Sunday's simple surprises

The brilliance of the Sunday roast dinner (or lunch, depending on what time of day you eat) lies in its tradition. There’s just something comforting about roast chicken, beef, fish, or lamb. It’s soothing. It whispers to you: “Come on, every thing will be all right, just sit down and eat.” And the smells are out of this world.

I love cooking a roast dinner, partially because I can prepare, go away, return as necessary, checking on progress, and continue about my day, pottering about the flat.

But as some one who enjoys cooking new recipes and ideas, the simple roast can get a bit old. So my job is to add pieces of flair to the roast without it losing its simple, traditional roots.

There are obvious ways of tarting up a chicken, but they’re not all particularly healthy – butter, sausage meat, bacon, the works. Instead, I want something that will inject flavour and make the bird sparkle without worrying about clogging up my arteries, thanks very much.

That’s why I was intrigued by this recipe in the Sunday Times supplement a week ago. Now, I normally stuff herbs between the skin and the breast meat on a whole chicken (and in the old days this is where the butter would come in), but I hadn’t thought of cream cheese.


A lovely mixture of fragrant thyme, chopped garlic, lemon zest and cream cheese (I used light, without any problems) gets stuffed under the skin prior to roasting – keeping the breast meat juicy and succulent, but allowing the skin to brown quite nicely (for those who can’t resist a bit of chicken skin).

The 2 kg bird needs about 1 hour and 40 minutes in the oven, so I don’t have to do much else, aside from basting the chicken every 20 minutes with lemon juice (my favourite trick – you don’t need oil or butter, or even wine, lemon juice is top), until about 30 minutes before the chicken is due to come out of the oven. No need to rush – the chicken sits happily for about 15 minutes on the counter prior to carving.

On to veggies – purple sprouting broccoli, chantenay carrots (quite possibly the world’s perfect carrot), steamed leeks, boiled red potatoes, and some steamed sweet potato. It sounds like a lot – but I planned it that way. There are tons of leftovers, perfect for weekday lunches. And all the veggie trimmings get dumped into a pot with the carcass to make a load of wonderful stock.

An hour after dinner, pleasantly stuffed full of proper food, I feel very pleased with myself.

Image credit: Sunday Times