Sunday roast, but not quite.

Poverty breeds something that is almost like a cliche.




No, it is.

In the wandering madness of High St, Northcote, yesterday, I and DaVa ventured to the Wesley Anne and somehow discovered a very awe-worthy IGA.

In there, we found an actual free range 2kg chicken for $6.50. Of course, it was a few days off its sell-by date, so at nine, we decided that we were going to make a roast chicken while watching Naked Lunch. Dumpster diving is an option this week, but we do have to get our shit together.

There were a couple of problems with this, we didn't quite realise we would fall into the cliche of Sunday roast, but also that the video store had misplaced their copy of Naked Lunch.

This then involved us having to start watching the De Palma interpretation of The Black Daliah, give up on it and then switch to the polar opposite; Kevin Smith's Dogma. After watching that, we realised that we didn't like Kevin Smith.
As this was happening, obviously BB wanders in the kitchen with something close to sunstroke with his lady and we all end up having a picnic on the floor.


Roast Chicken

1, 2kg free range chicken
sea salt
butter
fresh sage
fresh rosemary
1 lemon
1/2 a head of garlic
kitchen twine

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Cut the arse and the wishbone out of the chicken and salt the cavity and the skin. Using your hands, separate, but don't tear the skin from the flesh. Rub the butter between the skin and the flesh and then insert the fresh sage and rosemary in the same areas, including the drumstick and the wings.
Slice half a lemon and shove it in the cavity with the garlic, smashing it with a knife. Tie it up under the neck and tuck in all the limbs, ensuring even cooking. Salt the outside again, just in case and place on a roasting tray with a wire rack to catch the juices, breast side down, so it stays moist.

Bake for an hour and a half to two hours or till the middle tests as 75 degrees Celsius. Then, remove from oven and rest for twenty minutes before carving.


Gravy

Pan juices
butter
flour
vegetable stock
sea salt
freshly cracked pepper

Place the pan with the juices over a burner and scrape it all off the bottom, add some butter if needed, followed by some flour. Scrape at the juices and incorporate with the flour till you get a thick paste and the flour has cooked out. Add the vegetable stock (or wine), half a cup at a time, till your desired consistency, stirring till the lumps dissolve and you get a gravy. Season with salt and pepper and serve with the roast chicken.

We ate this with peas, beans and amazing roasted carrots and potatoes, courtesy of DaVa. Unfortunately the picture taken was too dark.

Keep the carcass and pick off the meat to make sandwiches or crepes, which is what we did in the morning, and use the carcass to make stock.

Boo-yah!

Pity we didn't eat till 11pm.