Duck Egg Dinner

I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone how to cook a roast dinner, we all have our own ways of doing it, things our mums or granny's taught us. Make it from scratch or buy tidy little joints in silver foil tins with Aunt Bessie accompaniments. There's no right or wrong way to do it. You have what you like, they way you like it. It's always enjoyable, even when it goes a little wrong, when the gravy is too salty or you left the stuffing in the oven and didn't discover it until you went to get the apple pie!
Sometimes though everything comes together and you've made a master piece.....

A bed fit for a chicken....

The chicken....my favourite chicken is the M&S Oakham chicken, I've had better one's (organic ones from Gear Farm in Cornwall spring to mind), but the Oakham for the price is always a lovely taste and texture and above all always juicy.
Generally, I like to cook chickens as they are, what a wonderful taste they have, I don't like to hide it behind lots of other things, but today I was feeling like a change so I filled my roasting pan with chopped onion, whole garlic cloves, some fresh bay leaves and rosemary (not too much) from my garden and some chunky carrot. I placed the chicken on top, poured over at least a glass full of red wine (you can use stock or water instead) just enough to lightly cover the bottom of the roasting pan so the vegetables don't start to burn when you begin roasting. Then a glug of olive oil over the top and finally a good grinding of salt and pepper to season. Cook the chicken according to the instructions. Oakham chickens and I think most better quality supermarket chickens will tell you the time and temperature to roast at. I always used to work at GM6 for 20 minutes per pound, plus 20 minutes, but they tend to advise GM5 now and of course everything's gone metric! Above all remember you mustn't eat it pink, the juices should run clear (I usually tip it up and see what comes out rather than poking at legs) and the legs should move freely.

Luckily tasted better than it photographed!

The trimmings....so again I tend to keep my vegetable simples, I normally do them in the steamer, carrots which take a bit extra cooking in the pan and two more veg in the steamers. Today we plumped for brussel sprouts - surprisingly Lauren's choice - they are known in our house as "fibs" and if you eat one you are allowed to tell a big fib. Seems to do the trick, no more left over brussels in our house. Lauren's other choices were a sweetheart cabbage and 1 leek! I had a think and decided to shred them both and steam them together and it was absolutely lovely.
As you can see my roast potatoes were a crunch sensation. I usually go for a fluffy potato like Maris Pipers, but this week there was no such luxury, I just had a few bog standard Ocado baking potatoes. I like to fully boil my potatoes before draining them and putting them into hot oil (heated to GM7), that way I get a crunchy, golden brown exterior and fluffy almost mash potato interior. Again at Lauren's request some par boiled parsnips went in too.

Happy Days with the Naked Chef
A very well used page!

The must have for a Sunday dinner in our house is Yorkshire Puddings. This week I had a couple of duck eggs hanging around and decided to try them out in the batter mix, my never fail recipe for Yorkshire is taken from a Jamie Oliver recipe, the recipe is for a Toad in the Hole and takes 3 eggs, I've had to scribble notes for 1 and 2 egg versions for when it's just us eating. The duck eggs made the puddings delicious, they rose well but not as high as normal and I think I've heard that about duck eggs. They did however hold their height after coming out of the oven, they had a lovely yellow colour and rich taste, a crisp top and lovely puddingy bottom. The full recipe is 1/2pt milk, 4oz plain flour,a pinch of salt and 3 eggs. I always beat the eggs into the flour first, then add the salt and milk. I keep the mix in the fridge and give it a quick whisk before I add to the pans. The pans have a splash of oil in the bottom and are heated in an oven GM7, I find heating the Yorkshire pan on a baking tray helps keep the oil hot when you take it out to add the mixture. They take about 20 minutes to cook depending on the oven

Gravy....call me a philistine but I am a Bisto gravy granules girl for the most part, I use meat juices and vegetable water to jazz it up and at Christmas I buy some good quality ready made gravy and top it up with meat juices and giblet stock. It all stems from a day years ago when I tried to make gravy from scratch with gravy browning and flour, it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever made and I decided life was too short, when Mr Bisto had already put in all the effort for me.
Today though, I thought I'd give it another try, I saw a TV programme a month or so ago called The Good Cook and he made it all look so easy. So I left the juices in the meat tin and saved the potato water. About 15 minutes before serving time I skimmed some, but not all of the fat from the top of the meat juices and then heated them in the roasting tin over a medium heat. I put the potato stock into the microwave and heated that too. Once the juices were bubbling I added a heaped tablespoon of plain flour, now you must mix with a whisk like mad, the remaining fat in the juices will form a roux which you must keep smooth and allow to cook out a little before starting to add the stock, keep simmering and stirring until you have a gravy which is the consistency you like, we like ours thick! The gravy looked a little saucy and very pale so I rummaged through mu cupboards and added a splash of Worcestershire sauce and a splash of mushroom ketchup for colour. It was surprisingly good, it really crowned the dinner, I know in the photo it's not much to look at, but believe me it tasted superb.

And what about dessert I hear you ask, well I can't do everything!...it was Marks and Spencer Bramley Apple Lattice Pie and good old Birds Custard...a girls got to put her feet up every now and again!