"That looks a very fine bird..."

Poulet rôti is what Cook Downstairs would most likely have written on the menu card she sent upstairs for Miss Sophie's approval before this whole business started. But at the end of the day, it's just a good plain roast chicken.

Even though Miss Sophie's Cook is probably significantly younger than her employer, the two of them would both have lived their whole lives during the time when British cookery was still dominated by the name of Isabella Beeton. The original British "domestic goddess," Beeton's dictates on food and sensible housekeeping -- as laid out in the fabled Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management -- were taken practically as Holy Writ by whole generations of British kitchen-dwellers, from the mid-1800's until well on in the last century. A quick dip into the poultry chapter of Household Management makes it plain that there's very little that Isabella didn't know about the raising, keeping, buying, and especially cooking of chickens; and Cook Downstairs would certainly have followed Beeton's instructions pretty closely.

For the plain roast chicken, Beeton gives straightforward instructions on how to proceed -- from when to have the chicken killed (about two days before cooking) to how to clean and prepare it. The cooking instructions are interestingly a touch more involved than what we expect these days -- the "grease it up, season it, stuff it or don't stuff it, and shove it in the oven" school of thought. But there's a reason for this.

In Beeton's time, many great kitchens had dedicated "roasting stations" that we would now find astonishingly complex -- full of machinery dedicated to keeping meat turning steadily and evenly, out in the open, in front of a clear hot fire. Isabella would have been aware that what happens inside a closed oven isn't really roasting, but baking by another name. She was, however, writing for the smaller household, where the cook would have had to make do with a regular oven. Beeton therefore worked to adapt some of the techniques of classic British open-fire roasting to her fowl recipes: specifically, the idea that the meat should be dredged with flour through the final stages of the cooking, to produce a crust that protects the meat from scorching, and adds a crisper-than-otherwise-possible contrast to the succulent flesh underneath the skin. The technique's described in updated terms below.

To duplicate Miss Sophie's roast chicken:

For each guest, obtain:

• A small tender chicken of about 1000-1200g / 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 pounds. (Poussin is ideal for this if you can get it.)

Have ready to season it:

• Salt (preferably coarse)
• Coarse-ground pepper
• Several tablespoons of olive oil or clarified butter
• Several tablespoons of flour for dredging the chicken
• Optional: a lemon, split into quarters the long way

You'll also need:

• A strip of baking paper or baking parchment six inches wide and a foot long

Wash the chicken inside and out and pat it dry with paper towels. Season it inside with about half a teaspoon each of coarse salt and coarse-ground pepper. If you're using the lemon, split it the long way into four pieces without cutting it all the way down to the base, so that the pieces hold together just at the bottom: tuck the split lemon inside the chicken. This lends a yummy fresh fragrance to the roasted chicken, and releases vapor that helps keep it moist.

Preheat the oven to about 400° F / 200° C (375° / 180° if you have a fan oven). Rub the chicken well all over with olive oil or clarified butter. Put it breast-upward on a rack in a roasting pan. Season the top of the chicken with more coarse salt and coarseground pepper. Once on the rack, oil or butter the baking paper / baking parchment and tuck it around the breast end of the chicken to protect the breasts from cooking too soon and drying out.

Put the chicken into the oven and roast for about ten minutes at the original heat. Then lower the oven temperature to 350° F / 175° C -- again, just a little less for a fan oven -- and continue roasting for another fifty minutes.

Different weights and sizes of chicken will naturally roast at slightly different speeds, but by this point the kind of small chicken we're describing should be well on its way to being cooked. Now the finishing process begins. Take the roaster out of the oven, remove the buttered or oiled paper from the breast of the chicken, and baste the chicken's breast and legs with the pan juices. Now sprinkle the breast and the tops of the chicken's legs lightly with flour (the easiest way to do this evenly is to put a little flour in a sieve and tap the sieve with your hand while holding it over the chicken). Then put the chicken back in the oven for another ten minutes.

After ten minutes, repeat the process: baste over the sprinkling of flour, sprinkle some more flour on, and put the chicken back in the oven for another ten minutes.

You shouldn't need more than one additional repetition of this process before the chicken will be completely cooked, and should be a lovely golden brown. The surface of the breast where you've been flouring and basting the chicken may look a little frothy or bubbly: this is perfectly normal. (Beeton says to leave the chicken roasting until "nicely frothed and of a rich colour".) The chicken should be basted one last time without adding any flour and given a final five or ten minutes in the oven before you finish. If you feel it still needs a little more browning, increase the oven's heat to 400° F / 200° C for these last few minutes.

When the chicken's done, remove it from the roasting pan to its serving plate and let it rest for at least ten or fifteen minutes before trying to carve it. The puffed-up breast and leg skins will collapse a little: this is normal too. When the chicken's done, joint and carve it, and serve it forth.

Serve with gravy made from the pan juices and drippings. The classic accompaniment for roast chicken in Beeton's day would have been bread sauce. Click here for a recipe, if you like it (it's something of an acquired taste, which EuroCuisineLady has never acquired: she normally opts for roast potatoes).

"I think we'll have Champagne with the bird..."

If we're to adhere strictly to Miss Sophie's request, it means we can't use just any sparkling wine, but must serve the real thing from the Champagne region of France -- now more than ever, since Champagne has succeeded in acquiring its AOC designation. Fortunately this restriction doesn't necessarily imply spending the Earth on a bottle: some excellent brands such as Moët & Chandon and Mumm's Cordon Rouge can be acquired without breaking the bank.

The courses served at Miss Sophie's 90th Birthday dinner, and the recipes for them:

• "Sherry with the soup": Miss Sophie's Mulligatawny Soup
• "White wine with the fish": Miss Sophie's Haddock with Maitre d'Hotel Sauce
• "Champagne with the bird": Miss Sophie's Poulet roti
• "Port with the fruit": The traditional British fruit plate

Don't know what all this is about? Click here for more info.