This newsletter is about not one but two delightfully roast chickens.
These aren’t just any chickens, you see. Yes, they are crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside, and everything else you’d expect from a well-behaved bird, but they are also prepared and devoured on a Sunday. In some circles, this makes them practically holy, especially if you come from a place that enjoys less than three weeks of sunshine a year but is blessed with a wonderfully intriguing royal family and a charming accent.
Thursday
On a walk home from work one pleasant evening, a friend in tow (one that happens to have reverse-Brexited himself), I wonder aloud whether it’s finally time for me to roast a chicken. After almost 10 months in my apartment, and only just over half of that time with a working oven, I feel the time has come. My poultry musings catch his attention, which I latch onto, given he’s not often in the habit of indulging my culinary pipedreams. In quick succession, he asks,
“A Sunday Roast? With mashed potatoes and minted peas and Yorkshire puddings and carrots and parsnips and gravy?”
His usual indifference to my pleas for attention are set aside for a moment as he shows just enough interest in the plan for me to deem it a challenge extended, and a challenge accepted.
My humble chicken thoughts before being tricked into a whole Sunday Roast production included just the chicken. I wondered where I’d procure the bird, how large it would be, and what I would roast it in. I didn’t give a second thought to sides or accompaniments; the chicken was the thing and it didn’t need any bells and whistles. As far as I was concerned, all it needed was a hot oven and plenty of butter.
However, when I get home that evening, after 20 minutes or so of thinking of nothing else, I’m already mentally writing out the menu. As someone who did not grow up with a Sunday Roast tradition, I know I have to approach this entire project as a student would, and cram for the exam. For someone obsessed with technique, and almost unbearably so when it comes to doing things “the right way”, serving this meal to perfection is the only option.
At that very moment of intense connecting the dots of chicken, gravy, and potatoes, I receive a helpful but alarming message from my chicken challenger:
“Shall I bring the Bisto?”
I need to explain something here to those who may not be familiar with my special brand of crazy. Any suggestion of making something from a packet, regardless of how wonderful and laden with sodium and sugar preservatives it is, will be met with disdain, alarm, and a sense of wondering how we remained friends for this long. I’m sure Ms. Crocker makes a wonderful cake (and I’m sure I’ve enjoyed many of her confections) however it is not something you will ever find in my pantry. It pains me enough that I can’t churn my own butter, or grow my own olive trees, so you can safely assume anything you eat in my kitchen (or from a Tupperware full of cookies you may see me carrying around) is made from scratch. Store-bought may be fine for some, but not for me.
(An important further tangent here about “store-bought”. There are many delightful and charming things that I would haul to a desert island and have for my last supper, including but not limited to Nutella, Oreo, Milka, Milka plus Oreo, Haribo gummy bears, Lotus biscuits, and so on and so forth, and these are sacred to me. However, there is a time and place for commercially produced and preserved food items, but cake mix and gravy “granules” just don’t make the cut.)
I send a series of expressive emojis to convey my unequivocal thoughts about the boxed instant gravy granules, then get to work. If I’m going to do this by the book, then that’s where I’ll have to start: my cookbooks.
Friday
The following evening, inspired by thoughts of crispy skin and with nowhere to go, I make space at the kitchen island to begin my research, but soon my studies sprawl to the floor and across any surface I can find. A pile of 17 books sits expectantly before me, post-its and a pen to one side, and a mug of tea to the other.
With every book, I start at the end: the index. I begin my expedition in earnest, starting at C, for chicken. Sometimes I go to R too, looking for Roast, and sometimes to S for Sunday. P for potatoes come next, and G for gravy, the one I fear most, even more than achieving the dramatic form of a perfect Y for Yorkshire pudding. In doing all this, what I’m trying to arrive at is T for Truth, but as I stick a post-it in the eighth book in the pile, which happens to be Mr. Oliver’s aptly named Comfort Food, I am suddenly faced with a mounting discomfort as I realise that there is no Truth, rather numerous truths belonging to numerous experiences and numerous creative expressions. This disarms and disorients me; the idea that tradition was not decreed from somewhere above and set in stone—Ten Commandment-style. In this moment of clarity, I cast aside my student hoodie and don my detective cap instead.
Imagining Mr. Holmes in his Baker Street office (or, let’s be honest, Nancy Drew in her bedroom) I get to work of a different kind. Over the course of the hours that follow, I fall into mystery-solving mode, and it becomes my mission to pore over every recipe and menu suggestion in every cookbook I own to uncover the common threads—the overlaps and consensus that can be found in every Sunday Roast menu and every chicken directive.
It’s daunting work, but someone has to do, it I tell myself.
I make notes about the ratio of potatoes to butter, of philosophies about cream and milk in the mash. I compare recipes for roast carrots, some caramelized, some not. Some rustic, some fancy. All orange. I peruse the pea instructions… to mint or not to mint? The Yorkshire puddings take me down a deep dark hole of Wikipedia and YouTube tutorials, before I come back to she who I trust above all else: Ms. Lawson, and decide to stick with her. And finally, the gravy. Never in my life have I been faced with so many options… overwhelmed, I take zero notes here, and decide to wing it when the time comes.
Saturday
Once I have a loose notion of how to approach Sunday Roast, it’s time to stock up. At Cuisinarum, I avoid my usual stalking of the aisles and grab what I need before I’m distracted by a common syndrome: buying-things-I-don’t-need-with-money-I-don’t-have.
