Cooking

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Imperial	Metric	Liquid Ingredients
1/4 teaspoon	1 ml	1 tablespoon	0.5 fluid ounce
1/2 teaspoon	2 ml	1 cup	0.5 pint or 8 fluid ounces
1 teaspoon	5 ml or 5 g	2 cups	1 pint
1 tablespoon	15 ml or 15 g	4 cups	1 quart
1 fluid ounce	30 ml	16 cups	1 gallon
2 fluid ounces	60ml	4 quarts	1 gallon
4 fluid ounces	120 ml	2 pints	1 quart
30 fluid ounces	1litre

Gas Mark	Centigrade	Fahrenheit
1	140	275
2	150	300
3	160	325
4	180	350
5	190	375
6	200	400
7	220	425
8	230	450
9	240	475

Dry Ingredients
3 teaspoons    1 tablespoon
4 tablespoons    1/4 cup
8 tablespoons    1/2 cup
12 tablespoons    3/4 cup
16 tablespoons    1 cup

Beef

The cut of beef for roasting is of great importance:-

Special Occasion: Sirloin joint on the bone with the fillet still in it.
Sunday lunch: The wing end of the sirloin, aka rib of beef.
Beef on the bone is great as the bone acts as a conductor of heat and gives the roast extra flavour.
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 9, 475°F (240°C).

A layer of fat on the beef provides not only basting juices to keep the joint moist and succulent, then season with pepper and herbs.

Place the joint in a roasting tin on top of a small sliced onion and or some garlic cloves. They will caramelise as the beef cooks and give a lovely flavour and colour to the gravy.
Now place the meat on a tray just above the centre of the oven. It will have plenty of fat so don't add extra.

20 minutes' at the initial temperature; after that turn the heat down to gas mark 5, 375°F (190°C) and cook it for 15 minutes to the pound (450 g) – this will give you rare beef.
Add 15 minutes to the total cooking time for medium rare and 30 minutes for well done.

While the beef is cooking, lift it out of the oven from time to time, tilt the tin and baste the meat really well with its own juices –
this ensures that the flavour that is concentrated in the fat keeps permeating the meat, and at the same time the fat keeps everything moist and succulent.
While you're basting, close the oven door in order not to lose heat. Baste the meat with the juices at least three times during cooking.

To see if the beef is cooked to your liking insert a thin skewer into the thickest part of the joint and press out some juices: the red, pink
or clear colour will indicate how much the beef has cooked. When it is cooked to your liking, remove it from the oven, transfer it to a board and
allow it to stand in a warm place for up to an hour, loosely covered with foil, before carving –
to let all the precious juices that have bubbled up to the surface seep back into the flesh. Also, as the meat relaxes it will be easier to carve.

Chicken

Used to buy the pre-cooked chickens from the local supermarkets, but they seemed to lack colour and flavour,
so started getting chickens from a local farm shop, Franklins, not the cheapest, but a much better flavour :)
Could not find the site I used last time, so went with DIY, also allows me to tweak the ingredients more :)

Garlic Stuffing
2 fresh bulbs of garlic
2 small red onions
1 medium apple (cox)
2 slices of brown bread
1 duck egg (shell washed clean first)
2-3 teaspoons of olive oil - this time was the oil used in sundried tomatoes
2 teaspoons of mixed herbs
chickern liver from the cavity, giblets dumped
2 sausages from Franklins, cut the skin off and used the sausage meat

The stuffing was pureed in a food processor and then pushed into the body cavity,
some people seem worried over the risk of salmonella, but if bought from a reputable supplier and cooked well. there is little risk

3 slices of bacon over the top of the chicken
The chicken weighed 2.275 Kg before stuffing and spot on 3 Kg afterwards

For best results, cook chicken at 220C/ 425F/ gas mark 7 for 10 minutes.
Then reduce the heat to 190C / 375F/ gas mark 5 and allow 45 minutes per kg, plus 20 minutes

To check if the chicken is fully cooked insert a skewer into the thickest part of the thigh, the juices should run clear.
If any blood, continue cooking, rare beef is great, rare chicken is not

During the last hour, you can make some potato wedges, which are naturally great with Marmite

Potato Wedges

Get a good 6-10 potatoes depending on how many cooking for, wash mud off and remove any green bits.
Cut into wedges, then place into a plastic bag, add a few glugs of oil, best seems to be the stuff that was used for other stuff like sundried tomatoes.
Add a few shakes of mixed herbs and a few glugs of a decent balsamic vinegar.
Mix the potatoes into the oil / vinegar / herb mixture
Lay on a baking tray and cook in the oven at 190C for about 1 hour