Sunday Roast- Ways With Veg

Up this week is a little segment about ways to cook your veg to make them more interesting as side dishes to your roast. As mentioned in an earlier article ‘How to Make Less Feed More’, making creative side dishes to your roast is an excellent way of keeping a meal cheap and tricking people into not realising how little meat they’ve got!

My favourite way to cook carrots has to be with honey and mustard, but Ian really enjoys my brussels with bacon! Have you got a favourite?

Brussel Sprouts:

With bacon- Boil for 5 minutes, then blanch in cold water. Fry chopped bacon in a pan, and add the brussels for the final 5mins of frying. Make sure they’re coated in the bacon grease and crispy on the outside!

Broccoli:

With cheese: Par-boil chunked broccoli until tender, then drain and place in casserole. For the cheese sauce- Fry a little butter in a saucepan, then add flour. Cook for 1-2 minutes and then add milk little by little (whisking as you go) until you have enough to cover the broccoli. Turn up the heat and continue to stir, scraping the bottom, until it thickens to the consistency you want. Add salt, pepper, and grated cheese, and pour over broccoli. Grate more cheese over the top and bake for 30-40mins, or until cheese topping has turned brown.

Simply boiled- Boil for 5 minutes until tender (check with a knife) and drain and blanch in cold water. Serve with similarly treated carrots for a colourful side dish!

Carrots:

Honey and mustard carrots- Matchstick carrots and place in a frying pan. Cover with water, 2tbsp of honey and 1tbsp of wholegrain mustard. Simmer until carrots are tender and coated in sticky honey glaze!

Ginger carrots– Matchstick or slice and treat as above, this time adding a cube of ginger along with them for a Thai twist. These go really well with lemon-roasted chicken!

Roasted- Chop into large chunks and par-boil along with the potatoes for the final couple of minutes. Drain and put into roasting tin with plenty of oil. These are the easiest carrots to do as they require no extra work, but they don’t add much to the illusion that there are loads of plates on the table!

Cauliflower:

With cheese- Make as for broccoli cheese but replace broccoli with cauliflower and treat exactly the same!

Courgette:

Fried- Slice thinly lengthways and pan-fry in a little butter until almost see-through. Sprinkle with black pepper and serve.

Leeks:

With Cheese- Make as for broccoli with cheese sauce, but replace broccoli with leeks boiled for 1-2minutes to soften. Try using half cheddar and half blue cheese for a twist!

Parsnips:

Roasted– Chop into large chunks and add to the boiling potato water for the final 5mins of boiling. Then drain with potatoes and add to roasting dish along with potatoes, and cook for the same length of time. This is the easiest way to cook parsnips, because you don’t have to do anything more to them!

Puree– Boil until tender, and add to food processor along with a clove of garlic. Add a little cream or milk and process until soft and peaky.

Fried- Slice thinly lengthways and fry in butter for a slightly unusual parsnip dish. Try adding ginger for a more exotic flavouring.

With Parmesan- Par-boil parsnips for 5 minutes, drain, and roast for 30. Grate plenty of Parmesan over the top and bake for a further 30mins. Alternatively, Delia’s method is to shake them in a flour and Parmesan mixture whilst they are still hot from the par boil, then roast for 20mins, turn, and roast again.

Sweet Potatoes:

Roasted- As with other root veg, chunk, par-boil and treat as potatoes. Cook for an hour and a half to two hours in a 160-200 C oven.

Swede:

Roasted– As with other root veg, chunk, par-boil briefly, and treat as potatoes from then on.

Mash– Chunk and add to boiling water for 10mins to tenderise. Drain and add to food processor along with a clove of garlic. Puree, adding milk or cream if necessary. You can also add a little carrot to bulk out and remove the slight bitterness of the swede.

Sunday Roast- Making that Pork Crackle!

Welcome to the Sunday Roast Specials!

This week’s post will focus on the difficult skill of making pork crackling!

“Crackling is every child’s favourite and I vividly remember being very small and asking mum what was for roast each week… no matter what the reply I’d ask ‘Does that have crackling?’

Now I’m a little older and I know the difference between pork and chicken, but making the crackling crackle can still sometimes be a challenge!”

