It’s Mother’s Day, and I’m making a Sunday roast for five, so here are my top tips.
Salt ahead. My two chickens were sprinkled with salt and left in the fridge for a couple of days. Pat them dry before cooking.
Brown the bottoms first. Sit the chickens in a roasting tin on the hob so you hear them sizzle, and get the undersides nice and brown, shaking the pan so they don’t stick.
Legs first. Always put them in the oven feet first: the legs take longer than the breasts, so the breasts should face the oven door. They have 30 minutes at 230°C breast-up, then I turn them breast-side down for 20 minutes (I use the back of a spatula and a fork to flip them), then breast-up again for a final 10 minutes to crisp the skin.
Save the fat. Pour off the fat and juices partway through. Once chilled, the fat sets into schmaltz – use it like butter or cooking oil for a lovely chickeny flavour. The dark juice underneath goes in the gravy.
Potatoes. Parboil them in salted water, shake them in the pan to rough them up, and cut them quite small so they crisp. While the chickens rest, roast them in smoking-hot duck fat with plenty of black pepper for 25–30 minutes, turning halfway.
Rest it. People don’t rest chicken long enough. Half an hour, even 45 minutes, is absolutely fine and it’ll benefit.
Make stock. Throw the bones into a pressure cooker the next day – you can make amazing stock in 30 minutes. Bubble some water in the roasting tin to scrape up all the baked-on bits, and add that too.
On the side: shop-bought stuffing cooked rough for crunchy bits, cauliflower cheese topped with leftover lemon and garlic pangrattato, and leek and broccoli stir-fried in schmaltz and butter with a splash of water to steam.