Nic's roast dinner

On Saturday night I was tired from my working weekend, so when it came around to dinner time I was so excited to hear Nic say he was going to cook a 'roast chook with all the trimmings' and all I had to do was sit back with a glass of vino and relax!

Nic makes a very good roast, he tells me stories of him coming home from school when he was a kid and popping on the roast for dinner when his mum was home late from work; rubbing the beef with mustard, sticking in cloves of garlic and rosemary in the leg of lamb or as he did on this occasion, shoving lemon and thyme up the cavity of a chicken. I often think of this and remind myself to get Max in the kitchen more so when he is a little older he can do the same for us.

Because Nic knows me so well I didn't even have to ask him to snap a photo of the chook before carving, instead he took it upon himself to not only take one shot but document his chook from beginning to end. I thought why waste his pictures so below is a photo/commentary of our Saturday roast.

When Nic cooks he does not believe in low fat, or using anything sparingly therefor I knew he was going to use all my thyme and stuff a big lemon up the chooks cavity,

and knowing all of this I am also aware of his favorite flavour optimizer- BUTTER!

Even though I know he loves the stuff and uses more than I, I am still trying to pick myself up off the floor as to the amount of butter that got stuffed under this little birdies skin- no wonder I kept commenting on how juicy the meat was!

Along with chunks of butter (and I hope you noted the chunk squeezed next to the lemon) we had a feast of pumpkin, our home grown pots and roasted onions. I haven't eaten roasted onion in ages, I had forgotten how soft, juicy and sweet onions become when blasted with a hot oven. Now that Nic had all his bits and bobs in the oven he was left to saute some fennel with even more butter. Don't get me wrong I love butter but at this stage I am starting to wish I didn't go back for seconds; if I keep this caper up random people will be pointing out Jack Sprat and his wife whenever we go out!

At the stage of pulling the chicken out of the oven and resting the meat I always get a call to come into the kitchen and make the gravy. I have to thank my grandma for passing down her method to mum and then mum passing it on to my sister and I. Draining off a lot of the fat (again I was thinking to myself what a lot of fat this bird had whilst draining) I then heat some of the juice and fat over a stove top and add about a tablespoon of flour, then stir to form a paste. With the paste thickening I just add more juices from the chicken and any water left from boiling veggies...alas we didn't boil anything this time so I just used water; continually stirring the sauce until the lumps go and you are left with a thick yummy gravy.

So there you have it, Nic's roast chook was absolutely delicious. We all ate way to much as per usual and there were left overs but I'll tell have to tell you all about that meal tomorrow!