Lovely gravy, matey!

There is nothing quite like a Sunday roast and I don’t know why we don’t do it more often, I guess because it’s better if there is more of you and you can have a bigger joint which will taste better!

We visited our friends in Devon today and we had roast pork, roast potatoes and parsnips, roast beetroot, peas, carrots,apple sauce, stuffing balls and gravy… oh how yum it was! When we were children we had a roast every Sunday and then the cold meat was used for meals during the rest of the week; cold slices with mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy, minced to make cottage or shepherd’s pie, or rissoles… my favourites! Rissoles have to be made with cooked meat and then fried so they have a delicious crispy outside and soft tasty inside.

We usually had beef or pork, quite often lamb or mutton, but very rarely chicken because in those days it was the most expensive meat. When we did have chicken the carcase was always made into soup. At Christmas we would have a turkey; my dad would go to the auction at the cattle market as late as possible, sometimes even on Christmas Eve and buy a Harry turk as he called it. One year for some reason he had to buy it early, maybe Christmas Day was a Monday and the market wouldn’t have been operating on a Sunday; on this occasion he also bought one for my aunty and hung them in the shed… unfortunately a neighbouring cat found a way in…

At home we would have batter pudding with beef, and horseradish sauce, mint sauce with lamb or mutton, mustard with pork and always lashings of gravy! My parents were expert gravy makers; we once had a friend of my dad’s for Christmas dinner (he was a guest, I don’t mean we ate him for Christmas dinner) and he exclaimed “Lovely gravy, matey!” which has been a family saying ever since.

Sunday roast… there is nothing quite like it!