Sunday Roast

When you are cooking on a budget, buying a roasting joint or chicken can seem like a lot of money to spend on just one meal.  I like to think of it as a long term investment...how many meals can I get out of this piece of meat?

This weekend we had a roast chicken.  It fed 2 adults and 2 babies with plenty to spare.  A leg each for the grown ups and the scrappy bits for the kids. (I can usually stretch this out to have enough for my older daughter when she is with us as well)  I then take off as much of the meat from the carcass as I can using a sharp knife and wrap it up.  The carcass then goes into a large pot with 4 pints of water, a couple of carrots, celery and whatever herbs I have to hand.  Go nuts, there are no set rules with making a stock - garlic, mushroom stalks, peppers, parsnips, bay leaves, thyme, cardamom, black peppercorns.  It's a great way to use up veg that is looking a bit ropey.  I then let it boil for a couple of hours until it has reduced down and become a lovely sandy brown colour.  Drain the carcass and veg through a sieve.  You can then get to work on picking off any remaining meat from the bones.  You would be surprised at how much you get!

Incidentally, this week I found a new way to make stuffing.  I usually cook my meat on top of a layer of stock veg and few millimetres of water to stop it from drying out.  I then use the water to make gravy.  Yesterday I wanted to make a stuffing with a couple of crusts I had leftover so I put them in the blender with a bit of the chicken water and then chucked the mushy veg in too.  I blitzed it all up with some salt, pepper and sage and then put it in an oven proof dish for half an hour.  I had never thought to do this before but it was great because it (a) used the cooked veg that would have otherwise been chucked (b) meant that you didn't end up with uncooked onion in your stuffing and (c) bound together well without the use of an egg! 

This weeks Monday night tea was...Hot and sour soup!  Soups are great.  Filling, comforting and (unless you add a load of cream) healthy.  Monday nights after roast chick are usually risotto or soup night :)

You will need:

- Deep saucepan
- Wooden spoon
- Sharp knife
- Chopping board
- Fine grater

- Coconut/vegetable/sunflower oil
- Chicken stock
- Lemon juice
- Soy sauce
- Ginger*
- Garlic
- Chilli*
- Salt and pepper
- Onion/Spring onion/Leek
- Frozen peas/Sweetcorn
- Green beans/cabbage/mushrooms
- Egg noodles

There is a lot of variation here because you can basically use whatever you like.  Once again this is something that I have never made the same way twice.

* I buy fresh ginger and green chilli's from my local Indian supermarket large quantities and then freeze them.  I find this helpful for a number of reasons.  Firstly, you will always have 'fresh' ginger/chilli available for stir fry/curries etc... Secondly, it makes it so easy to cut or grate them.  You do not get the horrible stringy-ness you get when you grate ginger from fresh.

 What to do:

1.  Finely chop 2-3 garlics cloves, an onion/leek/handful of spring onions, 1 small green chilli.  Grate a thumb size piece of ginger.
2.  Put a spoonful of oil into your saucepan and put over a medium heat.  When warm add the garlic, ginger, chilli and onions.
3.  Stir and allow to sweat for a few minutes before adding the chicken stock.
4.  Bring to the boil and then add the chicken that you picked off the carcass.  
5.  Add about 3 dessert spoons of lemon juice and a few splashes of soy sauce.  Salt and pepper is desired.  Now is a good time to taste to see is it needs any more seasoning.  If it is too spicy, add some more lemon juice or a little honey or sugar.  Some salt or light soy sauce will bring out more spicy flavour if it is not hot enough.
6.  Once you have got the balance right add whatever combination of veg you want. Tonight we had sweetcorn, mushrooms and green beans but you could add some shredded cabbage, frozen peas, baby sweetcorn.
7.  Bring back to the boil and then crumble 1 layer of egg noodles in the soup.  These take only a couple of minutes to cook.  
8.  Serve.  This amount will serve 2-3 adults (depending on how hungry they are)

The whole meal took less than half an hour to cook and eat!

I have 2 chicken breasts left and a handful of scrappy bits for tomorrow...