Roast Chicken & Other Stories

Not my title, unfortunately. It belongs to Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham. This fabulous little book was published exactly thirty years ago. Voted the most useful cookbook of all time, it once knocked Harry Potter (then at the height of his fame) off the top of the book charts. It takes 40 ingredients and provides three or four recipes for each. No glossy photos to jack up the price, just rather lovely illustrations by Flo Bayley. I'm ashamed to admit I haven't used it more.

My recent chicken theme brought it to mind. I hope my succulent thighs got you cooking, or perhaps you were inspired by my moist poaching technique. But if you truly want to pay homage to a wonderful fowl, can you do anything finer than to roast it?

Simple enough, isn't it? Heat it up, stick it in, take it out. Ah, if only, best beloved, if only. What you seek is succulent flesh and crispy skin, a delight to both eye and palette. Easier said than done. First piece of advice. Ignore most books, and totally disregard anything on the label. The cooking times on your average supermarket chook will result in blotting paper.

Tom's Simple Method

Make sure your chicken is at room temperature. If you've kept it in the fridge, take it out an hour or two before cooking. Preheat your oven to 190˚C/Mark 5. Put the chicken in a roasting tray. Season inside and out with salt and rub with olive oil. Put half an onion and half a lemon in the cavity. Subject to an important caveat, roast for 15 minutes to the pound (for some reason I've never taken my roasting times metric) and 15 over.

The caveat is that I have never yet encountered a chicken which needs more than 90 minutes, and in a few cases I may have slightly overcooked. Be scientific about it. Get a decent thermometer. They are surprisingly cheap. Insert at the thickest part of the breast, making sure you're not striking bone. If the temperature is 75˚C or above, you're fine.

While the flesh should never be pink, with young birds you may see a pink tinge at the joint between the leg and body. This is nothing to worry about. When you have finally stripped the carcasse, remember to remove the lemon and onion before making stock. (No, I don't believe it. PLEASE, PLEASE don't tell me that you throw the carcasse away unused.)

Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken

Out of deference to the master, I quote the recipe verbatim. In an interview with Jay Rayner a couple of years ago, Simon apparently said that nowadays he would use a mere 75g of butter.

Ingredients

110g/4oz good butter, at room temperature; 1.8kg/4lb free-range chicken; 1 lemon; several sprigs of thyme/tarragon; 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed; s & p.

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Preheat the oven to 450˚F/230˚C/Gas Mark 8. Smear the butter all over the bird. Put the chicken in a roasting tin that will accommodate it with room to spare. Season liberally with salt and pepper and squeeze over the juice of the lemon. Put the herbs and garlic inside the cavity, together with the squeezed out lemon halves-this will add a fragrant lemony flavour to the finished dish.

Roast the chicken in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Baste, then turn the oven temperature down to 375˚F/190˚C/Gas Mark 5 and roast for a further 30-45 minutes with further occasional basting. The bird should be golden-brown with a crisp skin and have buttery, lemony juices of a nut-brown colour in the bottom of the tin.

Turn off the oven and leave the chicken to rest for at least 15 minutes before carving. This enables the flesh to relax gently, retaining the juices in the mat and ensuring easy, trouble-free carving and a moist bird.

Carve the bird to suit yourself; I like to do it in the roasting tin. I see no point in making a gravy in that old-fashioned English way with the roasting fat, flour and vegetable cooking water. With this roasting method, what you end up with in the tin is an amalgamation of butter, lemon juice and chicken juices. It’s perfect homogenisation of fats and liquids.

All it needs is a light whisk or a stir, and you have the most wonderful ‘gravy’ imaginable. To add extra flavour, scoop the garlic and herbs out of the gravy cavity, stir them into the gravy and heat through; strain before serving.

Want to go really upmarket? I offer you-

Poulet de Bresse Cuit en Vessie

This was invented by the legendary Mere Brazier or her predecessor Mere Fillioux, and was made famous by Paul Bocuse. Ideal for a simple Sunday dinner. You get a poulet de Bresse and a pig's bladder. You put thinly sliced black truffle under the skin of your chicken. It's sometimes called demi-deuil, or half mourning  because of the colour. You fiddle about a bit with stuffing and the liver and morels and Madeira and cream and stock and things. The bird itself is cooked inside the pig's bladder. For a description of the real thing, featuring my new bestie John Williams of The Ritz, read this article.

But pig's bladders are hard to find, and a real poulet de bresse I see quoted at £45.50. I was about to give up, when our hero Simon struck again. Here is a gem of an idea, transforming the classic French inspiration into a do-able domestic recipe. I like to think of this as Hopkinson genius.

The end result will be a fabulous leg meat dish. You do need to invest in a small black truffle (15 - 20g) and a whole bird of good quality. Remove the legs in one piece. Save the breasts for something else, and use the carcasse for the essential stock. Simon advises adding a glass of white wine.

Simon Hopkinson's Poached Chicken Legs with Truffle, Madeira and Cream

Begin the day before serving. Joint your chicken and make the stock. Prep the chicken legs (see below).

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 chicken legs (removed from a whole bird); 1 small black truffle, thinly sliced (try www.thewildroom.com); a small quantity of chopped onion, carrot and celery;  200g sliced button mushrooms (you need them nice and white); sprig of tarragon and a few parsley stalks; small glass of Madeira; chicken stock (made from the carcass); 150ml double cream; salt and white pepper.

To accompany

About 100g fresh (or dried) pasta (Simon recommends fettucine); butter and parsley to dress the pasta.

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Peel back the skin from the chicken legs until it’s only just attached. Completely cover the exposed flesh with truffle slices, replace the skin and tie back firmly using two lengths of string per leg. Tightly wrap in clingfilm and place in a sealed container in the fridge for at least 12 hours, so that the truffle infuses the chicken.

Remove the clingfilm from the chicken and choose a pot that will accommodate the legs snugly. Add the chicken legs, vegetables, herbs, seasoning, Madeira and add enough stock to cover. Having gauged how much liquid you need, remove the chicken legs to a plate and cook the aromatics, covered, in the stock for a good 30 minutes to flavour it.

Now, reintroduce the chicken and quietly continue to simmer, again covered, for a further 25–30 minutes. Switch off the heat and rest the contents for 10 minutes. Lift out the chicken, remove the string, cover with foil and keep it warm.

Strain the broth, discarding the exhausted vegetables, into a clean pan and reduce the liquid by half or until it’s a touch syrupy and has an intense flavour.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta until al dente, then dress with butter and parsley.

To complete the dish, add the cream to the reduction, whisk together and simmer until you have an ivory-coloured sauce with an unctuous, slightly thickened coating texture. Pour this over the chicken and serve with the pasta alongside.