Great Real Gravy for Roast Beef or Chicken

This is a recipe that I got when talking to an old lady in a hotel when I was away with work. She described it in such detail then went away and wrote it down for me. She was really sweet. This can be used for any roast meat Beef, Chicken, Pork, Venison, you choose.


Step 1 – lay sticks of celery, quartered pealed onions and large peeled halved carrots on a roasting tray. Add a touch of water. Place the meat you want to roast on top of the veg. and roast your meat as normal using the juices to baste.

Step 2 – When the meat is cooked to your desired taste, remove the meat from the pan and remove the veg to a bowl. Now put the roasting pan over a low heat and deglaze with either a few glasses of red wine for beef or venison, and white wine for pork or chicken. Number of glasses of wine will be dependent on the size of the meat roasted. I say about 1 glass for every 1 kg. use a whisk to deglaze it’s much better.

Step 3 – As a great touch now add a few teaspoons of horseradish sauce if it’s beef gravy, or fresh sage for either chicken or Pork. Now add a few teaspoon of corn flour to thicken the mixture till it’s a sort of rue.

Step 4 – As the mix starts to bubble, ensure it is not burning, add about a litre of stock. Chicken stock if the meat is chicken, Ham stock if the meat is Pork, or beef stock if the meat is Beef or Venison. Mix well and add the veg again. Allow it to thicken.

Step 5 – Remove from the heat drain the gravy into a large jug. (you can use the vegetables as a base for a soup by liquidising them, have them with your meal as an accompaniment or just throw them away. Sometimes I actually liquidise the whole lot and have that as my gravy, but it’s not really smooth when you do that, more rustic and hearty than

Step 6 - Now into the jug of gravy add a few tea spoons of gravy granules and whisk until the gravy is thick. This may sound like sacrilege after all the work you have done, but it works really well and makes nice thick tasty gravy.

Step 7 – Enjoy this with your traditional roast dinner. It is really nice and well worth all the effort.

Chicken and Leek Pie

A few weeks ago I was given some leeks by a neighbour who had grown them in her garden, and she had too many to use. When I got them I tried to think what to do? Maybe make soup?


Then I remembered my Grandpa making Chicken and Leek pie. So I decided to have a bash on making my own version.

First you start off by making the short crust pastry, then the filling.

Make the short crust pastry as described in a previous post.

Filling

Ingredients:-
250g of chopped boned chicken. (you can use whatever part of the chicken you want, breast, thigh, or leg but the brown meat has more flavour.
2 roughly chopped leeks.
2 cloves finely chopped garlic.
1 glass of white wine.
½ pint of chicken stock.
A little corn flour to thicken / or alternatively use a little chicken gravy granules.
50ml of double cream
Salt and Pepper to taste.
Egg wash to glaze the pie.

Method: -
1 – Take the chicken and brown it with a little oil in a saucepan. Remove and put in a bowl once done.

2 – Add the chopped leeks and garlic to the pan and sweat them done till the leaks are just starting to soften.

3 – Add the glass of white wine, and chicken stock and allow to it reduce for 15-20 mins.

4 – Now add the chicken gravy granules or corn flour to thicken the sauce.

5 – Add the cream, and salt and pepper to taste.

6 – Allow the mix to cool while you make the pie shell.

7 – Take the short crust pastry out of the fridge, and take a 10” fluted deep pastry tin.

8 – Line the dish by slicing 5mm discs from the short crust party, and make a sort of patch work effect on the pastry tin. Push them together to till all the tin is covered with pastry. This is much easier to cover the dish than rolling it out.

9 – Place a sheet of greaseproof paper in the pie case, fill with beans or coins and blind bake the pie case to 10-12 mins at 190°C: 375°F: Gas 5.

10 – Take the case out the oven remove the beans or coins and bake for a further 5 mins.

11 – Remove the case from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 mins. Now add the pie filling but not too much that you are overfilling it (you should have some filling left) and roll out the remaining pastry to 5mm thick. Using the rolling pin roll up the pastry and place it on the top of the pie.

12 – Cut the pastry round the tin, and using a fork, crimp the edges of the top pastry onto the base, cut two breathing holes in the centre of the pie top and apply an egg wash to glaze the top of the pie, and put into a preheated oven at 190°C: 375°F: Gas 5, for 30-40 mins until the top is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and serve with crushed potatoes with plenty of butter and pepper.

Note - You should have some filling and pastry left over, what I do is make small chicken and leek parcels and precook then freeze them. Then I can have them as snacks or lunches another day

Balmoral Chicken

This is one of my favourite dishes. It's easy and tastes great.

Ingedients: -

4 chicken Breasts
1 haggis
8-12 rashers of smoked Bacon

Method -
1 - Preheat oven to Gas mark 5 / 190 deg C

2 - Take a chicken breast and butterfly it (start to cut it through the middle, halving it through the widest point. Do not completely cut it all the way through, and then open it up like a butterfly)

3 - Take some of the haggis and place it in the centre opened part of the chicken. The haggis is used as a sort of stuffing.

4 - Fold the chicken back, with the haggis in the centre, then wrap the bacon rashers round the chicken to enclose the haggis inside. tie with a little string if necessary.

5 - Repeat steps 1 to 4 with all breasts, then place on a backing tray and place in the oven for half an hour to 45 mins, or until the chicken is nearly cooked. the legth of time really depends on how big the chicken breasts are.



6 - Turn the oven up to Gas mark 7 / 200 deg C for 5-10 Min's to crisp up the bacon.



7 - Remove from the oven, cut in half showing the haggis in the middle, and serve with veg and boiled new potatos.



This dish goes really well with a whiskey cream sauce.


To make the sauce you need
200 ml double cream
100ml of whiskey
A knob of butter
Salt and pepper to season
1 tea spoon of chicken gravy granules


Method: -


1 - Take the whiskey and put into a small pan. A small frying pan is best.
2 – Warm the whiskey then light it to burn off the alcohol.
3 – Add the cream and butter
4 – Season with salt and a good but of black pepper.
5 – Add a the gravy granules and stir in

Pour the sauce over the Chicken Balmoral, it complements it perfectly.