Wendy McCarthy summer cookbook recipe: A roast chicken comfort dish
I love the way the roasting smell fills the house. It reminds me of so many wonderful family dinners.
Every day this summer, we’ll publish a favourite recipe from an Australian author, dishes made with affection for family, friends or someone special.
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Roast chicken is still my favourite go-to comfort dish. I love the way the roasting smell fills the house.
It reminds me of so many wonderful family dinners. It signifies happiness, warmth and a sense of conviviality.
Like many homecooks, I have favourites among the greats and read them often. This recipe is Stephanie Alexander’s: with it I found it the ultimate roast chicken.
No need to go anywhere else, with its wonderful herbs, garlic, lemon, oil and butter.
My daughter-in-law’s family has a lovely tradition of asking wedding guests to share the recipe of the favourite meal they have had with the wedding couple. I sent this when my youngest son, Sam, and Aline were married.
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SUMMER COOKBOOK: THE WAY TO THE HEART
Minestrone (Mum’s vegetable soup)
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Tuna with pasta
Maybe I love this dish because it takes me back to when two pots and a black-and-white TV was enough, and there was nothing that could not fixed by a pint and a shared laugh.
Made-in-Minutes Goan Prawn Curry with Spinach
I love curries and this one is simple, with lots of flavour and a wonderful, creamy, coconut base.
Monster mash
My mash consistently makes women moan and gentlemen raise their eyebrows. The secret is simple muscularity.
Slow-cooked rabbit
A couple of decades ago I started to collect rabbit recipes from here and across the world, and ended up with hundreds.
Sri Lankan omelette
This is my favourite meal in the whole world. In particular, Sri Lankan omelette is my go-to comfort food. I can make it quickly and eat it three times a day.
My Humble Pie is the greatest to exit an oven
It may be humble in terms of cost, but it is bold, brash, punchy and delectable with a Stroganoffish zest. It will change your life. Humbly.
Raspberry and elderflower trifle
This dish tells a story of my life. I grew up eating custard, real custard made from cornflour and eggs and milk, along with fools and flummeries.
A roast chicken comfort dish
I love the way the roasting smell fills the house. It reminds me of so many wonderful family dinners.
Beef keema
What I love about keema is how forgiving it is and how easy it is to make. This is the homely dish that introduced my children to their Pakistani side.
Triple ginger bar cake
This is cooked in a loaf tin and is flexible; delicious naked, slathered with butter, or more traditionally iced with a loose glace to become a perfect tea cake.
Peter Craven’s Duck a l’orange
Any kind of duck is grand but duck as the French do it, and especially duck a l’orange, is a joy forever.
Selvie’s chicken curry with curry leaves
When our spice couriers managed to get their contraband through customs, there was much celebrating – usually in the form of Mum’s fragrant chicken curry.
Ice cream with caramel and cherries
And then the dessert comes... It slides into that part of our experience that is pre-politics, pre-speciality, pre-peculiarity and even pre-sophistication.
Lamb scrag end neck chops stew
This is the meal I constantly cook because my husband will live on it quite happily for a week, saving me a lot of bother ... he is not a modern man.
Creme brulee with candied rhubarb
More than 30 years ago, I gave a formal sit-down dinner party for 30 people. Dessert was the piece de resistance, individual creme brulees with candied rhubarb.
Borsch for the busy person
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Virginia Woolf Brittle
The impact of Virginia Woolf Brittle on a current partner or potential mate, particularly when fed by hand and in combination with a reading in the late sun, cannot be overstated.
Wakame beurre blanc
This sauce has become such a staple that I douse all grilled, poached, or pan-fried seafood in it at all times of the year.
Lemon Chicken
When our children were growing and my wife Steph was teaching evening classes, lemon chicken was the go to meal – simple and tasty.
Crispy Latkes
Creamy mashed, crispy smashed, jacket roasted and anointed with butter, pan fried with sliced onions, deep-fried to limpness, over-salted and wrapped in newsprint – however they come, I love potatoes.
Lamb Moussaka Therapy
Imagine a dish as therapeutic to eat as a lasagne, but instead of beef it’s made with lamb and has layers of potato and eggplant as the pasta sheets … Imagine no more, champions!
Odd couple share recipe for great summer reading
They’re one of the less likely duos to be found discussing the filleting of trout or basting of chicken – but Tom Keneally and Nat’s What I Reckon have all bases covered.
Summer Cookbook
Australia’s favourite authors share their most meaningful recipes.
1 x 1.8kg chicken
1 lemon halved
3 garlic cloves
Salt flakes
Freshly ground pepper
1 large sprig of rosemary
Walnut-sized piece of butter
2-3 red skinned potatoes and other mixed vegetables cut into chunks
¼ cup olive oil, white wine, stock or water
1. An hour and a quarter before dinner/lunch, preheat oven to 220C.
2. Rub chicken inside and out with lemon.
3. Crush garlic with the back of a knife, roll in salt and pepper and insert in cavity with lemon halves, rosemary sprigs and butter. Put chicken in a large baking dish.
4. Put vegetables in a bowl and season. Add a few rosemary leaves and oil and toss to coat. Scatter vegetables around chicken and massage its skin with the seasoned olive oil. Turn chicken on its side.
5. Place baking dish in the centre of the oven. After 20 minutes, turn chicken over to its other side and carefully turn the vegetables. After a further 20 minutes, turn chicken breast-side up, baste with juices, loosen vegetables and roast for another 20 minutes.
6. Reduce oven temperature to 160C. Transfer chicken and vegetables to a heat proof plate and rest in oven.
7. Discard all fat from baking dish and deglaze over heat with wine. Stir vigorously to dislodge all the cooked on good bits and lengthen with wine or stock. Joint the chicken and pour juices over.
8. Serve with a green salad and crusty bread.
* Note: there was an error in an earlier published version of this recipe. Please note the total cooking time in step 5 has been updated.
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Most of Wendy McCarthy’s best ideas start in the kitchen. For many years she saw it as the most nurturing and powerful room, her natural domain, then worked out everyone needed to cook or she’d be left there.
Don’t Be Too Polite, Girls: A Memoir. By Wendy McCarthy, Allen & Unwin.