Roast Chicken Dinner

Delicious Roast Chicken Dinner

A fantastic tradition in Britain is that of the great British roast chicken Sunday dinner. Read more about the traditional Sunday Roast here. A bisto roast chicken dinner is certainly one of the favourite variants of this.

I have many recollections as a kid of us sitting around the table on a Sunday. We always had to wait for my father to get back from golf, so we could eat our traditional Sunday lunch together. The Sunday dinner tradition was very strong in our household. My Mum was (and still is) a great cook and would always do us proud.

Family Sunday Lunch

The roast meat was always lamb, chicken, pork, beef or whatever that week had been on offer. And the side dishes would be a combination of roast potatoes, greens, carrots, parsnips and other vegetables. There was normally also some other strange English invention on the table. Things like bread or mint sauce or stuffing – all depending on the meat. All delicious of course.

We would scoff ourselves fully, a bit like at Christmas, and then relax on the couch and invariably fall asleep!

Competing student’s mums

All my friends at school and University also had a similar Sunday lunch tradition and it was interesting to see how it varied from house to house. I studied at University in the North of England. There it seemed to be a challenge for all of my friend’s mothers to feed us all until we popped.

Some of my friend’s Mums really put on the most incredible spreads with the tabletop covered in different types of vegetable: boiled, fried, roasted, baked – everything was possible. I have some very happy memories of those days and the long-lasting friendships that I made at that time.

This was an important part of growing up and I remember thinking I would always like to make this a thing in my own house when I was older. And these days, when all my family is together, which is unfortunately not very often, I love to get everyone around the table and give them a roast dinner.

Dinner or lunch?

Whether you call it ‘dinner’ or ‘lunch’ depends a bit on where you are from in the UK. Northerners tend to call the meal in the middle of the day ‘dinner’. Whereas down South this would be referred to as ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner would be the evening meal. Where the cut-off point for this is I do not know. But suspect it must be around the Midlands somewhere.

In any case I am originally a Southerner that studied up North, so am still a bit confused. Or bilingual you might say! I still call it a traditional Sunday dinner!

How long to cook a roast chicken?

The cooking time will be about 20 minutes per 450g weight of chicken plus an extra 20 minutes (depending a bit on the size of the chicken).

This is a simple roast chicken recipe. In these pictures, it is served up with roast potatoes, garlic carrots, roast chicken stuffing (sage and onion) and roasted stem broccoli together with some lovely gravy using a Bisto gravy granules recipe.

How to make a Sunday roast chicken dinner

Roast Chicken Dinner

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This recipe will help you produce a delicious roast chicken meal for the whole family. Use this to get them around the table together for a traditional Sunday Lunch.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 chicken (weight dependant on number of eaters)
• Sage and onion stuffing mix
• Chicken spices
• 40g Butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1 Onion, peeled
• Chicken OXO cube
• 1 tbsp Chicken Bisto gravy granules

Instructions

Preparation

1. Prepare the chicken by removing any giblets or rubber bands that may be holding it together. Place in a roasting dish and sprinkle lightly with chicken spices. 
2. Cover with slices of butter, especially where the thighs and the wings join the body of the chicken. Then season with salt and pepper.
3. Prepare the stuffing mix. Normally this just requires adding some hot water and some butter. When it is ready to use, stuff the bird with the stuffing under the skin of the breast. You do this by first carefully separating the skin from the breast meat with your fingers, and moving your fingers to the back of the breast bit by bit. 
4. Then use the stuffing to fill the gap between breast and skin. This will help to keep the breast from drying out during cooking.
5. Place the onion inside the chicken and fill any cavity left with remaining stuffing.

Cooking

1. Then place in a pre-heated oven (190C). Roast chicken cooking time: the cooking time will be about 20 minutes per 450g weight of chicken plus an extra 20 minutes (depending a bit on the size of the chicken).
2. Keep basting the chicken with the juices every 20 minutes to help it crisp up.
3. Check the chicken is cooked by checking that the juices which flow from it when you tip it up are golden (and not pink in any way).
4. When it is cooked let it relax for 10 minutes before carving.

Roast Chicken Gravy

1. While the chicken is resting, make the gravy. Pour the juices from the chicken into a transparent jug. After 5 minutes separate the fat on the top from the juices with a spoon and discard the fat. 
2. Then add the crushed OXO cube and 300ml water to the chicken juices in a suitable baking tin and place on the hob. Bring to the boil and add the Bisto gravy granules. [Some people think using gravy granules is scandalous. Purists would just use the meat juices and maybe some flour. But I think it helps give a better overall flavour, which is important when eating together with the potatoes.]
3. Keep heating until the gravy is of the right consistency and then transfer to a gravy jug.
4. In the meantime, you will have prepared whatever vegetables you are serving as accompaniments. Certainly my roast potatoes and garlic carrots are always served together with this dish as they cook together with the chicken in the oven.

Notes

Serving up

Carve up the chicken carefully, making sure the breast it sliced nicely. Ask people which meat they would prefer, as some prefer dark meat and others prefer the white breast meat. 

Serve up together with roast potatoes, carrots and gravy as a minimum. But preferably include some honey glazed parsnips, some cabbage and some other greens of your choosing (peas or beans).

Using up the leftovers

If you have any leftover roast chicken here are other recipes you can use to get rid of them:

Chinese fried rice

Chicken and mushroom pie

Coronation chicken

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  Bisto for Chicken Gravy Granules - 170g (0.37 lbs)