Roast chicken and stuffing

Roast chicken and stuffing is possibly the best example - in this kitchen anyway - of KISS (keep it simple stupid).

You see my Other Half was pretty convinced that only Paxo could make good stuffing for roasted birds. So on Christmas Day, much against my better judgement, we had a packet stuffing to please He Who Would Like to Be Obeyed. It was okay but it didn't please the smaller more demanding palate (ie my eldest daughter) who, for her ninth birthday, insisted I make home made stuffing for her roast chicken.

I love a good stuffing (stop giggling at the back...) and I'm a big fan of Delia's chunky American style Christmas turkey stuffing and her chestnut stuffing. OH (foolishly) dislikes both. Actually it's not really a dislike, they just disappoint him, which is possibly worse.

So for Sunday's birthday lunch it was back to the drawing board. I consulted Delia, Tana, Gordon, Nigel, Nigella, Sarah Raven and (finally) Rachel Allen. In her Home Cooking book she has a simple sage and onion stuffing with variations.

"Oooh chorizo stuffing," I said to the OH, thinking of the lovely garlicky paprika aroma that would bring to the roasted result.

"No," said OH.

"Smoky bacon?"

"No."

"Oh."

So I applied the KISS principle. Straightforward sage, onion and breadcrumbs stuffing.

I followed Rachel's recipe which was to soften a chopped onion and a clove of garlic in a big lump of butter and a glug of olive oil and mix that with 100g of white breadcrumbs and come chopped sage and thyme from the garden. I put the result into a bowl and looked at it alongside my 2.4kg chicken. It looked insufficient.

So, dredging up long-lost memories of family roast dinners and the things my mother used to make, I remembered her method which was to chuck everything - slices of bread, onion, herbs, butter, sea salt, pepper - into her Kenwood blender and blitz. I used my food processor and the result was a pleasing stuffing mix which clumped nicely together.

I made pockets in the bird's breast and tucked most of the stuffing in there and the neck and there was still more, so I popped a fist-sized amount into the bird's cavity. (Writing all this seems a little like writing culinary porn...)

I roasted the bird (two hours, gas mark 5) and the result? Fabulous. A huge hit with everyone and decreed 'nearly' as good as school's* by the birthday girl.

So another kitchen lesson learned. KISS applies to stuffing birds too and (probably, but don't tell her...) mother knows best.

*School dinners set a very high standard here (Jamie take note).

A snuggly pear and almond pudding for a chilly day

I made this last night for to follow a Sunday dinner of Shepherds Pie and Savoy cabbage. It began life as a bag of four rather attractive but hard pears. They were the sort that go from 'hard and inedible' to 'rot' without passing 'yummy and ripe'.

So, something cooked with pears it must be. I'd seen Rachel Allen's BBC2 programme earlier in the day and she had done a very yummy thing which began with peeled chunks of eating apples happily sizzling in a pan of butter, involved a panful of toffee sauce and ended with a heap of crumble topping. Not really what I was after, but I began with the pears in chunks in butter in a lidded frying pan, thinking, possibly, tarte tatin, but veered off into the realms of frangipane.

This is the recipe:

Start with four hard and hopeless pears. Peel, core and cut into chunks. Add to a small frying pan with a heaped teaspoonful of butter. Toss about a bit and then slap on a lid. Leave on a low heat while you make the frangipane.

Weigh two eggs. Remember how much they weigh and put to one side. You then use that weight for the butter, sugar and ground almonds/flour mix. I used two bantam eggs. If you've got monster eggs, use one or be prepared for slightly more frangipane than you bargained for! (Any extra could always be baked separately as a cook's perk.)

Put the eggs to one side while you weigh out the butter and sugar. (I used Clover buttery spread as I had run out of butter.) Beat together until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one by one and a good teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Then fold in the ground almonds and self raising flour (in the ratio of about four parts almonds to one part flour, more or less) and a teaspoonful of baking powder.

The pears should now be softened and sitting in a pool of peary buttery juices. Tip them into a shallow oven proof dish, top with the frangipane and cook at Gas Mark 3 for about 45 minutes. It's done when it's golden brown and springs back when pressed.

Serve with lashings of lovely custard.