British Roast Chicken Dinner

The "experts" can't agree on whether it is better to rinse the chicken or not. I prefer to rinse the inside and make sure the cavity has been cleared. Then it can be patted dry inside and out with a few sheets of kitchen paper.

Tuck the wings behind the back. Check the inside of the chicken and pull out any pads of fat that may be present. These are useful for basting the chicken during cooking.

Place the chicken in the roasting tin and place reserved fat from previous roasts around the outside and on top of the chicken. Place the reserved pads of fat on top of the chicken as well. Lard or butter will work if you have no reserved fat.

Take the stuffing, prepared below, form it into an oval and insert that into the cavity. It should be left partially exposed.

If you don't want stuffing, put a small onion cut in half, a few sprigs fresh thyme, a small handful of fresh parsley, and a sprig of fresh rosemary inside the cavity.

Cover the roasting tin with a length of foil, pleated to allow for expansion. Put it into a preheated oven on the middle rack.

Oven temperature: Gas mark 6/ 400F/200C/moderately hot.

The chicken needs to cook for 25 minutes per pound, plus 25 minutes. Be sure to include the added weight of the stuffing.

Uncover the chicken and baste it when it has 1 hour cooking time remaining.

Cooking times are the same for a turkey

4 ounces white bread
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
lemon zest from 1/2 large lemon
4 ounces suet
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
milk, if needed

Put bread in a food processor, finely process.
Add lemon zest, parsley,and thyme; pulse a few more times.
Add the suet; pulse briefly.
Add the egg, large pinch of salt and a pinch of black pepper.
Pulse until it all comes together.
Add a bit of milk if necessary.

Double these amounts for a turkey

2 ounces shelled walnuts
1 ounce cashews
1 ounce shelled Brazil nuts
All finely chopped
2 ounces butter
2 small onions - finely chopped
4 ounces mushrooms - finely chopped
Pinch of dried mixed herbs
1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
6 ounces fresh white breadcrumbs
1 large egg - beaten
Giblet stock to moisten
Salt and pepper to season

Method
Melt the butter in saucepan and sauté the onions for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sauté for a further 5 minutes. Toss together the nuts, herbs, parsley, and breadcrumbs. Add to the mushroom and onion mixture.

Add the beaten egg. Moisten with the stock if needed. Season to taste.

Stuff into the neck of the turkey before roasting.

Sausages

Our favourite sausage to use with a roast chicken is the cumberland chipolata. These are separated into the individual links. When the foil is removed from the chicken with one hour cooking time remaining, the sausages are placed in the fat around the chicken.

The entire pan is placed back in the oven to continue cooking a further hour. The sausages should be turned after 30 minutes.








Bacon Rolls, with or without mushrooms

My bacon of choice is dry cured back bacon.

These can be rolled up by themselves or wrapped around a small button mushroom. I use a tin of small button mushrooms.

The bacon rolls can be cooked under a grill or placed in a baking tray and placed in the bottom of the oven the final 30 minutes of cooking.

Turn them over halfway through cooking.

Put those to the top of the oven for 5 minutes after removing the chicken just to brown them up a bit.

Roast Potatoes

I've detailed how to cook these at Mouthwatering Roast Vegetables

2 ounces fresh bread crumb
1/2 pint milk
1 shallot
4 whole cloves
4 peppercorns
pinch salt
a knob of butter (about 1 ounce)

Prepare the bread crumbs in the food processor, place them in a small bowl and leave to dry out.

Plae the milk in a small saucepan. Stud the peeled shallot with the whole cloves and place in the pan with the peppercorns and salt.

Put over medium heat and bring just up to boil. Immediately remove from the heat, cover and leave in a warm place to infuse near the cooktop until 5 minutes before serving the dinner.

Put the saucepan back on a low heat and add the breadcrumbs plus the ounce of butter. Stir constantly until it starts to bubble and the bread is completely absorbed.

Serve over the chicken.

1. A standard chicken raised for cooking lives its entire life (a short 39 days) in a space the size of an A4 sheet of paper. This is around 17 birds per square meter of space. They barely have enough room to even turn around. They never see natural sunlight and are kept in conditions with only 1 hour of darkness provided every 24 hours.

Such cramped conditions and rapid growth cause severe welfare problems. Chronic lameness is common - one third of chickens have difficulty walking without pain. The stress on their hearts and lungs can cause heart failure. About 5% die or have to be culled prematurely. They get acid burns on their legs from standing in their own excrement. Those are the dark marks you can see on a chicken's legs when you cook it.

These crowded conditions are horrific but there are other consequences for the people who eat the chickens as well.

This timely newsletter article from Riverford Organic gives some disturbing information about just how dangerous intensive farming methods have become. 50% of Dutch Farmers Now Carry MRSA.

Those who work around chickens may develop acute and chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal injuries, and may catch infections that transmit from animals to human beings.

According to the CDC, chemical, bacterial, and viral compounds from animal waste may travel in the soil and water. Residents near such farms report nuisances such as unpleasant smell, flies and adverse health effects.

Intensive farming may make the evolution and spread of harmful diseases easier. Many communicable diseases spread rapidly through densely spaced populations of animals with low genetic diversity. Cambylobacteria, botulism, and other disease causing pathogens are spread more rapidly and chicken raised in such close conditions are more likely to carry these diseases.

2. Chickens raised free range have more space to move around. They have access to the outside and natural light. The birds have the opportunity to live a longer, more natural life.

Because the chickens are not as crowded and are not as stressed, the are less likely to carry diseases that can be harmful to human beings.

3. Watch the video below.