Roast Chicken with Bread Sauce

A chicken of this size wants ninety minutes at 190C and twenty minutes resting, and the resting is not optional. Carved straight from the oven, the juices run onto the board. Rested, they stay in the meat.

The sauce

Stud an onion with cloves, drop it into the milk with a bay leaf, and bring it barely to a simmer. Leave it off the heat for half an hour to infuse. Fish out the onion, tear in the bread, and let it collapse. Butter and a heavy hand with white pepper at the end.

It should be thick enough to sit on a spoon and loose enough to spread. If it stiffens while the chicken rests, a splash more milk brings it back.

What to do with the carcass

Stock, that evening, not the next day. Cover with cold water, bring to a bare simmer, three hours, no salt. Two litres of stock from a bird you have already eaten is the cheapest thing in this kitchen.