Unable to go home and treat myself to roast beef and yorkshire puddings, I tried my own cheaper roast dinner with chicken for my two housemates. Not only is chicken cheaper than beef, and slightly easier I think to cook, the leftovers of a whole chicken are really easy to turn into tasty meals the following week.
When buying your chicken there is always a lot of choice in terms of quality. While free range chickens are of a higher welfare standard, Andrew's also sell there cheaper barn-reared chickens that are fed nutritional antibiotic-free diets, live in open barns and still have delicious flavour. Small chickens range from around £5 to £6 and when feeding 3 people as I did (with leftovers for another meal for one) this is really good value for money. Families would obviously need bigger chickens (1.8kg +) but prices are unlikely to exceed £10- still good value in my eyes! Vegetables are also cheap, I used Maris Piper potatoes, and broccoli on offer at Waitrose, (as well as picking up Paxo stuffing for 40p!) and peas I had in the freezer. I simply refuse to believe people who insist that it is too expensive to eat healthily and I think this meal shows it!
My Tips for Roasting:
-Placing a lemon cut in half and a sprig of thyme inside the chicken will give a lovely flavour and keep it moist.
-Chickens take approximately 1h30m in a hot oven. Crisp the skin up for 15m at 220°C then continue cooking at 180°C. Depending on the size of the chicken, adapt your time (my 1.2kg chicken took 1h15m). The chicken is cooked when all juices run clear. Slice inside to check if you're not sure.
-Work out your timings for everything else with the chicken in mind. For example, roast potatoes take roughly 50m in the oven (after par-boiling) so put in 50m before your chicken is due to be cooked.
-Heat a roasting tray with a tablespoon of sunflower oil for ten minutes, so that your potatoes hit a sizzling hot pan. This ensures lovely crispy potatoes, instead of the oil seeping through the potatoes and making them soggy.
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