Leila and Sam have cooked Sunday lunch for twelve people every week for six years, in a row house with one small oven. This week they tell us how: the timings, the shortcuts and the dish they will never make again.
In this episode
It started by accident. Sam's parents came for lunch one Sunday, then his sister and her children, then the neighbors who could smell the roast from next door. Six years later there is a waiting list for chairs, and a folding table that lives under the stairs.
Leila is a nurse and works every other weekend, so the plan has to work for whoever is cooking. Their answer is a written schedule, taped inside a cabinet door, that works back from one o'clock to the moment the oven goes on.
We talk about why they roast the potatoes before the meat, how a cool box keeps food hot, and the year they tried to cook a whole salmon in the dishwasher. Please do not try this at home.
Most of all, they talk about why they keep doing it. "It is the one meal of the week where nobody looks at a phone," Sam says. "Even the teenagers. They are too busy fighting over the last potato."
The one-oven schedule
- 9.30Potatoes parboiled, shaken and into the oven on the top shelf.
- 10.30Meat in on the middle shelf; potatoes down to the bottom.
- 12.15Meat out to rest under foil and a tea towel.
- 12.20Oven up to full heat; potatoes back to the top to crisp.
- 12.40Yorkshire puddings in; vegetables on the hob.
- 1.00Everything on the table, and nobody in the kitchen.
Mentioned in this episode
- TrayLeila's potatoes: parboil for eight minutes, shake them hard in the pan, then into a tray of hot oil.
- BoxThe cool-box trick: line a clean cool box with a towel, put the covered dishes in and close the lid. Food stays hot for an hour.
- GravySam's gravy, made from last Sunday's bones and frozen in portions.
Chapters
- Hello, and who is coming this week
- How lunch for four became lunch for twelve
- The schedule on the cabinet door
- Potatoes first: the case for it
- Keeping food hot without a second oven
- The salmon and the dishwasher
- Vegetarians, children and one fussy uncle
- Your questions
Questions for next week's guests? Send them in by Friday and we will read the best ones out.