The perfect roast chicken dinner

[Dustyblue]

I've been craving a proper roast dinner (it's the start of winter here in Oz) and I think chicken is the go. Much cheaper than the rest & such a fabulous meal.

To me a proper roast chicken dinner should have:

Homemade gravy from the chicken juices
Roast potatoes and pumpkin
Sage & onion stuffing, both up the bum and as stuffing balls roasted with the veggies
Peas

Parsnips are good but haven't seen a decent one in the shops yet.

What do you all serve with a roast chook?

However, the thigh and leg have more nutrients, according to NHS dieticians I know.

I forgot about cabbage! Cheap & healthful. It's delicious with peas, or sauteed with leeks. That's another side dish to add to the list.

Roast potatoes, sage and onion stuffing, proper gravy, pigs in blankets, peas, cauliflower (and carrots if you must). No yorkshires!

My best roast chicken dinner has:
Free range organic chicken
Pork chipolatas
Roast potatoes
Roasted butternut squash and sweet potato
Roasted carrots
Tenderstem broccoli
Braised red cabbage
Celeriac puree
Gravy made from scratch using pan juices, flour etc, if wine is open use some in the gravy too
Home made stuffing probably with sausage meat, chestnuts, dried apricots. I put a bit in the neck then roll the rest into balls and bake.

Roast potato, stuffing, pigs, cauliflower cheese (always), carrot or brocolli, and gravy. Quite like it when the cheese sauce and gravy start to mingle.

Every week i buy a chicken to roast. Sometimes think that, instead of roast dinner, i'll use it for stir-fry and risotto, or chicken chips and salad. All dinners i really like to eat, But almost every time i do that, i'm disappointed that i didn't do the roast dinner.

@marmaladeandpeanutbutter

I can't stand the thighs and legs though!

I only eat the breasts, the white meat, if there's any trace of brown meat on the breast, then I cut it off.

My daughter, who lives with me is exactly the same.

I'm exactly the opposite! I love the legs and thighs and the oyster underneath. There's a tender bit on the edge of the thigh that is just ~chef's kiss~

I can't believe I missed this part about pigs in blankets!

I too always thought they were sausages or cocktail franks wrapped in pastry. You can buy them here, they're called Puffy Dogs. The pig vs dog thing should've been a give-away I suppose.

Marathon Puffy Dogs 600G | Woolworths

Bread sauce
Carrots
Petits pois
Leeks
Gravy
Roast potatoes obvs
Yorkshire pudding (sacrilege I know)

I never used to like bread sauce but I've got my own method now that I love.
I use the Delia Smith basic recipe, but use a pinch of allspice instead of cloves for a stronger flavour plus freshly grated nutmeg as well as that rather than instead of.
I use the bayleaves in case they add something for other people, but, tbh, I can't really taste the flavour of bay.
Once I've simmered the onion in the milk until it's soft, I blend that into the milk with the breadcrumbs.
Usually use a bit more cream and butter than she suggests (cream and butter help just about everything, imo) and season well with salt and lots of black pepper.
I think the idea of simmering the peppercorns in the milk is to impart flavour without the black flecks of pepper, but I like mine peppery.

I also use the 18th century stuffing from her Christmas book - can't find it online, but it incorporates the liver from the chicken/turkey. I cook the stuffing separately - the chicken just has a chopped up onion, lemon, sage and thyme inserted.
And, if I'm feeling extra keen, I inject the meat with melted butter (keeping under the skin so as not to break it).
God, I love roasting a chicken!

This thread has made me start investigating extra special chickens for Christmas (probably just DH and me this year, so don't need a turkey).
I've been beckoned down the path of a Bresse chicken, but they are ludicrously expensive - has anybody tried one and are they worth it?
Obviously it would be frozen, which might make it less good.
Reading AA Gill's description of eating a roasted one really tempted me...
Although, that one had "slivers of truffle" under the skin, which I really can't run to!

@LaMarschallin It's 7pm here and am cooking dinner (pasta puttanesca, or Whore Spaghetti) but will read your post properly later.

Meanwhile I wish you & I could get together for a chat with all of our cookbooks and lots of wine. We'd have SO much fun! 🤗

That would be amazing! 😊
Bon appetit for the Puttanesca - Nigella Lawson used to alliteratively call it "Slut's Spaghetti" but she's rowed back a bit on that now...

I'd add cauliflower cheese, Yorkshire pudding, bread sauce and instead of pumpkin I'd mix the stuffing with sausage meat and wrap it bacon.

I stand by Whore/Slut Spaghetti. It has historical meaning!

Love Delia, she's a queen. Even better, I've a copy of Mrs Beeton's Every-day Cookery from 1923 (preens). It's fragile but so bloody entertaining!

@Dustyblue ooh. I love an old cookbook. But mine are all post war.

@StoatofDisarray You can have the left side and I will have the right.

I am also in Oz. I often do roast chicken during the week because it is an easy dinner so it will be roast chicken (no stuffing), duck fat roasties, gravy (using bisto chicken gravy granules from Woolies to add to the pan juices and a glass of white wine) peas. If it is a Sunday roast there will also be cauliflower cheese, roast pumpkin and yorkies.

@TheSandgroper Yes Mrs Beeton is OLD. But she was a classic of her time and it's great reading!

Love old cookbooks! Even though we can get any recipe we want online, there's nothing like flipping through an old cookbook. I've got stuff like "The Best of Jewish Cookery" from 1960's US and old vegetarian books from earlier than that. It's the history of food, so fascinating!

Ooh I forgot- 'Cookery the Australian Way' first published in Oz 1980. It was the quintessential Home Economics books for decades of school kids.

There's a whole chapter on combining tins of soup to make different soup. My favourite was Tomato Soup + Pea Soup = Mock Turtle Soup. Fucking Hell.

@Dustyblue I tell a lie. My first CWA book is 1942. And it’s decent paper, too. Even in the middle of the war, there were still city girls marrying farmers and needing to know ow to live out there.

Omg I don't have any CWA books! (swoons)

I also don't have the original WW Birthday Cake book from 1980, just the reissue from 2010 which is NOT as good.

Sorry to everyone for taking this thread WAY off track but it's important 😍

Crispy roast pots
Sage and onion stuffing
Cauli carrots broccoli
Proper gravy
Yorkshire pud!

Agree. I like peas but they are too small to roll around in a roast.

One of my treasured old cookery books is the "I Hate to Cook Book" by Peg Bracken.
I don't think I'd ever use any of the recipes (heavy on combinations of tins and packet soup mix - very late 50s/early 60s) but it's brilliantly written and very funny.
Her "Skid Row Stroganoff" containing "chipped beef" - me neither - and many tins, iirc, has amongst its instructions:

"Add the flour, salt, paprika and mushrooms and stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink."

Obviously, it's very of its time...
Her "I Hate to Housekeep Book" is even better, imo.

@Dustyblue I don’t have the birthday cake book either. I have the pamphlet that came in the magazine on April 12, 1972 with the farmyard in the front. “30 Party Cakes for Children”. Mum used it well.

It’s 100 years of CWA WA’s famous cookbook. Get yours now. I have 1942 and 1963. https://www.cwaofwa.asn.au/Web/Web/Shop/Books.aspx?hkey=a8938c9b-1ef6-4974-bacd-b055adf5b15d

I have three Golden Wattles - 1930’s, 1960’s and 1980’s.