Take your freshly killed cockerel, and get a friend to help pluck it.
100g of butter, into a bowl, with some freshly cut herbs (thyme is good, but we only had marjoram growing well at this time of year), some crushed garlic and a good handfull of sea salt. I tend not to give exact amounts because it really is down to personal taste.
Squish this all together. Then smear the outside of the plucked and cleaned cockerel. Be generous.
Place the baking tray in a hot oven. I roar up our wood stove before putting the cockerel in, then allow it to cool, as you want up to an hour hot, then longer, depending on the size of the bird, cooler.
After an hour of hot, I moved the tray into the bottom cooler oven. Then parboil our potatoes ready to go into the hot oven.
The chicken needs to be basted regularly with its own juices and the melted butter.
After 3 hours, as this old boy was big and quite old, in the slow oven, he was ready. The spuds had been roasting for just over an hour, the carrots and cabbage had come to the boil on the top of the stove, and I had made leak and wine gravy….
A wonderful evening roast, with some friends, a few glasses of vinho tinto and a session of the clicker game – practising clicker on humans. Well funny.
, a really quick and easy treat! Somewhere between biscuit and cake (as recipe = thinner and more biscuity, double quantities = thicker and more cakey). It’s especially good if you add a tablespoon of thick jam (we always have some that’s set too much) or fruit preserved in syrup (jam that doesn’t set enough!) slightly chewy fruit is good, cherry is my favourite.
