Story of a Roast Virgin
I’ve been cooking for myself, family and friends for about 20 years, and in all that time I’ve never cooked a roast anything.
I’d always been of the opinion that they took too long to cook, took too much preparation and heaps of cleaning up, so they weren’t worth the effort. However I’d decided that it was finally time to break this cherry and see what sort of a dish I could prepare.
I thought I’d start out easy and get a fresh prepared chicken breast roast with sundried tomato and herb stuffing. The reason I chose this one was that it came in it’s own oven tray (less cleaning) and there were instructions on the box. There was only three steps, I couldn’t go wrong.
I preheated the oven to 180 degC, took the plastic off the top and slid it into the oven.
Then I peeled and cut some potatoes, carrots and onions and placed them on an oven tray, I drizzled some olive oil over the top, then sprinkled with salt, pepper, oregano and basil. These made it into the oven about 10 minutes after the chicken.
At the 30 minute mark I took the veggies out and turned them. Some of them had stuck to the bottom of the tray but a bit of chiselling with a fork fixed this. And back into the oven they went.
At the 50 minute mark I checked the veggies, the fork went in easy so I knew they were done. I covered them with foil and set them aside.
I was a little concerned about the chicken, I stabbed it with a knife and the juices ran clear like they are supposed to when it’s cooked, but the skin on the outside didn’t looked cooked at all.
I had to take some emergency action that wasn’t in the instructions. I turned the grill element on in the oven and rubbed some butter over the skin of the chicken before returning to the oven for another 10 minutes.
This did the trick on the skin but this is where the story starts to go down hill. I got the roast out of it’s tray and as per the instructions I let it stand for 10 minutes before carving. I started carving and this is when things fell apart literally. I’d expected to get a slice of chicken and stuffing just like the picture on the box, but it just didn’t happen. I think I either needed to use a sharper knife or let it stand for a bit longer.
The good news is that the chicken was cooked perfectly, juicy and tender, just how I like it. It just wasn’t visually appealing, hence I wasn’t proud enough of this baby to take a photo and share with you all.
And in all the drama I forgot to make a gravy, the chicken was so good it really didnt need a gravy, but you can’t have a roast without gravy. It made me wish I had some of the instant “just add water” stuff in the cupboard. Next time I won’t forget!
Yes there will be a next time, I’ve learnt a couple of lessons, I will try starting with a higher heat in the oven next time to try and help crisp the skin of the chicken, I will start making gravy as soon I get the chicken out to rest, and I might invest in some foil oven trays because I’m not looking forward to scrubbing the oven tray I used.
So if you were like me earlier today and were a roasting virgin, give it a go, it’s not that hard.
[...] Back here I wrote about the first time I ever tried to cook a roast. [...]