Roast Chicken

This is the ultimate home-sickness remedy. Take your FREE RANGE (I really am serious about that) chicken and place it on a chopping board cover the breast with three or four rashers of streaky bacon and into the cavity place a peeled onion. (See photos)

Peel some (the amount is up to you) main crop potatoes and put them in some water to "par-boil". This means that you will only boil them for about ten minutes. Drain these (keep the water ina pot) and allow them to dry a little with the lid off. When they are a little dry pop the lid back on and give the pan a single solid shake. The idea is to rough up the edges of the spuds so that they will crisp up nicely.

Get your oven nice and hot and pop some oil or lard in a roasting dish. (Vegetable oil is ok but lard is better - honestly it is. The best of all, however, is goose fat with duck fat coming a close second). When this fat is spitting hot pop the chuck in the pan and surround it with spuds. You may need to pop some puds in another roasting dish. If you like parsnip (and let's be honest, who doesn't!) peel and cut them into chunks and pop them in now (no need to par boil-them). Close the oven door and pour yourself a glass of wine.

After about 25 minutes check on you roast and spoon a little of the fat over the chicken, having removed the bacon. Also turn the spuds over at this time. Now you must get on with preping your veg. Carrots are a good cheap veg as are all the cabbages in season. Peel an onion at this time and cut it into 4 pieces. Pop the onion in with the other roastig veg and take the bacon of the chicken. The bacon should be crisp and oh so savoury - now you are faced with a huge dilema - should I eat this pre dinner treat with a glas of wine in the kitchen or should I share it? I think we both know which way you should go with this!

After about ten more minutes pop your carrots on to boil. Peel half a dozen cloves of garlic at this time too if you have it in. After a further 15 minutes its time to check the chicken. Slide a knife between the leg and the main part of the body - if it is red at all it needs more time - the photo below needed another 15 minutes.

When your chuck is cooked to perfection take it out of the oven and carefully pop it on a chopping board - cover with a piece of foil and let it "rest." Now the real fun begins. Here's your list -

1. pop all the roast stuff into a single tray on the oven and put the chicken tray on the hob having drained off most of the fat.

2. pop the garlic in the tray in the oven.

3. get your green stuff into the boiling water with the carrots.

4. take a deep breath.

5. turn on the heat under the tray and add a tablespoonful of plain flour - stir it in so it soaks up all the oily juices.

6. add a little of the potato water to the pan and stir like mad then add some more and keep stiring

7. crumble a chicken stock cube into the gravy and keep stiring

8. take another deep breath.

9. by now you should have a reasonably smooth gravy - add a glass of wine and allow it to boil.

Now the fun really starts...

Uncover your chicken and peel off the skin from the breast (this is like the bacon earlier - I leave it to your conscience!) Turn the bird so that its legs are pointing away from you and take a very sharp knife (size and width of blade are not relevent - its all about the edge!) and carve away at the breast aiming to getsmooth clean slices. There is no great mystery, trick or magical rite of passage involved in carving, just old fashioned practice makes perfect.

Plate up the chicken first and then start piling on the other stuff. Drain the veggies from the boiling water and pull everything else out of the oven. Cover everything with gravy, pour another glass of wine and enjoy.

I look forward to the day when as a society we treat the humble chicken with a bit more respect. There are two points here we should first regard this roast as a complete treat and secondly we must use all of the beast - it would be disrespectful to do any other.

Don't forget that every organisation needs a quality control manager!

Chicken week shopping list

This is a list of stuff you would need to buy if you were cook this stuff in one week. Now, seriously, if you were to organise a week in this way at University then you are not having enough fun. Please, please don't follow these weekly sets of recipes religiously - they are meant only as guides to ways in which you could organise your shopping and cooking.
This list must be seen in the context of the store cupboard ingredients.

Menu

Evening one - The second best Roast Chicken dinner in the world. (You don't expect to compete with your mother, do you?)
Lunch one - Hot or cold roast chicken.

Evening two - Spicey chicken pasta.
Lunch two - Spicey chicken Pasta

Evening three - Chicken and sadausage pie
Lunch three - Chicken and mushroom pie

Evening four - Scrambled eggs
Lunch four - Sausage sandwich

Evening five - Toad in the hole
Lunch five - Bacon salad

Shopping List
One Free range chicken (there is no joy in a battery reared beast)
250 gms Streaky Bacon
3 carrots
Other Veg (somthing green, maybe a couple of parsnips, whatever you fancy really)
1 bulb garlic
200 gms button (closed cup mushrooms)
250 gms lard (yes I am being serious!)
1 pillow bag salad
4 sausages (not the cheap type but don't break the bank either)
500 gms bag of plain flour (not the cheap type but.....)

Next time we get cooking!!!

The store cupboard

No kitchen can function without an array of simple yet essential ingredients. You need to take these with you when you head off to university (having got a parent to pay for them ) or buy them as soon as you arrive at your accommodation.

Below is the list that I would suggest but your personal list will vary from this and grow as your confidence in feeding yourself grows.

First let's talk about "dry goods" - these are the things which can sit in your cupboard for a long period of time.

Salt - buy according to your budget but the high quality salts can make a huge difference.

