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Sage Chicken with Potatoes and Onions

Hi and welcome to the third course of our Fall Festive Dinner.  (If you missed courses 1 and 2, you can find them here and here.)

Have you ever needed a go-to, impressive, delicious center attraction for a meal fit for company, but easy enough for a family night dinner? Nothing fits the bill like a perfectly roasted chicken.  It’s pretty, feeds 4 ~ 6 people, it’s relatively inexpensive and goes in the oven so you don’t have to do anything else except set the table and enjoy a glass of wine while waiting for it to roast. (O.K.  If it’s a school night, so you can help the kids with homework, bathe the baby, or discuss the day with hubby.)

Wednesday Recipe Day ~ Sage Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Cipollini Onions

I adapted this recipe from Maria Helm Sinsky’s  The Vineyard Kitchen.  Maria and her husband own a winery in Napa Valley and she is a highly respected chef whom I assisted when she was in Dallas in 2004.  Why d0 I love this particular roast chicken dish?  It uses sage, which is a great fall herb to include in your cooking.  It’s a powerfully fragrant herb that infuses flavor in the fat of the skin, leaving an earthy goodness in every bite. I love roasting the sweet potatoes (which are filled with Vitamin C and so good for you) and cipollini onions in the pan drippings of the chicken. Your vegetables soak up all that flavorful goodness as they caramelize.  By the way, chip-oh-LEE-nee onions are small, flat, pale onions.  The flesh is usually slightly yellowish and the skins are thin and papery.  They are sweeter than a white or yellow onion, making them perfect for roasting.  If you can’t find them, boiling onions will work.

TIP: Because the skin is so thin and papery, removing it is a bit tedious.  Cut off the stem and root ends and use a paring knife to scrape off the skin.  This recipe utilizes several of the Essential Tools from yesterday’s post: roasting pan, gravy separator, instant-read thermometer.

How to Prep your Chicken for Roasting

When I bring my roasting chicken home, I remove the plastic wrapping and remove the inside stuff (You know what I’m talking about?) Rather than rinsing the chicken under running water, which just has the potential to spread bacteria, I wipe the inside cavity and surface with a damp paper towel and then dry the skin with another dry paper towel. Place the chicken on a plate and put it in the fridge, uncovered.  This method lets the skin dry out a bit, resulting in a crisper skin (Yea!).

Sage-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Cipollini Onions

Before you roast the chicken, you really want to truss it. Trussing keeps the legs and wings firmly fastened against the body of the chicken (This holds for turkey also.) This way the chicken holds its shape and cooks evenly.  The legs and wings don’t dry out or get burnt at the ends.  There are a few different ways to truss a chicken, but the end result is the same.  All you need is kitchen twine and scissors.

Here is a good tutorial on How to truss a chicken.

While the chicken is in the fridge, gather all your ingredients for your mise place.

Sage-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Cipollini Onions

and you can prepare the vegetables. This is when you can turn the oven on to preheat.

Sage-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Cipollini Onions

Take the chicken out of the fridge. Place the sage leaves under the skin. TIP: wearing plastic gloves makes this job easier and not so messy.

Sage-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Cipollini Onions

Truss the chicken (watch the video above), add your oil and salt and pepper. You can see the sage leaves through the skin. Place the chicken on the vegetables. Into the oven it goes.

Sage-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Cipollini Onions

When the chicken is done, remove it from the oven and place on a cutting board. TIP: I like to lay a plastic cutting sheet in a rimmed baking pan to catch any juices.

Sage-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Cipollini Onions

Tent the chicken with a piece of foil.  Let rest for about 15 minutes and carve.

Here is the recipe.

After you remove the chicken and vegetables from the roasting pan, you can pour the pan juices into a gravy separator, if you like. Then always taste and season the pan juices with salt and pepper.

Next week, I’ll share the perfect side dish to accompany the roasted chicken.  Please drop back in my Bluesky Kitchen.  It smells heavenly. If you like the recipe, please share with your friends.

 

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Oh this looks amazing! It would be such a wonderful meal. I wanted to thank you personally for linking up with us for our first party at “create-share-inspire”. Your support is very appreciated!