The simple things are the best
Every Sunday at the market I am tempted by (but resist buying) at least four stands selling freshly roasted chickens. They always smell amazing, but I am put off by two things: 1) the cost and 2) the cost. I haven’t lost my mind, I know I’ve just said the same thing twice, but it is honestly two different reasons. The expensive birds are REALLY expensive. Rachel bought one at 14€ at the start of the year and it was damn good, but I just can’t bring myself to spend that much on a chicken. That said, there is one stand that sells them at anything up to 35€ each. I’m sorry, I know animal welfare and good quality products are important, but for that much I’d want a gold-plated framed copy of its original birth certificate, family photos and proof that it had been fed on nothing but the purest, hand picked and prepared chicken feed. If I ever come into some extra moneys I’ll try one, but until then I’ll give it a miss thanks.
There are more affordable ones, but the problem with the cost here is that you end up with two for 10€ and I don’t need two. They’re OK, but not brilliant and usually a bit dry. Quality-wise, the difference between those and the 14€ chickens is immense. The problem is that I still convert the cost of everything I buy into sterling automatically and I can’t bring myself to part with £14 for a chicken, however good.
So to the reason for this post, the chicken I just roasted myself. It’s a long time since I did a roast chicken and it was absolutely worth it. I bought a 1.2kg chicken and popped 2 small preserved lemons, an onion and a few cloves of garlic into the cavity, before rubbing the skin with Maldon salt and black pepper and dotting it with butter. It sat on a bed of more garlic, 2 carrots and a few potatoes that had all been peeled and chopped into big chunks. The oven had been heated to 240C and was immediately lowered to 200C when the chicken went in to be cooked for 90 minutes, getting covered with foil halfway through the cooking to stop the skin burning.
While that was doing its thing, the only other part of the meal to worry about was the gravy. I love a good gravy and hate resorting to ready-made-just-add-water granules, although I’m not ashamed to say they do get used if I’m feeling lazy. I thinly sliced a large white onion and cooked it over a low heat in a drizzle of olive oil until it was soft and translucent. After about 45 minutes, I added a good glug of madeira and left it to simmer away. Now, I am beginning to worry that this blog is turning into an advert for a certain black, gloopy Unilever product, but I have always, always added Marmite to my gravies, despite my better half’s hatred of the stuff. Given that I am now the proud owner of a taster jar of the new Marmite XO, I decided to try that and see if it made any difference. I popped a heaped teaspoon of it into the onions and stirred until it had all melted together, before turning off the heat and waiting for my chicken.
After an hour and a half, the chicken was removed from the oven and left to rest while I finished off the gravy. The vegetables came out of the roasting dish and were left in the oven to keep warm and the dish was put on the hob. The roasting juices were mixed with my onion/madeira/Marmite mix and stirred for about 10 minutes until thick and dark.
Meat and two veg sounds standard, but my god it was good. Simplicity can be utterly wonderful if done with care and attention. As much as I enjoyed my soufflé last month, it was faffy and not something that I would choose to do on a regular basis. This was just delicious. The skin was crisp, the meat moist and tender. And the gravy was the best I’ve ever made. Quite possibly the best advert ever for throwing out the granules, but that will probably never happen…
