds at least. Bacon on top of the chicken. Savoy cabbage cos it picks up loads of gravy. Loads of gravy. Rosaries andcmash. At least four veggies: I like peas, mashed swede, carrots and savoy.

@SmigglesNoMorei hope you mean AFTER! Crumble of course.

Butternut squash, chopped into wedges or 1 inch chunks roasted with butter, olive oil and salt & pepper and maybe a bit of oil from the chicken is my favourite thing to go with roast chicken. With gallons of home made gravy 😋

I see all the cauliflower cheese people are out
Roast potatoes carrots brocoli sweetcorn gravy from scratch and yorkies sometimes spicy sweet potatoes

Bread sauce, red currant jelly, pigs in blankets and sauce meat stuffing