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Flavoursome meat with plenty of spuds – men are fairly basic creatures when it comes to food. A home-cooked Sunday roast is a sure-fire route to Dad’s heart and it’s the perfect way to mark Father’s Day.
You can’t go wrong with a chicken; cut slits on the breast and massage butter in underneath. Tuck cloves of garlic under its wings (whole garlic becomes sweet when roasted) and insert fresh springs of rosemary and thyme.
Stick a lemon or orange up its nether regions for a deliciously aromatic bird, and drape streaky rashers over its back for even more flavour.
Stuffed loin of pork is a popular favourite; cook onions in butter until soft; then add breadcrumbs and seasoning. You can fire all manner of interesting things into stuffing – bacon bits; apricots; dates; even nuts for added texture.
Slit the loin lengthways and stuff; then wrap it in a layer of Clingfilm and tinfoil. Remove for the last 15 minutes of cooking for incredibly moist, tender pork.
Meats like lamb and beef are better ‘bone in’ and cooked slowly. Browning meat before roasting does not ‘seal in the juices’; it actually releases juices you can use to make incredible gravy. Browning causes a complex process called the Maillard reaction in the meat fibres to soften it and bring flavours to the fore.
All meat should be let ‘rest’ after cooking to redistribute the juices. Cover it with foil on a warm plate, and a good rule of thumb is one minute of rest per 100g of meat.
For delicious roast potatoes, parboil them and then roughing them up in a colander to make them fluffy inside, with crispy edges. Duck or goose fat gives a crunchy coating, or put them under the chicken so juices drip down for seriously flavoursome roasties.
Rustle up a tray of veg by rolling them in oil; then season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a bit more oil over them and roast until they’re tender but retain a bit of bite.
Honey will jazz up root veg like carrots or parsnips, and If you’re serving peas you can add a little sugar, salt and butter to transform them from a simple side dish into a ‘pièce de résistance’. Peas de résistance, even!
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