Our Top Tips for an Easy Tip Top Roast Dinner

1
BE AHEAD OF THE GAME

   Make life easy and get some of the hard work done the day before. Peel and chop potatoes and any other root vegetables your using. Leave them overnight in water in the fridge. Slice your veggies and store in plastic containers in the fridge so they’re ready and waiting when you come to cook the next day.

   Season and prepare your meat ready in an oven tray.

   Make up stuffing, yorkshire batter mix and any other sides. If you feel that you will be really short of time, parboil your spuds, cook off your greens and chill straight down in ice water...this will help retain colour and flavour (you can reheat in the microwave or simply drop back into hot water for a minute).

2
THE BEST ROASTIES

   A roast dinner is not complete without crispy roast potatoes. Pick floury potatoes such as a King Edward or Maris Piper, if you can't find in Marbella, look for "Patatas para cocinar" rather than "para freir".
Parboil them (just until the edges are starting to soften) drain  and spread on a tray.
  
   Season well with salt, white pepper, crushed garlic and any fresh chopped herbs you like (thyme and rosemary work well). Drizzle with olive oil or butter and leave to cool, this acts almost like a marinade and can be done the day before and chilled. Preheat the baking tray with a thin layer of sunflower oil and carefully throw in potatoes...this will give you the fluffiest, crispiest roasties in town.

   We did a recent Sunday catering job in Marbella and these were the star of the show!

3
GRAVY, GRAVY AND MORE GRAVY

   There is no harm in using a bit of Bisto to thicken your gravy. It can be used as an effective base and carrier for a host of flavours, use vegetable trimmings, tomato bits, roasted onion, red wine, roasted meat trimmings, herb stalks....pretty much anything hanging around. Boil these up to make a simple stock and thicken to taste with your Bisto, don't make it too thick!!!

   Place onion, carrot tops and garlic under your meat before roasting, this will enhance the flavours of the meat juice. Whisk the meat juice in to the gravy before serving. Again you can make the base gravy the day before ready for a reheat.

4
THE MAIN EVENT

   Treat your meat with the respect it deserves. Buy quality if possible, it is better to eat humane meat less frequently than inhumane everyday.
   
   Rub your meat of choice with butter or olive oil and season heavily with salt and pepper...remember you will be slicing the meat,the only part seasoned will be the edge, don't be shy!

   Add other flavours, Garlic, Rosemary and Thyme work very well on most meats, Mustard is great rubbed on Beef and Lamb.

  Leave your Meat to get to room temp and raise it off the bottom of the pan with some onion wedges and carrot tops. This will help your meat cook more evenly.

5
YOUR SIDES

   You can get a pretty decent roast in a fair few places in Marbella these days. A lot however let themselves down with thoughtless sides. A roast dinner is a dish in its own right, bringing some love into the 'trimmings' just brings it up that extra notch.

    Instead of just boiling some veg up, try experimenting with flavours and cooking techniques, look in your cupboards and your fridge to see what needs using up. That leftover rasher of bacon can bring a bit of joy to some butter steamed cabbage, some pine nuts in your stuffing or that half bag of dried apricots could sweeten up the dullest of stuffings!

Alternatively you could just call us
and we'll come and cater it all for you!