Another Sunday Lunch with a Twist - roast chicken and root veg crumble

 

My husband grew up where every Sunday meant a roast chicken dinner. And I love the idea of that tradition but find it hard to keep up when it's just the two of us. If we had company coming I'd definitely do it but  I find it easier to do stews, casseroles or things like toad I the hole. I love chicken leftovers but my hubby has a bit of an aversion where chicken on day 2 is concerned. For my family we only got a proper Sunday's dinner when my sister and I went to my dad's for the weekend. He would cook everything from scratch. No frozen veggies or gravy granules in sight.

Well this week I'm going to try and persuade my husband to love leftover chicken so doing a full roast. Because I'm using the leftovers in a number of ways, I'm not messing about with the chicken. A drizzle of water in the bottom of the tray and a quick squirt of fry light on the skin of the bird.

The twist here is what I'm doing with the veg. I spotted a river cottage recipe for a root veg crumble and thought I could have a bash at something like that. By roasting the veg you intensify all the flavours and nothing is lost into boiling water. I had a packet of sage and onion stuffing mix hanging around my kitchen since christmas and wondered if I could substitute this for the breadcrumb and oat base topping that Hugh fearnly wittingstall uses.

Ingredients:

Chicken:
1 large chicken
Fry light spray
1/2 cup water

For the crumble:
1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped into chunks
2 floury potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 chicken oxo cube crumbled
Fry light spray

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 190*C
2. Put chicken in tin on a wire rack and pour the water in the bottom of the tin. Spray the skin with fry light. Tent in foil and put in the centre of the oven. 
3. Spray a dish with fry light. Mix the veg and put in the dish. Spray the veg with fry light and crumble over the oxo cube to add extra flavour. Tent in foil and put in the top of the oven.
4. Cook the veg for 45 mins. In the meantime follow the packet instructions for the stuffing and leave the mixture to cool so you can handle it to crumble over later.
5. Cook the chicken as per the packet instructions and for the last 20-30 mins remove the foil.
6. Once you've taken the chicken out of the oven at the end of the cooking time. Tent with foil and let the meat rest.
7. At this point take the foil off the veg and sprinkle over the stuffing. Put back in the oven for 20 mins. Until the stuffing is crispy and golden.
8. Carve the meat and serve with the crumble and some gravy (yes made with granules ;-)