Get a cockerel delivered to your door and stuff it with delicious things this Christmas. Lindsey Bareham shows you how

One meal that demands advance thought is your Christmas Day feast. I’m planning on a cockerel. Staffordshire-based Packington Free Range (packingtonfreerange.co.uk/collections/frontpage) specialise in these slow and naturally reared gamey birds ordered directly, via your butcher or through Ocado. I’ll be brining mine, freeing up fridge space, immersing it for 24 hours in a highly seasoned salt bath. It makes the flesh even juicier, adding flavour too. Once rinsed and patted dry, Mr Cockerel is ready to be dressed for the oven.

Loosening the breast and drumstick skin and laying thin slices of subtly flavoured black garlic on the drumsticks, and using more in a duxelle of wild mushrooms with lemon to stuff under the breast skin, makes it look and taste stunning. The bird sits, breasts uppermost, over sliced onion, but is “massaged” first with olive oil and soused with lemon juice and white wine. I follow Packington’s cooking instructions under foil, removing it for the last 45 minutes to brown the breast and resting under foil for at least 20 minutes before carving.

I’ll be serving this stupendous bird with my Sydney Opera House roast potatoes (google “LB Sydney Opera House Potatoes”), fennel and Serrano ham gratin, bread sauce, pigs in blankets, sprouts and lemony white wine gravy.

Roast Cockerel with Wild Mushroom & Black Garlic Stuffing
Feeds 8-10
Brine for a 3kg-4kg bird:
1.5 litres cold water
125g salt
75g sugar
4 bay leaves
Small bunch thyme
1 large sprig rosemary
1tsp black peppercorns
6 garlic cloves
1 large lemon
2 juicing oranges
1 red bird’s eye chilli

Release the legs but don’t remove the band that holds the bird together. Dissolve the salt and sugar in the cold water, stirring constantly. Add all the other ingredients: the thyme and rosemary bashed to release their oils; the peppercorns lightly crushed; the garlic bashed to loosen the skin; the lemon and oranges zested over the pan, halved then the juice squeezed out, the shucks added to the pan; the chilli split, seeds removed. Cover the pan with clingfilm then a lid or foil and place somewhere cold and animal-free for 6-24 hours. Remove from the bath, rinse, wipe dry and prepare for the oven.

For the stuffing:
10 peeled black garlic cloves
150g dried wild mushrooms
2 onions
2 lemons
200g mushrooms
10g butter
50g bunch flat-leaf parsley
1tbsp chopped fresh tarragon leaves
tbsp finely sliced chives
150g mascarpone
1tbsp olive oil
750ml white wine
1 sprig rosemary
1tbsp flour

Place the dried mushrooms in a bowl and just cover with boiling water. Stretch clingfilm over the bowl and leave for 20 minutes. Carefully loosen the skin away from the meat over the drumsticks and breast. Season inside the bird and pop a quartered, peeled onion inside the cavity. Finely slice 4 of the garlics and spread under the skin over the drumsticks. Wipe and pulse-blitz the fresh mushrooms to finely chop. Melt the butter in a spacious frying pan and stir in the fresh mushrooms, tossing constantly until dark, shrunken and juicy. Add finely chopped zest of 1 lemon and its juice. Scoop the wild mushrooms out of the bowl and coarsely chop. Add to the pan with the carefully strained juice, leaving the grit in the bottom of the bowl. Simmer briskly, stirring often, until the liquids evaporate. Tip into a bowl. Add the finely chopped parsley and tarragon leaves and chives. Season with salt and pepper. Leave to cool, then fold in the mascarpone. Spoon the mix under the skin of the breasts of the bird. Tuck down the skin flap. Wash your hands and press the stuffing firmly into position. Re-truss the bird. Smear the breast and legs with olive oil (could be prepared 24 hours in advance of this stage). Place directly over a sliced onion, sprig of rosemary, neck from the giblets (the liver is delicious fried in butter and eaten on toast) or in a lift-out rack that fits inside a deep roasting tin. Squeeze the remaining lemon over the bird and pop the shell in the cavity. Pour the wine over the top. Cover the pan with a dome of foil.

Roast at 190°C/gas mark 5 for 15 minutes per 450g or until thigh juices run clear when pierced with a sharp knife. Remove the foil for the last 45 minutes of roasting to allow the breast to brown. Loosely re-cover with foil and leave in a warm spot for at least 20 minutes before carving.

To make the gravy, tip the pan and spoon off excess fat, remove the rosemary and giblet, add 1tbsp redcurrant jelly, dust with flour then whisk vigorously to mix, simmering steadily to make a thick gravy. Strain into a clean pan, adjust the seasoning and simmer, adding extra stock (from boiled veg) if necessary. Reheat and pour into a jug when ready to serve.

You’ll find more of Lindsey’s recipes at lindseybareham.com and in her latest paperback One Pot Wonders (Penguin/Michael Joseph)

This article is from Idler #106.

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