Cooking the Classics: My First Roast
Dinner
This week takes
a turn away from my usual subject matters reviewing adaptations or restaurants,
cafés, tea rooms and coffee shops in my local area. This week I’m writing about
cooking my first roast dinner, from scratch.
My boyfriend and
I moved into our first home together this summer and to say thank you to my
mother for her help as we went through the difficult moving process, we invited
her and her partner over for Sunday lunch. I’ve cooked plenty of meals before
and thrown numerous dinner parties but I’ve never cooked a full roast dinner
from scratch with all the trimmings, plus some extras!
I was nervous
already; my mother had only seen the new flat when it was total chaos, a shambles
of clothes, boxes, bags and furniture. So in addition to the pressure of
cooking my first roast dinner with traditional, quintessential British pudding,
I had the added pressure of making our new home looking sparkling! I like to
impress so now that all of our furniture and possessions had been cleaned,
sorted and organised I wanted our home to look like a show home! Now, I have attempted
to cook roast dinners in the past but only on a couple of occasion. Most of the
time, I do a lazy version of a roast involving cooking a joint of meat
(non-specific type), some form of carbohydrate (in this case often just cous
cous or sweet potato wedges) and then vegetables (either salad or if I’m
feeling posh some roasted Mediterranean vegetables). However, at the grand age
of 26 and moving into my first proper home I felt it was time that I learnt how
to do a proper roast dinner. Especially when my boyfriend loves them! The
couple of times I attempted cooking a roast dinner, it was the timing that
through me off but I’m glad that I had had my two failed attempts to look back
on as it meant that I was more prepared this time. I did decided to cheat for
one of the side dishes on this already tense occasion. I’m from a family of
roast potato lovers and the BF adores them too, so I bought some ready to roast
potatoes in beef dripping from M&S. However, these were actually rather
disappointing and I can’t say that I’d ever buy them again. They had a most
peculiar flavour, I’m not sure if it’s the preservatives or chemicals but they
just taste weird when eaten alongside a load of homemade comestibles.
I should also
add here that just to complicate matters further, I have a nut allergy and my
boyfriend does not react well to dairy and all four of us are making sure that
we are eating healthily at the moment (with the naughty exception of the roast
potatoes being a treat!). As its one of our favourites, I cooked roast lamb
with garlic and rosemary, roast carrots and parsnips, boiled peas and runner
beans, colcannon and homemade gravy. For pudding, I made an apple and
blackberry crumble, which was, of course, served with custard (low fat straight
from the tin in this case). Those are my two cheats in this dinner; tinned
custard and ready to roast beef dripping potatoes. The low fat custard was nice
and none of us had any complaints about that, the only thing that was a flop
was the ready to roast potatoes as I said earlier.
Instead of
using olive oil where you would normally, i.e., when roasting carrots and parsnips,
I used coconut oil. I also add a small drizzle of honey to my parsnips for
extra sweetness whenever I roast them. Try it! They’re amazing! The colcannon
was a combination of the usual Maris Pipers but with sweet potatoes chucked in
and then mashed with boiled cabbage. Finally some thinly chopped fresh spring
onions are stirred into the cabbagey mash just before serving to give it some
bite. The lamb, I’d stabbed all over and pushed fresh garlic and rosemary into
the holes before drizzling with the smallest amount of olive oil to aid the
cooking immediately before roasting.
Sauces can be
a controversial subject for some factions. Some people just like the usual
homemade gravy; others like to slather their plate with mint sauce or even mint
jelly. However, there are some interesting characters out there who like to
bastardize their plates by creating unusual sauce-to-meat combinations, such as
roast chicken with mint sauce, or roast beef with cranberry sauce, for
instance. Personally with lamb, I love salsa verde. On this occasion, I made this
to go with my roast lamb after having had some success with Jamie Oliver’s recipe
for this delicious herby sauce about a week beforehand (See Jamie’s recipe
here: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/salsa-verde/)
As with my other attempts making Jamie’s salsa verde, it worked perfectly again
and because of the oil in the recipe, when made airtight the salsa lasts for
several days afterwards ensuring that there’s no wastage.
All in all,
because I was aware of the fact that I had to get my timings right this time,
i.e., preheat oven whilst you prepare either your pudding (or salsa verde in my
case) and prepare the meat for the oven. When the meat is in the oven prepare
your roasting potatoes and check the time required for them to cook (whether
you’re making them from scratch or cheating like I did!), prepare your roasting
vegetables and whilst these all start cooking prepare your boiling vegetables
before eventually getting them on to boil in the last fifteen minutes before
you serve. Mash (or calconnon) takes a little longer but can be easily warmed
through allowing you to prepare it in advance. I boiled my potatoes (sweet potatoes
and Maris Pipers in together) before even looking at the rest of the food and
just left them with the lid on whilst I got everything else going meaning that
when the time came I only needed to mash them, stir in the boiled cabbage and
add the finely chopped spring onion. As I was aware of this delicate juggling
act this time, I was able to balance and organise my food preparation. This was
my biggest failure in the past, but this time due to my practice efforts it all
came together on time.
I prepared
the fruit for my pudding when everything was bubbling away merrily in the last
few minutes before serving. I had decided to make a traditional apple and
blackberry crumble with custard. I decided rather than making the whole crumble
whilst I waited for the dinner to cook, to just prepare the chopped apple and blackberry
with cinnamon, honey and coconut oil and arrange in the Pyrex dish. This meant
that when we were all stuffed and needing a food break, I only had to spend
five minutes knocking up the healthy crumble topping of desiccated coconut,
cinnamon, honey, a little brown sugar, linseeds, sunflowers seeds and poppy
seeds with ground almonds and melted coconut oil. The topping I then sprinkled
over the already prepared apple and blackberry and popped into the oven for 15
minutes before covering with tin foil and placing back into the oven for a
final ten minutes.
Sadly I’ve
not got any photos of the dinner I cooked, I was too stressed and nervous for
pics! But I have been assured of further attendance at my next Sunday roast
dinner and my boyfriend definitely enjoyed it as I’ve had repeated requests for
a recurrence ever since! I think I’ll save myself until Christmas now though!
Finally, I’m
glad I got over this massive personal hurdle, I’m pleased that I was able to
cook a really tasty and healthy meal and that I did it despite all my anxieties
about failing miserably. It’s certainly a life lesson!
It’s
better to fall sometimes than never to learn to fly!
