Jamie Oliver's Mothers Day menu

Jamie Oliver did a great Mothers Day dinner/lunch menu a few years ago. It's simple and tasty. I made it that year. Why don't you try it this year?


Fantastic Roasted Chicken
Serves 6
900g/2lb chicken, preferably organic
1 large lemon
8 slices prosciutto or parma ham, thinly sliced
1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 good handfuls of fresh thyme, leaves picked and finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
115g/4oz or ½ pack of softened butter
1kg/2lb 3oz potatoes, peeled and cut up into chunks
1 large celeriac, peeled
Preheat the oven and an appropriately sized roasting tray to 220°C/425°F/gas 7. Wash your chicken inside and out and pat dry with kitchen paper. Using your fingers part the breast skin from the breast meat. It's important to push your hand gently down the breast, being careful not to rip the skin. With a peeler, remove and chop the fragrant yellow skin of the lemon, keeping the peeled lemon to one side. Tear up your proscuito and add to a bowl with the lemon skin, garlic and thyme. Season, and then scrunch it all into the butter. Push this into the space you have made between the meat and the skin - rub and massage any that's left over in and around the bird. It's all tasty stuff. Slash the thigh meat to allow the heat to penetrate a little more, which makes it taste better. Cut the peeled lemon in half and push it into the cavity, then put your chicken in the hot roasting tray and roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, parboil the potatoes in salted water for 10 minutes and then drain. Cut the celeriac into irregular chunks around the same size as the potatoes. Remove the chicken from the oven, by which time the tasty butter will have melted, flavoured and cooked out of the chicken into the bottom of the tray, awaiting your potatoes and celeriac. Normally I put a fork into the cavity of the chicken and lift it out of the tray for 20 seconds while I toss and coat the vegetables in the butter. Put the chicken back on top of the vegetables and cook for around 40 minutes. Leave to stand for 10 minutes. Once the meat and vegetables have been removed, a little light gravy can be made in the tray on the hob with a splash of wine and stock, a little simmering and scraping.


Good Old Mashed Veg
Serves 4
2kg/4½ pounds Root vegetables (celeriac, potatoes, swede, parsnips, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil or butter
Feel free to use any single vegetable or a mixture of your favourites. Simply peel them, chop them up into golf-ball sized pieces, place in salted boiling water and cook until nice and tender. Drain into a colander before placing the veg back into the pan and mashing with a potato masher. Make it as smooth or as chunky as you like. Season carefully, then enrich the flavour with extra virgin olive oil or butter, or both to taste.
Once cooked, the mash can be kept warm in a bowl covered with kitchen foil over simmering water. This is handy when cooking for a dinner party , as you can get one lot of veg done and nicely out of the way.


Lemon Layer Pudding
As this cooks it creates it's own delicious lemony sauce.
Serves 4
Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon.
50g/2oz butter
100g/4oz sugar (vanilla sugar is nice)
2 large eggs, separated
50g/2oz self raising flour
300ml/½ pint milk
2 tablespoons caster sugar
Optional extra: Juice and zest of one lemon
Cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind. Add egg yolks and flour and beat in, then add the milk and three tablespoons of lemon juice and mix well.
Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff. Fold in half the egg whites and then carefully the next half. Pour into a buttered ovenproof dish, which you stand in a roasting tin about a third full of water, bake in the oven at 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6 for about 45 minutes until the top is set and spongy, and it's a nice golden colour.
For the extra bit of lemony dimension mix the lemon juice, sugar and zest together then pour over the warm pudding.


Copyright © Jamie Oliver 2001