Pork crackling needs two things to work- heat, and dryness. Everything set out below is to work towards these two things!

• Wash the surface of the skin to remove any gunk or juice it has been sitting in in the packet.
  The science: Water evaporates much easier than ‘gunk’, leaving a cleaner surface. This will allow the skin to dry properly, which makes it easier to score, easier to dry, and more susceptible to heat.
• Score the skin. If already scored, check for any gaps then move on to the next step. Scores can be parallel (~2 cm apart) or crosshatched (~4cm along each side of the square). The narrower the scoring, the easier the heat can get right into the fat to make it crackle.
  The science: The scoring allows the water out of each section in the ‘salting’ round, and also allows the heat to get in during each heating round.
• Pour boiling water over the skin slowly but steadily. A whole kettle should take at least 30 seconds to pour. Aim it at a section, and watch the skin tighten and the scores open out. Then move to the next section. Repeat until all the skin has been covered.
  The science: This gives the skin its first heating. Multiple heating-cooling cycles force the skin and fat cells to burst and therefore cause the skin to take on the ‘crackled’ appearance.
• Allow the pork skin to steam dry, then rub salt all over, and especially into the scores. Leave for a couple of minutes, and look at the skin surface. It will be covered in water again! Dry off with kitchen towel, and wait a little longer, then repeat the drying. You need to do this 4-5 times (or as many as you like!), and may need to add more salt as you go.
  The science: The salt raises the water potential of the outer surface of the skin, and so draws water out of the fat cells exposed by the scoring, drying them out! (It also makes it taste reeeally good!)
• Put into a preheated oven at 210 degrees centigrade. The fan should be off, if this is an option, and the pork placed at the top. Check after 10 minutes- you may need to move the pork down a little if it is looking a bit like it will burn.
  The science: The hard-hitting heat of a preheated oven at this sort of temperature is more than those little cells can bear! They ‘crackle’ as they burst, a little like popcorn!
• After about 20minutes, your crackling should be done. Turn the oven temperature down to your normal cooking temperature, or allow the pork to sit under the roast potatoes at a cooler oven temperature.

So there we go, a foolproof guide to delicious crackling! I’d love to hear your comments on the crackling, so please post below.

Next week: Ways With Vegetables!

Sunday Roast- Make Less Feed More

Welcome to the Sunday Roast Specials…

Up this week- how to make a little meat go a long way without people feeling cheated!

“As the queen of keeping it cheap, making less feed more is one of my most important skills. Here are some of the cheats I use on my Sunday Roast to keep it frugal!”

• Buy more unusual cuts, such as belly of pork or lamb breast (you can see recipes here!).
• Generally speaking, chicken and pork are cheaper than beef or lamb, so try to stick to these.
• Shop around- Aldi does  1kg no-bone pork shoulder joints for as little as £3.49!
• Bulk it out using cheap potatoes. As a rule I use one small potato each if I’m doing other root veg, but do two, or three…. so people won’t notice they aren’t getting as much meat or a variety of veg! You could even make two potato dishes (mash and roast, for instance) to disguise the fact you’re filling people on potatoes!
• Onions are also cheap- add them to your veg roasting dish for the last hour to bulk it out further!
• Carrots are cheap too- instead of roasting them, try making them as a separate side dish! The extra dishes on the table and piles on the plate draw attention away from how little there is in each pile!
• Pick what’s in season. Leeks are in season now, and are cheap, and brussels are coming to the end of their season. Savoy cabbage is cheap this time of year and can be blanched then fried with a little bacon for a yummy side dish that even fussy kids will eat!
• Adding stuffing made from a stuffing mix is another way to ensure people are full up without feeling left out! It’s cheap too!
• Don’t buy gravy, make it from the juices that leave the meat during cooking, and save yourself a fortune! (It tastes better too!)
• Don’t forget to use the leftovers! A leftover chicken carcass can be used for my chicken soup and leftover roast chicken can be made into a pie. Leftover pork is brilliant in sandwiches with sauce, and old roast potatoes can be made into potato cakes for tomorrow!

Go on, make that roast go further! And if you have any more suggestions, please comment! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Next Week: Foolproof Crackling!