prime quality meat
How do I know I've found a good butcher? This butcher sells 'Aged, Grain fed, Angus beef' in the window. They sell a wide variety of sausages, all great quality (by this I mean not just Italian sausages, but Toulouse, Guiness and a variety of herbed beef and pork sausages).
At my Butcher I can also buy duck, partridge, quail, squab, kidneys and livers, everything i might need for any recipe simple or otherwise.
Perhaps the best attribute of my favourite butchers is the fact that they know their meat, they can tell me the perfect cooking times and suggest the appropriate cut of meat for any dish i might want to make.
So far... I give them a 10 out of 10.
How to make the best roast chicken, never dry and always full of flavour.
1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees, fan forced.
2. Pick a baking dish approximately 2cm wider than your chicken on every side, and about 5cm deep.
3. Collect some fresh rosemary, oregano and thyme, strip the stalks of half their leaves. Chop the leaves and reserve the stalks.
4. Lightly crush and peel 4 – 6 cloves of garlic
5. Quarter a lemon, and place 2 quarters into the chicken cavity.
6. Place the chicken in the baking dish, breast up and generously coat with salt paper and half the chopped herbs. Drizzle with olive oil and massage into the skin.
7. Flip the chicken over and repeat the process on the back of the chicken
8. Return the chicken to the breast- up position sitting on a bed of the remaining herb stalks and 2 of the crushed garlic cloves. Drizzle with a little more olive oil.
9. Scatter the remaining garlic cloves around the baking dish and our about 2 glasses of decent white wine into the dish. (Remember you get out what you put in, so don’t use nasty wine)
10. At this point you can cover the chicken with foil or just put it in the oven for approx 40 minutes. (My timing is for a size 16 – 18 chicken)
11. After 40 minutes flip the chicken over so the back is facing upwards and top up the wine if necessary (it should be about 2 cm deep), season again with some salt and pepper, sometimes I’ll use a little spray canola oil too, so it doesn’t burn. Cook for a further 30 – 35 minutes
12. Once the timer goes off you want to flip the chicken again, breast up, to brown and get some colour happening. A further 20 minutes and you’re done.
13. To check if the chicken is cooked skewer the thigh and see if any pinkish liquid comes out, if it does, the chicken isn’t ready.
14. When your chicken is ready, like with all meats it needs to rest a little before serving, this lets the natural juices and flavours of the meat penetrate back through all the layers of the meat. 5 minutes is usually enough.
15. Now you’re ready to carve your meat and eat the perfect roast chicken.
Tip: you can make a tasty light gravy using the wine and chicken fat that has collected in the bottom of the pan. Pour off the fat, reserve the stock in a pan, crush the garlic cloves (which will be lovely and sweet from the baking process), add a little corn flour to thicken, or some of your favourite gravy powder.
ORANGE GROVE MARKETS
http://www.organicfoodmarkets.com.au/
Amazing produces, great stalls for tarts and desserts. fantastic little boulangiers. butchers, fresh produce. and a great little stand that does bacon and egg rolls, but they use a honey smoked bacon, shaved, not thick cut for an amazingly good breakfast roll.
check it out.
Orange Grove Public School
Cnr Perry Street and Balmain Road, Leichhardt
Saturdays, 8.00am - 1.00pm
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