A roasting tin is a must, but I narrowly escape a Le Creuset “investment”. A muffin tin for the Yorkshire puddings would also serve me well in the banana muffin department, so that’s an expense I mentally justify. I pick up a prized wooden board I imagine more aesthetically pleasing than useful, but obviously, I can’t resist. A gravy boat would be a nice touch, and certainly indulge my desire for authenticity, but isn’t that the kind of odd single-use dining table object people put on their wedding registries? I decide to skip it. I regret it later.
A crucial visit to the grocery store for the big haul reminds me of how simple the Sunday Roast menu is. My shopping list is brief but rich: A chicken. (Yes, it’s organic, they just taste better.) Some lemons, onions, and garlic. A bag of potatoes. Lots of butter. Fresh herbs. Carrots. A kilo of frozen peas. A bottle of Austrian white wine. With less than ten items in my cart, I slip into the fast lane, and a few euros later, I emerge from the fancy supermarket ready to roast.
Sunday
Once I am armed with knowledge, it’s time to arm myself with latex gloves, a sharp set of knives, and a sous-chef, whose main job is to open the bottle of wine and top up the glass as needed.
Before I get started, I jot down the things I must remember from my research, namely the common threads I’ve settled upon to guide me:
The chicken must be at room temperature before any prepping can commence.
Herbs must be sturdy and fresh (yes to rosemary and thyme, no to basil, and no way to parsley).
The chicken must be buttered generously under the skin, and herbs can be added here too. Don’t skip this step, it’s easier than it sounds, but please, be very very gentle.
The oven must be pre-heated, and the chicken will go in at 220 degrees Celcius (in fact, one of the few things all the chefs I “consulted” can agree on is the temperature!)
The chicken’s cavity must be filled with something, a flavor vessel from within (I chose an onion and “hot lemon” Jamie Oliver style)
The gravy needs the trifecta to be perfecta: Wine, flour, and oh mon dieu, butter.
All mashed potatoes need are plenty of salt and butter… and keep that skin on!
Carrots take longer than expected to roast, but a quick cheat is to par-boil them first.
Yorkshire pudding batter must go into a very hot muffin tin and very hot oil.
The roast chicken must absolutely rest before it’s carved (however the Instagram-friendly board it lays upon is optional).
The concept of mise-en-place has been just as life-changing as kitchen scales as far as upping my cooking game goes, and in recent years has become my go-to “moving meditation”. I used to dread making a salad, daunted by the number of steps, the amount of chopping, the degree of planning, but today it is one of my favourite things to make, prepping it my only solace in the middle of a very busy and often screen-centric day.
In this case, the mise-en-place for the meal is more than half the work. Washing and scrubbing and peeling and grating and chopping and slathering and seasoning and tossing and sprinkling and dusting. In fact, most of the -ing you can imagine happens before any ingredients come in contact with heat.
(A quick note about prep: I strongly suggest that you open that first bottle of wine before you do any of this, as a glass of something potent and delicious can only make this whole experience more enjoyable. Don’t listen to anyone who points at the time as an arbitrary suggestion that it may be “too early” for any of that; in fact, I give you complete permission to deny that particular person the crispiest part of the chicken skin later.)
Once the chicken is in the oven, it’s mostly waiting until it looks good and ready to come out and rest. At that point, things must move very quickly. The oil-filled muffin tin pops out, the batter goes in, sparks fly for a moment before it’s tucked back into the oven. The chicken juices are sieved into a pot, joined by a little butter, a cup of wine (whatever is in your glass at the time will do), and a spoon of flour, and whisked vigorously with water added to thin it out as needed. The peas are stirred and tossed with fresh chopped mint, and the carrots, well they just sit there and wait.
Once everything is plated, and I take a moment to behold the table, I feel elated—the sense of accomplishment is unmatched. My guests are hovering, ready to dig in, and as I instruct them to wait while I take pictures, I am secretly enthralled by their eagerness to start eating.
After all, isn’t this what Sunday Roast is all about?
Another Sunday, many months later
My second attempt at Sunday Roast comes a few months later, for a bigger audience. For this one, I decide to venture further, to an outdoor market I enjoy far too much and spend way too long at, but it’s worth it. The garlic seems more magical, the onions seem sweeter, and the chicken seems more sophisticated. (I also find parsnips to rectify the, as I understand it, glaring omission from the first edition of Sunday Roast.)
That Sunday feels like a homecoming; the prep is confident, the skin buttering a joy, and the potato-mashing a pleasure. I wake up with a spring in my step, and with fall around the corner, it feels like the last true day of summer in 2020. As I wash and peel the carrots, and before the chatter of friends fills the air, I can’t help but think how fitting this Sunday Roast is as a way to bid farewell to this strange summer.
A reading list to get you started
Ministry of Food by Jamie Oliver (if you’re not sure where to start, start here!)
Dining In by Alison Roman
Cooking for Jeffrey by Ina Garten
How Easy is That? by Ina Garten
Cook, Eat, Repeat by Nigella Lawson
Feast by Nigella Lawson
Kitchen by Nigella Lawson
Comfort Food by Jamie Oliver
Twenty Dinners by Ithai Schori and Chris Taylor
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child
Simple by Ottolenghi
Disclaimer: If you feel inspired and end up using any of the links above to buy one of these books from Amazon, I might get a teeny tiny amount from the sale. Yay me! (But also, yay you!)