Oil - make sure you have simple sunflower oil as it will do for most things - if you want some luxury get yourself an olive oil and if you're really flush and extra virgin one.

Pasta - a bag of dried pasta is perfectly good for most dishes (and most Italians would agree). There is a vast array of dried pastas on the market and the quality does go up with the price. However, as you will probably be smothering it in a rich and hearty sauce, buy cheap. Even the supermarket's value/economy/smartprice/etc pastas are perfectly usable. I cannot stress how important it is to ALWAYS have a bag of Pasta in the kitchen.

Rice - An ordinary bag of long grain rice will make a perfect friend to a chilli con carne, a curry and a nice stir-fry. For special luxury its sometimes worth having a bag of Arborio or Carneroli for an oozing, heart warming risotto.

Cous Cous - One of the great time saving starches. All you have to do is add a stockcube and boiling water (maybe a few spices if you fancy) and you have an accompaniment for almost anything with a sauce!

Tinned Tomatoes - As with pasta the price of these can vary from pennies to serious money. Buy cheap and spend the money you saved on a nice bit of cheese. Tinned tomatoes can be (with the addition of an onion and pasta) a simple, filling meal for under £1.

Stock - Most "chefy" cook books will tell you that you simply must have homemade stock in the fridge and then give you a recipe for chicken stock which involves four hundred ingredients! A word to the wise - "buy powder or cubes" just be careful about the saltiness. Later there will be a recipe for a real chicken stock but lets not panic till then.

Herbs and Spices - You simply must have a small pepper grinder and these can be purchased for a couple of pounds and refilled for pennies. Collect other dried herbs and spices as the recipes you're are cooking demand. Never leave your herbs and spices behind when you move accommodation, over time you will find that you have spent a great deal on them and the replacement value is very high.

Sauces - There are a few sauces which are irreplaceable. Soy sauce will make nearly any dish taste better. (Buy dark soy and use it as directed in cooking or over a cooked dish). There is really only one tomato ketchup and you must have a bottle on your shelves; not only is it useful to squirt into the odd dish, but a sausage sandwich would be lost without it. I am a huge fan of brown sauce but I do understand that there are those who haven't yet joined us right thinking people and for them there is plenty of space at the back of the queue. Worcestershire sauce is an icon of the kitchen - buy a small bottle and keep it - don't worry about sell by dates it just gets better and better with age. Tabasco must be there too.

And finally whatever you fancy to sharpen up your sandwiches (Mustard, Horseradish, Mayo, Marmite, etc)

Vegetables - There are only really three veg that you simply must have in a kitchen: Onions, potatoes and frozen peas. Onions are the start of so many good things that it would be lunacy to try and cook without them, buy the best value ones, they may be smaller but it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that a small onion has more flavour. You simply must have a bag of potatoes in your kitchen make sure you have a couple in the bag that are large enough to be baked in their jackets. Frozen peas are a life saver either served as a veg or blitzed up into a soup and, what's more, you can tell the parents that you are eating some greens too!

The Fridge - When you first arrive at your new accommodation, clean your fridge with some suitable fluid. It is likely that the fridge has had nothing in it but microbes for a few months. Now a full fridge is nearly always a wasteful fridge so don't just buy stuff in order to fill the space.
Nigel Slater once wrote that there is no light as pure as the light of a fridge in the early hours of the morning, and this is true there should always be a snack of some sort ready to make on your return from that big night out.

Eggs - a half dozen eggs are a must, it is really important that you buy the best you can afford and personally I wouldn't touch anything that is not free range - this is not only a animal welfare issue its also a quality issue. Treat your eggs like gold, they are the most incredibly versatile ingredient you could ask for. Add salt, pepper, little cheese and some heat and you have an
omlette - it really is a simple as that.

Milk - Buy the type of milk you want to drink in your tea and coffee. Your sauces will be a little richer if you use full fat milk but its not worth drinking oily tea over.
Cheese - Buy a mature cheddar, it is a false economy to buy mild cooking cheese. The mature cheddar will go much further and your food will be less oily. Maybe a little lump of Parmesan might be nice (buy it when you're feeling flush).

Butter - or whatever you want to spread on your toast. Butter is also a superb cooking medium. There a many low fat spreads go with your purse and your waistline.


So there you have it a basic list of "must haves" The next blog will give you a insight into how a chicken could deliver fantastic value meals all week.

So here we are...

So here's the story so far:
I'm a teacher in a secondary school who has, what some may call, a lunatic obsession with food. I write a blog cornercottagekitchen.blogspot.com about my food adventures in the Chiltens. About ten minutes ago one of my Upper sixth classes told me that, as they were going to university next year, they required recipes and advice on how to survive on a very low budget. In the past I have run various cooking clubs for youngsters and I am a fan of the idea of frugal cooking.
The modern university student is constantly faced with the worry of graduating with massive debts, so every penny saved in the kitchen represents a little less debt (or you could just spend the saved money in the student union bar!)
This site will be updated regularly and build to an entire budget for 10 weeks (at Christmas we'll See if I can be bothered to continue). This blog is dedicated to the origonal 7Bd (and their hangers on!) you know who you are!