Roast chicken

A roast is definitely not a typical student meal. The perception of a roast is a good Sunday meal with your family that someone spends about 3-4 hours slaving over in the kitchen, but actually trying to make my own at home proved that perception wrong.
Peeling vegetables and potatoes is defnitely the downside to a roast but once the preparation is out of the way apart from checking up on your chicken/lamb/beef roast from time to time the meal cooks itself!

Ingredients and prices:

Chicken. Tesco Finest Free Range Whole Chicken 1700g. €6.99
Potatoes. Rooster potatoes loose. €1.89 per kg.
Parsnips. Loose class 1. €0.37.
Brocolli. Market Value broccoli. €0.75.
Stock cube. La Romanella chicken stock cube 120g. €0.90.
Flour.Odlums Cream Flour 1 kg. €1.29.
Butter. Tesco, Butter Me Up 500g. €0.85.

Method:

Begin by peeling all vegetables and potatoes you will use for the meal.
Roast: Boil parsnips for ten minutes, dry with a tea towel and place on a baking tray with the chicken and potatoes. Baste (sprinkle) with a little oil and salt. Re-basted every 20-25 minutes if necessary. Cook for 50+ minutes. Make sure no part of the chicken is pink when eating!
Gravy: Place a small ammount of butter (less than a tablespoon) in a hot pan, add 1.5 tablespoons of flour, the stock cube, a splash of water and stir until you make a light paste. Add more water (approx. half a cupful) and continue stirring until the paste has entirely disappeared.
Brocolli: Cut the brocolli into small florets and place in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of water. Cover in clingfilm. Pierce clingfilm with holes using a fork and microwave for 3.5 minutes at full heat.


Ok i lied...this meal is more expensive and takes alot more time than the rest of the student recipes I have posted. In this meal I could have cut more cornors, such as it wasn't important that I made my own gravy but I felt if I was going to the trouble of cooking a roast I may aswell make the effort with everything that goes with it!

If you take my advice and do decide to make your own gravy, you can add more flavour to it by adding the cooking juices from the meat and potatoes...or a little wed wine if you have any.

This meal costs €13.04, the large price I blame on the chicken itself! But realistically this is not the sort of meal I would cook for myself and hope it would last for the next few days. What I recommend is to share the price with three of four friends for a night in...you can thank me later!