Cuisine – Christmas feasting

I know what’s on the menu this Christmas for us! A huge golden roast chook, fragrant with a cranberry and orange stuffing. It’s a hangover from my childhood. Every year, the centre piece of our Christmas table was two gloriously large roast chooks, stuffed with the tasty savoury mixture my mother would prepare ahead. Our chicken was most definitely a special treat, not a common supermarket item, and Mother went to the end of the earth to procure capons for our feast. These large male chickens had moist juicy breast meat, which could be carved into what seemed like an infinite number of delicious white slices, so everyone had plenty on their plate.

Two Hawke’s Bay brothers, George and Ben Bostock, raised on an organic orchard, decided almost 10 years ago to farm organic chickens and they have cornered the market with their fine birds. Their farm in Hastings sits in a large organic apple orchard and chickens are free to roam through the trees, eating the fallen apples in season and pecking about in the long lush grasses for their feed. Their little barns are open to allow them to shelter when needed and there’s no egg production for the Bostock’s aim to offer the healthiest most tasty birds. Chefs in good restaurants snap them up and the pair have achieved distribution through the major supermarkets, discerning butchers and specialty grocers. Of course, these birds are not cheap, but what’s Christmas without a little indulgence. (Unless you’re really committed to a turkey, which always seems like a risk-taking adventure to me. This stuffing would work with that bird, too.)

The stuffing, which I rarely bother with during the year, makes for extra flavour and keeps the bird juicy.

As a kid, I didn’t really like stuffing but now older and wiser, I almost like it more than the meat! Dried cranberries or ‘craisins’ as some marketing guru renamed these little red orbs of both sweetness and a hint of tartness, make for a wonderfully festive look to your stuffing. Soak them in sweet orange juice for about an hour so they plump up and use a sourdough bread to fill to it out. Add a couple of bacon slices to the stuffing and use the rest of the pack to drape over the chook to keep it juicy. Herbs straight from the garden are best – I love sage and thyme – but if you have to, use dried herbs, but be sparing rather than over-generous as they tend to dominate the flavours.

I will be serving my Christmas chook with roast spuds, of course, and some lovely fresh green beans and peas mixed up with lots of butter and mint. And a little tip. If you have young children at the table, throw sausages into the roasting pan for 30 minutes so that the adults are left to devour the resplendent bird.

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Roast chook with cranberry and bacon stuffing

Size 16 or 18 free range organic chicken
1 cup dried cranberries
1 orange, zest and juice
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tbsps butter
2 thick slices bacon, cut into
small pieces
1 cup sourdough bread chopped
into small chunks
2 tsps salt
Freshly ground black pepper
6-7 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped
6-7 sage leaves
8 slices very thin streaky bacon
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups chicken stock

To make the stuffing, combine the cranberries with the orange juice and zest in a bowl to soak.

Take a frying pan and fry the onion gently in the butter until soft and starting to colour. Add the bacon pieces and continue to fry, stirring often.

Remove from the heat then add the bread chunks, the cranberries and orange juice, one teaspoon of the salt, freshly ground black pepper and chopped thyme and sage. Allow to cool. (This is important. You should never put a warm stuffing into a cold bird.)

Dry the chicken inside and out and stuff the cavity with the cooled stuffing. Tie the legs together to prevent the stuffing oozing out. Rub the skin with olive oil then spread the streaky bacon slices over the skin.

Preheat the oven to 200˚C. Place the chicken in a roasting pan and roast in a preheated oven for around 1 hour and fifteen minutes, or less if the chicken is not organic, basting occasionally until the skin is beautifully brown and the bacon is crisp. Take the chicken from the dish, cover it with foil and allow it to rest for at least 10 minutes.

While the chicken is resting make a light gravy by deglazing the pan with the chicken stock. Allow this to bubble up and simmer very slowly for 10 minutes, before carving the chicken into eight pieces.
If serving a crowd this recipe is easily doubled for two chickens and will serve 12 or more. Serves 6.