First things first- I actually wanted the next Food post to be a baking one, but after looking through recipe books and choosing what I want to bake- I discovered that we haven’t any got butter… bums.. So I went for Roast dinner, as that’s what we had planned for Sunday anyway.
Usually we would have whole chicken for the roast, but since we haven’t been shopping for over a week, I just went with chicken breasts, and to add a bit more umph to it- I wrapped them in bacon.
Honestly- this isn’t anything extra special or extraordinary and anyone can do this. We used to have just roast on Christmas- nice roast turkey, but over the past year or so moved to have roast dinners more often.
Ingredients:
- 3 chicken breasts
- bacon rashes (I used 5 out of pack of 8)
- potatoes (3 decent size potatoes / person)
- 2 x carrots
- 1 x parsnips (usually I would use 2, but only had one)
- broccoli
- cauliflower
- honey
- gravy granules
- 20g butter
- seasoning – salt, pepper, herbs, chicken seasoning (salt, paprika, dried onion, black pepper, dried parsley, cayenne pepper, paprika extract)
Time: 1hr 15mins cooking time + prep
Difficulty: Easy
When we have roast dinners now, we don’t have Yorkshire puddings, we only have them at Christmas (home made) or when we have people over for roast and then we would get Aunt Bessies.
Since I only have chicken breasts, the roast potatoes will take longer than the meat. I start by boiling full kettle, as it just makes boiling everything so much quicker with already boilt water.
I usually halve the potatoes, but if I get a small one, I’ll leave it whole. You want them to be a good size, but not too big. We learnt pretty quickly (1st proper Roast Christmas we did), that we need to soften potatoes, carrots & parsnips before putter them in the oven, otherwise the roasting takes too long, and you end up burning them, rather than making them nice & golden.
Potatoes I boil for 12-15 mins, it is hard to get them just right, before they start to dissolve. Carrots and parsnips 8-10mins. I always put the tray for roasties in the oven with some oil so it heats up before adding them in. You want enough oil so you can baste them. Don’t worry if you haven’t added enough from beginning, you can add more as you go.
Once all roasties are in the tray, I season it well- nothing too crazy, just your standard salt, pepper and herbs & it goes in the oven for 20 minutes.
While all roasties are boiling I get the chicken ready. Normally when I do chicken breasts, I cut all the fatty bits off, but this time I left them on, as they will be in the oven for 50-60mins, I want them to keep juicy. I lay all three chicken breasts on my favourite chopping board (oh yes, I have a favourite chopping board. Love a good chopping board) and I season the same as roasties and I add Chicken seasoning. I rub it all in and then I wrap them in bacon. I had 2 big and one small chicken breast- bigger ones I used 2 bacon rashes and smaller one I used one. I cut up the butter and placed little dollops on each chicken breast to make sure they don’t dry out. Cover these with kitchen foil as you don’t want them burn to crisp and put them in the oven at the same time as roasties (200ºC, usually I roast them at 180º, but I forgot to turn it down.. oops..)
Every 20 minutes I will take both, chicken and roasties out and baste them, so they keep juicy and don’t burn.
While these two are chillin’ in the oven, I get broccoli and cauliflower ready, put all in the saucepan, sprinkle some salt over and leave on the hob- these are going on 20 minutes before everything is ready.
How long do I roast them for? I did 60 minutes in total.
- Roasties- for last 20 minutes I baste them same way as before and I will squeeze over honey, I love lots of honey, as it will brown them up really nice and will have this lovely extra roasted taste of honey.
- Chicken- for the last 20 minutes, again, baste as before and remove the foil cover as now you want them to crisp up- both, chicken and bacon.
- Put the veg on now as well with 20 minutes to go
During this time I usually would set the table, with plates, cutlery and drinks, but as we are working from home at the moment, our dining table is our office, so we eat in the living room with plates on our knees. Very glamours. But I still get the plates, cutlery and drinks ready. About 5 minutes to go, I will make the gravy, I make it in a big measuring jug, as we love a lot of gravy, my food needs to be swimming in it. I know- some people don’t, that’s why I never put gravy on plates & I just leave a gravy boat on the table for everyone to help themselves.
I believe the right way to do roast is- to leave it for a bit once it comes out of the oven, but not in our house. Like- who has time to wait for lovely roasted chicken? Or any food for that matter?
When everything is out of the over, I serve up and we enjoy delicious dinner! With some left overs for Mondays lunch!
If we have proper chicken roasted- then James will be on carving duties.
Hope you enjoyed reading this and it’s making you want to have roast dinner now! You’re welcome!
I have added a time lapse on my Instagram of the prep, so head over to @mycountrylifeblog and check it out. While you’re there give me a follow and stay up to date of latest posts on what is coming up.
P.S. I am working on developing my skills in making sure I take really good pictures, but you’ll have to bear with me while I do this. I promise there will be really nice ones in the future.
Stay safe.
x
A
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