#flat cooking

Roasts are THE thing to have in a flat if you are cooking together. However, you can also cook up this bad boy by yourself. The main reason why every flattie should make roasts is because they are cheap and economical. For $15-$19 you can buy a whole organic chicken and it can be made into two meals, each for three people. You can then boil down the carcass afterwards and use it for stock. This entire operation is cost effective and delicious and you'll be making roasts for years after. 

COOKING TIME: 1 hour 15 minutes, plus resting of 15 minutes. 

SERVES: Up to 4. 

Ingredients:

One whole chicken, suitable for roasting. 

3 Tablespoons of soft butter.

A healthy pinch of salt and pepper

1 lemon

Thyme, oregano and tarragon. A fistful of each. 

Method

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. 

In a deep roasting dish, prepare the chicken. Take the salt, pepper and soft butter and smear it all over the top of the chicken and the breast. Make sure you're covering the whole breast area, and also the spaces between the side of the chicken and the legs. As the chicken cooks, this butter will melt and drip into the cooking chicken, creating a delicious taste. 

Salt the cavity and add some pepper really generously. Slice the lemon in half roughly, squeeze the juice of one half into a bowl and save for later, and shove each half deep up the chicken cavity. 

Salt the chicken all over and put it in the oven to cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes

After 15 minutes of cooking, remove the chicken from the oven and brush it all over with another tablespoon of soft butter. Return to the oven

After 45 minutes, remove the chicken from the oven and brush it all over with the juice from the half lemon. Return it to the oven once again. 

After one hour, baste the chicken with the juices. You can do this by scooping up tablespoons of the juice at the bottom of the pan and simply drizzling it back over the top of the bird. Do this a few times and finally leave to cook for a final 15 minutes.

When the chicken is fully cooked, the drumsticks should roll in their joints very easily. You can poke the chicken in the thigh with a skewer and if the juices are yellow or clear it is cooked.

Remove from the tin and leave to rest on a plate covered by tin foil for 15 minutes. This is essential! The meat MUST rest before you do anything. While you are leaving the beauty, get on with finishing the last parts of the meal that you want to serve i.e. the potatoes.

You can now serve your chicken.

ALSO:

some people swear by roasting the chicken upside down with the breast down so that the juices trickle through the chicken and into the breast to stop the meat from becoming dry. This hasn't really made a difference for me, but if you were to try it, smear the butter over the back of the chicken before putting in the oven.

You can make a stuffing by blending shredded bread, a diced onion, a tablespoon of oil, 2 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, and herbs until it is a sticky clumpy ball. You can put this in the chicken cavity and it will cook with the bird.

If you've never cooked before, it's time to start. More than anything else, cooking is a skill and you will need it at some point in your life, somewhere. But it doesn't have to be a chore. Here is my Food Mantra to breaking down cooking so that you can enjoy it and easily make it part of your life:

Don't think of it as a chore: if you're ever going to become good at cooking, you're going to have to enjoy it. Don't think of it as a necessity - rather, as a pleasure. Take the hard work out of cooking and treat your kitchen like somewhere you can relax. After a stressful, long or boring day go into the kitchen and prepare yourself a meal. Relax by following a step by step process and eventually sit down and enjoy a delicious meal.

Calm down! Cooking should never be stressful. Real cooks know that if there is a short cut - you should take it! Just relax. The worst case scenario is you might burn something. The world will not end. Treat cooking like you would a first date - don't do anything stupid, drink plenty of wine, and you'll make it out the other end alive.

Be realistic. If you've never cooked before, you're not going to become a master overnight. Don't strive to become the best cook ever, just good enough so that you can cook good food and get enjoyment out of it. Walk before you can run, and don't push yourself too far. That is when a melt down occurs. You might have to try it a few times before you get the hang of it - no one learns how to drive in an afternoon, why should you know how to cook like a masterchef in one evening? (see what I did there? Seriously, no one wants to be a masterchef, unless you're 40 and have no friends).

Cook what you like. Everyone has different tastes and flavours. I for one hate seafood. So therefore, I do not cook it. Don't make yourself cook or eat things that you don't like. I encourage everyone to try new things - but if you really don't like something, don't eat it. At the same time, feel free to spoil yourself on food that you do like, and don't feel guilty about that either. It's perfectly normal to have midnight cravings for melted cheese and bacon sandwiches (they're like an orgasmic heart attack).

Run a tight ship. I'll put on my poetic hat and say that the kitchen is like a machine - all the parts work best when they move together. Get your timing right! So if you're making a Thai dish, have all the vegetables chopped and ready before you start frying the curry paste. Or if you are serving souffle for a starter, make sure that the batter is prepared in advance, but you cook it at the last minute so that it can go straight from the oven to the table. Most kitchen meltdowns occur because people fluff up their timing - like putting the roast potatoes into the oven 15 minutes before you want to eat. Keep the place tidy (tidy as you go) wipe down surfaces, keep clutter to a minimum and always leave washing up for people who are blessed enough to eat your food.

That is about it. Stick to this mantra and I can guarantee that you will have a positive cooking experience.

They are super easy to make for my vegetarian flat mate. Plus Kumara chips are the yummiest!!!!