Roasting tin

Why size decides everything

Roasting is dry heat. Food releases water; that water has to leave as steam, and it can only leave from an exposed surface. In a crowded tin the steam has nowhere to go, the space between the pieces stays saturated, and the surfaces never dry enough to brown. What you get is pale, soft food that has been effectively steamed in an oven.

One tin with everything in it, packed to the edges, is the standard domestic mistake. Two tins, each half full, produce visibly different food — and it costs nothing but a second tin and a shelf.

The rule is simple: you should be able to see the tin between the pieces.

What to look for

Size

The largest that fits your oven with a couple of centimetres of clearance for air to move. Measure your oven before buying.

Material

Heavy-gauge stainless steel or anodised aluminium. Both conduct well and neither warps. Enamelled steel is fine and chips.

Weight

Heavy. Thin tins warp with a bang the first time they meet a hot oven, and a warped tin pools fat in one corner.

Sides

Low sides — two to three centimetres — for vegetables and anything you want browned, because high sides shield the food and trap steam. Deep sides for a joint with a lot of fat, and for anything you will make gravy in.

Handles

Proper ones. Lifting a hot heavy tin of fat by its rim with a tea towel is how people get burned.

Hob safe

Very useful — it means you can make gravy in the tin itself rather than transferring the fond.

Racks, and when they help

• Use a rack for a joint or a whole bird, so hot air reaches the underside and the meat is not sitting in its own rendered fat.
• Use a rack for bacon, chicken wings and anything you want crisp all round.
• Do not use a rack for roast potatoes and vegetables, which want direct contact with hot fat and a hot surface.
• A rack changes the gravy. Meat resting on the tin gives darker fond and more of it; a rack keeps the drippings cleaner and less likely to burn.
• A bed of vegetables is the traditional alternative to a rack, and it flavours the gravy at the same time.

Getting more out of it

• Preheat the tin with the fat in it before adding potatoes. Cold fat soaks in; hot fat sears.
• Two tins beat one. Split anything that does not fit in a single layer.
• Line with paper for sticky things and not for anything you want to brown against the metal.
• Deglaze it while it is hot. The brown film is the gravy.
• Do not use a warped tin for anything that involves fat. It will pool at one end and one side will fry while the other steams.
• A baking sheet is not a roasting tin. A flat sheet with a lip is right for biscuits and vegetables; a joint needs sides.

Common questions