Roasts – Caplan Cook

Roast Potatoes

Serves 4

Ingredients

1kg Maris Piper Potatoes

Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Simpson’s Rub (2 parts Colman’s mustard, 1 part Maldon Sea Salt, 1 part freshly ground black pepper)

2 cloves of garlic (plus some loose leaves from the outside of the bulb or garlic

1 branch of rosemary

Method

Peel the potatoes and cut into portion sizes – not too small. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and par boil the potatoes for no more than 4 minutes. Drain in a sieve or a colander and shake to rough up the surfaces to make a crispy crust.

Transfer the potatoes to a roasting dish and drizzle with a little olive oil and mix so that all surfaces of the potatoes are covered. Sprinkle the rub over the potatoes and then add the garlic, the garlic leaves and the rosemary. Put the tray in the oven about 1 hour and 45 minutes before you want to eat. Check and shake the potatoes every now and then and turn if necessary.

Yorkshire Puddings

Serves 6 normal people or 4 of us

Ingredients

2 large eggs

180g plain flour

175ml milk

125ml water

Salt & Pepper

Oil

Method

Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl till a few bubbles appear on the top. Add the flour and mix till all the egg is absorbed. Not all the flour will be mixed in. season with a little salt and pepper. Add a little of the milk and water mixture whilst mixing continuously with a straight pronged whisk. Don’t let the mixture get too wet. You want a very thick stiff consistency with no lumps. Keep whisking so that you get a lot of glutinous strands of mixture pulling away from the bowl as you whisk it. It is this that will make the Yorkies rise. After a few minutes of this, add the rest of the milk and water mixture slowly, whilst continuously mixing until you get a smooth runny batter. You can now leave this to one side for a few hours if needs be. Some people say leaving it to rest makes the Yorkies better, but I doubt it.

About 40 minutes before you want to eat, pour a little oil into the bottom of each Yorkie mold, swirl it round to cover all inner surfaces and pop in the oven to get warm. After 5 minutes, take out and pour the batter mix evenly into the molds. Put back into the oven (you should be taking the meat out about now), and whack the heat back up to 230 degrees.

Take out and serve.

Roast Leg of Lamb

Many years ago, my wife and kids gave me a course in Roasting and Carving at Simpsons in the Strand for my birthday. It was truly and amazing experience and topped off by lunch for all of us where I carved for the table. Apart from learning to carve, one of the best things about the day was discovering Simpsons rub for all roasts. The rub comprises 2 parts of Colman’s mustard powder, 1 part of Maldon Sea Salt and 1 part of freshly ground black pepper. Simple huh? The rationale is that if you only serve good quality meat for a roast, them it doesn’t need anything else to hide the innate quality of the meat. I add garlic and fresh rosemary to mine because we all like it.

Ingredients

1 Leg of Lamb preferably from a good butcher

2 garlic cloves

2 stalks of rosemary

4 teaspoons of Simpson’s rub (2 parts mustard powder, 1 part Maldon sea salt, 1 part black pepper)

500ml of Lamb Stock (made from a knorr stockpot is ok)

1 teaspoon of dijon or wholegrain mustard

1 teaspoon of mint sauce

1 teaspoon of redcurrant jelly

half a glass of red wine

Method

Preheat the oven to 230 degrees C. Rinse and pat dry the leg of lamb with kitchen roll. stab the surface of the lamb with a sharp knife so you have a lot of 2cm deep knife holes in the lamb. Cut the garlic into little staves about the thickness of a toothpick. Push one of the staves of garlic and a leaf or two of rosemary into each knife hole. rub the whole of the leg of lamb with the rub so that it forms a light dusty crust. Drizzle with Olive Oil and put in the heated oven. The lamb will take 20 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes. After 15 minutes at 230 degrees, reduce the heat to 180 degrees for the duration.

Remove from the oven and rest on a carving board covered in foil for 30 mites before serving.

In the meantime, make the gravy.

Put the roasting dish with all the juices and bits from the cooking on a medium light on the stove. Pour the lamb stock into the roasting dish and with a wooden spoon, gently deglaze the bottom of the roasting dish by pushing and loosening the blackened bits and mixing them in to the stock. When this is bubbling and there is nothing stuck to the bottom any more, pour the gravy into a saucepan. There will now be a lot of fat/oil on top of the gravy. Allow this to settle for a few minutes and then, using kitchen roll, soak up the oil and discard. When all the surface oil has gone, add the wine, mustard, a teaspoon of mint sauce and redcurrant jelly as well as the anchovy and boil for about 5 -10 minutes. The anchovy has been my not so secret ingredient for years. Nowadays you can buy Umami paste in supermarkets, but the simple anchovy has been doing the job of enhancing those deep, meaty flavours for years. You won’t taste the anchovy, but you will sure as hell miss it when you don’t use it!

Now taste the gravy and adjust the seasoning or add water if required. Then mix the corn flour with a little water to make a very runny and lump free paste. Add this to the gravy to thicken. Serve with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and veggies of your choice.

Vegemite Chicken

I had to start off with this. A firm family favorite and the dish I can truly say I inherited from my mother. Whether she invented it or it came from the Australian Women’s Weekly circa 1964, I don’t know. However, it does work! You can also try variations of it – stuff the chicken with sausage meat; squeeze some lemon juice over the chicken and then stuff the lemon in the cavity, Stuff with loads of shallots, garlic and any other mediterranean staples – the sky’s the limit.

Ingredients

1 Chicken – preferably free range and weighing about 2kg

1 heaped teaspoon of Vegemite

2 cloves of garlic and a good handful of outer garlic leaves

Thyme, Rosemary or Herbes de Provence

Salt and Pepper

One teaspoon of Honey

For the Gravy

500ml Good Chicken Stock

1 teaspoon of Dijon Mustard

1 teaspoon of Redcurrant Jelly

A good slug of wine – red or white – whatever you are drinking

1 anchovy filet

1 heaped teaspoon of corn flour

Method

Rinse the chicken in cold water, pat dry in kitchen roll and then smear the vegemite all over the chicken so that it looks like it’s had a bad fake tan treatment. Place in a roasting dish and put the garlic cloves and a good handful of the herbs in the chicken cavity. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and cook in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 20 minutes per lb plus 20 mins. 10 minutes before the time is up, drizzle the honey over the chicken and return to the oven. Remove when done, place on a carving tray, cover with silver foil and leave for 30 minutes to rest. This enables the meat to relax and makes the chicken tender.

In the meantime, make the gravy. This is the perfect way of cleaning the roasting dish and ensuring that you have less scrubbing to do!

Put the roasting dish with all the juices and bits from the cooking on a medium light on the stove. Pour the chicken stock into the roasting dish and with a wooden spoon, gently deglaze the bottom of the roasting dish by pushing and loosening the blackened bits and mixing them in to the stock. When this is bubbling and there is nothing stuck to the bottom any more, pour the gravy into a saucepan. There will now be a lot of fat/oil on top of the gravy. Allow this to settle for a few minutes and then, using kitchen roll, soak up the oil and discard. When all the surface oil has gone, add the wine, mustard and redcurrant jelly as well as the anchovy and boil for about 5 -10 minutes. The anchovy has been my not so secret ingredient for years. Nowadays you can buy Umami paste in supermarkets, but the simple anchovy has been doing the job of enhancing those deep, meaty flavours for years. You won’t taste the anchovy, but you will sure as hell miss it when you don’t use it!