Standardising the Roast Dinner

We all know that the traditional roast dinner needs standardising.

I’ve been devastated too many times by a sub standard Yorkshire, a low grade roast spud or heaven forbid a lack of gravy.

I’ve sorted out the English Breakfast, so let’s turn our attention to the ultimate luncheon, and ensure at least one good thing comes out of 2016.

For a ‘proper’ roast you’ll need to follow these rules…

The Meat

The meat is main event but can take many forms and herein lies a trap for the careless carnivore so tread carefully.

Beef - Delightful if you can get it right but a cruel mistress as it’s easy to turn into a big lump of inedible biltong. Great for a showstopper style roast and will deliver sarnies for days.

Goose - Stop showing off, it’s not the middle ages. The job of a goose is to provide the fat to roast the spuds and not to be the main event. I was put off goose many years ago by a mate who ordered one from a dodgy poacher and was given a Swan instead. Eating a Swan is basically treason.

Duck - See Goose. Fowl have no place within a roast. The meat should be of the land, not of the water.

Turkey - Waste of time. Impossible to cook properly and is owes it’s success to some genius marketing campaign from Norfolk. Only value it provides is sheer comedy at Christmas when your parents realise it’ll cost so much to cook the beast, you’ll have to have the heating off until Easter.

Chicken- The everyman’s roast. Delivers in every way. Reliable, a classic, something for everyone. What it lacks in showmanship it makes up for in versatility. Posh it up a bit by giving it a cape of bacon, fill it full of stuffing, jobs a good-un.

Lamb - Such a fatty little fella. Why does a sheep need to have so much fat to keep it warm if it’s covered in wool? The mind boggles. In my mind lamb is a poor man’s beef.

Gooducken / Turducken - Invented in a cartoon when a load of animals were chasing each other, the farmer opens a door and they all pile into each other and become one. The Russian doll of the roast dinner world. Wrong on every level.

Pork - Bland, dull & fairly pointless. There is no justifiable reason to go for pork. Go Beef or Chicken and have a few snags in bags to give you the farmyard full house.

Snags in bags / pigs in blankets - Glorious. Take a sausage (which is already amazing) then wrap it in bacon. Arguably the only way you might improve it is by going the whole hog and wrapping it in cracking. Basically a pig based Gooducken.

Nut roast - An oxymoron.

The Veg

In many ways the roast represents this fine land.

Every region plays its part and chips in.

Kent provides the veggies, Norfolk the Turkey, Gloucester the pigs, Yorkshire the Yorkies, Wales the Lamb & the gravy is the sea. The nation on a plate, it’s a beautiful thing.

Roast potatoes - Definitely a member of the holy trinity of the roast dinner (meat / roasties / Yorkshires). They must be crispy, they are fewer more disappointing things than a soggy roastie.

Peas - These provide little but colour and also act as a very effective gravy storage medium. Large or small peas are permitted, both bring something to the game. You cant have a roast without peas.

Cauliflower cheese- Controversial given that cooking a roast is already a marathon so throwing a colly cheese into the mix turns the marathon into a pentathlon. A wonderful addition if you can be arsed.

Carrots - They play a similar role to the peas. No frills but another essential core component. Small carrots are a joke, stop being so impatient and leave them in the ground. Cut them as discs, batons are a waste of precious space.

Parsnips - Boil a snip and you’ll regret it. Roast them and you’ll never feel more alive. It’s called roast dinner for a reason after all.

Broccoli - Your gilding the lily here but why not. Worth considering whether you’re squandering plate space for a more high value item though.

Leeks - I cant see the harm in a leek of two. Totally unnecessary but shows commitment.

Brussels - A stunted cabbage and therefore cruel. Sprouts are the veal of the brassica world. All fun and feels like the right thing to do until Grandpa and/or the dog drops one and you have to evacuate the house until Boxing day.

Key additions

Ok, so that’s the meat and veg sorted, over to the ‘key additions’.

Yorkshire puddings - In Yorkshire you get Yorkshire puddings as a starter then they serve your actual roast dinner within a giant Yorkshire! There is a reason they won the Olympics for us in 2012. I like to use mine a secondary gravy storage reservoir that you can release when the veg has soaked up the initial gravy application.

Gravy - You can’t have a roast without gravy. Make it nice and thick and show it to the entire plate of grub. A glorious invention. So important it arrives in a boat. What else is important to get its own boat? Exactly.

Sauces - Every meat has got its own designated sauce except chicken, clearly one of life’s unexplained mysteries. Each sauce does a fine job except mint sauce, which is rank.

Stuffing - Optional. Stuffing brings not only joyful innuendo but an element that divides people. Perhaps it’s the sage? General rule of thumb is if your meat involves a cavity then you should expect stuffing. If not, back she goes.

Layout

Layout of food is discretionary and will inevitably vary regionally.

Layering may be necessary if plate size is problematic, build up when you can’t build out.

One of the finest things I’ve witnessed is the use of breadsticks within a bowl of salad to increase capacity, like when people use old doors to make skips hold more rubbish.

Perhaps Yorkshires can be utilised to provide more storage. There is definitely scope for innovation here. Suggestions welcome.

Order of play

Some go for the meat first, the ‘Serengeti strategy’ where you demolish the high value items early doors before the cat gets them.

Others go for a mixed approach gathering bits of everything forming a ‘mini roast’ in every mouthful.

Either approach is admirable.

A roast is best eaten on a Sunday lunchtime, ideally after some sort of walk in the countryside.

Beverages

A roast dinner should be washed down with booze.

Be prepared for an almost immediate onset of narcolepsy, so prepare a comfortable chair next to the fire and expect to wake up when Antiques Roadshow starts.

If you’ve had extra roasties and a crumble to finish you’ll be lucky to catch Countryfile.

I’m glad to have been able to have sorted this one out.

It was clearly a situation that was getting out of control.

Don’t agree ? Leave a comment.