Six simple hacks to make a perfect Mother’s Day roast dinner

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and there’s nothing a lot of mums love more than to be treated to a roast dinner.

Chances are your mum will cook for you all year round, so – on this occasion – you may want to treat them on their special day.

However, it can be a potentially stressful and difficult task – particularly if your mother is hovering in the kitchen, watching you.

Here, we list six key steps to set you on your way to making the perfect Sunday lunch.

1) Cooking the meat

The cornerstone of a Sunday dinner, everybody has their own personal favourite choice of meat.

Cooking times for different types of meat can often confuse people, however following this easy trick can take the stress out of cooking meat.

There may be a temptation to use different temperatures.

However, according to Good Housekeeping.com, you should always stick to gas mark 6 and 200C, or 180C on a fan oven, when cooking beef, lamb, chicken and pork.

The cooking times are as follows: Beef and lamb: 25 min per lb (-5 min for rare and +25 min for well done); chicken: 30 min per lb; pork: 35 min per lb.

2) Stuffing

Although stuffing is traditionally cooked with the meat, ASDAGoodLiving.com says that cooking them separately will actually speed up your meat’s cooking time.

The reason many opt to cook their stuffing with the meat is because it is said to improve its flavour.

But cooking your stuffing separately will take less time and it will taste just as good.

Put the stuffing into a tray and put in the oven for 25-30 minutes at 200C.

3) The perfect roast potatoes

No roast dinner is truly complete without roast potatoes.

The best roasties are light and fluffy on the inside – but have a crispy texture on the outside.

According to the Liverpool Echo, you should parboil your potatoes for 20 minutes before putting them on a baking tray with fat, salt, pepper and maybe rosemary and garlic.

They also say by using a fork to scrape the edges of the potatoes, you will create deeper ridges, perfect for absorbing flavour from the seasoning.

Their final tip is to use a metal tray – avoiding glass or Pyrex- as they are better conductors of heat so will heat the fat quicker.

BBCGoodFood.com also says that you should heat your oil or fat on a baking tray for five minutes before cooking your potatoes in them.

4) Vegetables

With so many things to do on the day, preparing the vegetables for your roast dinner properly can often be forgotten.

To avoid this, Good Housekeeping.com suggests peeling and cutting your vegetables the night before to avoid extra stress.

After peeling and cutting the vegetables, wrap them in kitchen paper and put them in the fridge to keep them fresh.

This will make sure your vegetables taste just as good but save you some time and hassle on the day.

5) Yorkshire puddings

BBCGoodFood.com says, along with your roast potatoes, you should heat the oil for your Yorkshire puddings for five minutes before placing the batter in the tray.

They recommend using 200ml of plain flour, four eggs and 200ml of milk for eight Yorkshire puddings.

If you have time when making your batter, you should add the eggs and milk to the flour slowly as you mix the ingredients together.

However, if you are low on time and you haven’t made your batter, you can mix the ingredients together in a blender rather than adding the eggs and milk slowly as you mix.

6) Gravy

MumInTheMadHouse.com says the best way to make your own gravy is by putting the meat juices on to heat and then adding flour and water until it thickens.

Strain before serving to avoid large lumps in your gravy.

If you do not have time to make your own gravy, just use gravy granules.

You can still make extra tasty gravy by mixing the granules with the juices from the meat and vegetables.

This adds flavour and the vegetables will provide extra vitamins.

Follow these six easy steps and your mum will be practically gushing over your cooking skills.