Rosemary Roasted Chicken on a bed of Rice and Sausage with Gluten-Free Cornbread

Gluten-Free Roasted Chicken on its bed of rice and sausage dressing.

Our town has recently opened a Farmer’s Market, which we were both delighted about and anxious to support.

On its inaugural day, I got off the bus in the town center, anxious to see the goods, and got a little giddy over the fresh hand-picked strawberries and other veggies.

(Side note: if you have not had fresh local strawberries rather than those overgrown, rather hard imitators that bounced across the country from California, you don’t know what a strawberry is supposed to taste like. These were as they should be, smallish, deep crimson red, tender without being soft, and very juicy.  A friend of ours that lives about three blocks from the town common where the market is bought a quart. Her three boys had eaten the entire quart before they reached the house. They taste gold-plated and unfortunately have a price to match, but it was worth it anyway.)

The second week of the Farmer’s Market bought even more bounty from a new booth where you can get pork and chicken products.  I succumbed to both a free-range whole chicken and some homemade hot sausage (still uncased).

I rarely buy whole chickens, so wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with the lot, but came up with this as a  solution.

The chicken I simply roasted, and essentially made a stuffing/dressing to put the chicken on out of veggies, sausage and rice.  We served it with some buttered carrots (also from the farmer’s market), and fresh cornbread. Directions and recipes follow.

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Roasted Free-Range Rosemary Chicken

Before placing it in the oven, rinse the chicken in water and pat it dry with a paper towel.

Rosemary Roasted Chicken

Rub with olive oil (lighter and less prone to burn than butter) and spices.  We do have Rosemary fresh in our garden this time of year, and I used some fresh for the dressing, but for the roasted chicken simply sprinkled on dry. Just shake until it looks right. I just used Rosemary to keep the flavor simple. Another nice addition might be to rub the chicken skin with garlic before putting on the olive oil.

Place in a dutch oven or shallow roasting pan, and pin or tie the wings to the body.  Roast uncovered at 375 (or 400 if the bird is under 2 1/2 pounds (190 or 205 degrees C).  A small bird (2.5 pounds) will take about 1 – 1 1/4 hours unstuffed. A 3-4 pound bird can take 2 hours. Stuffed birds will take 15-30 minutes longer.

Once the chicken is cooked to a safe temperature (175 degrees F, 80 C), let it set 15-20 minutes before carving.  Since mine was free-range, the usual ability to tell whether a bird is done by wiggling its leg doesn’t work here.  Make sure you use a meat thermometer.

I had another problem with the leg as you can see from the photo. When I got the bird at the Farmer’s Market,  I popped it in my bag quickly, and didn’t notice until I took it out to cook it that it was missing a leg!

I’ve got my bandages to keep me warm.

Apparently it came off in processing, but when I saw it I couldn’t get rid of a vision of a poor chicken hobbling around the barnyard with a crutch under one wing. Shades of Foghorn Leghorn.

Serve on a bed of dressing.

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Sausage and Rice Dressing

For the dressing, I just made it up as I went along but the ingredients were roughly as follows.

• 1 pound sausage (hot or sweet, depending on your preference)
• 1 1/2 cups rice (dry)
• 1 small onion
• 1 celery stick
• 4 oz mushrooms
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup water
• Fresh Rosemary to taste, removed from the stem
• Fresh Parsley to taste, chopped or snipped

Combine the rice, the chicken broth and water in a saucepan and cook until done.

While that is simmering, cook the sausage in a heavy fry pan until no longer pink.

Wash and chop the vegetables in the meantime.  I cut the onions and celery very small, and sliced and chopped the mushrooms fine as well. Once the sausage is done, remove the sausage to a bowl, temporarily, and remove some of the fat, and cook the vegetables in the remaining fat until the onion is tender and translucent and the celery softens. Once the veggies, rice and sausage are all cooked, mix them together and snip fresh rosemary and parsley over the top to taste and mix in.  I used 2-3 springs of rosemary and  what would be equal to 2-3 tablespoons of parsley.  You can add a bit of salt, if desired.

Spread on a platter and place the chicken on top.  It should look and taste delicious.  We served it with hot buttered carrots and cornbread.