Following Red Cabbage with Cranberries recipe from pages of From a Polish Country House Kitchen, 90 Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food (Chronicle Books, November 2012) by Anne Applebaum and Danielle Crittenden, here's a citrus flavored one.
Roast Chicken with Clementines
Kurczak Pieczony z Klementynkami
Serves 4
This is our holiday version of weeknight roast chicken. Back in the days when clementines were a rarity, they were what you got in your Christmas stocking. Nowadays in Poland, as elsewhere, clementines are sold in cartons for the holidays, and Poles buy them in bulk, placing them in enormous bowls on the table and around the house, as an edible decoration and a symbol of seasonal abundance.
Anne often puts them on a platter, sprinkles a handful of walnuts and some dates on top, and serves them with the after-dinner coffee, instead of dessert. That’s all one wants after a heavy winter meal, after all.
Here the clementines are cooked whole, inside the chicken, where their juice sweetens the gravy and their zest gives it bite. This is a very easy dish, perfect for one of those nights around Christmas when you aren’t entertaining hordes of cousins, but aren’t in the mood for leftovers either. To add to the laziness factor, w
To double the recipe, roast two small chickens in the same pan, rather than roasting a larger one.
1 whole chicken (3 to 4 lb/1.4 to 1.8 kg)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 to 3 clementines, depending on the size of the chicken and the clementines (you will be using them as stuffing), peel left on
Baking potatoes, with skin on (optional; 1 per person)
Salt
1 cup/240 ml orange juice, preferably fresh-squeezed
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary, or 1. tsp dried
2 small shallots, peeled and minced
Freshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/gas 4.
Wash the chicken and pat dry. Rub the outside with olive oil. Stuff the whole, unpeeled clementines into the cavity—as many as will fit without spilling out. Put the chicken in a roasting pan.
Roast the chicken for about 1. hours for a 4-lb/1.8-kg bird, or until the juices run clear when the leg is pierced with the tip of a knife, basting occasionally to brown the skin. For an even easier meal, rub some baking potatoes in salt, and place them in another roasting pan in the oven beneath the chicken—they will be ready when the chicken is. (Midway through roasting, pierce the potatoes with a fork in several places and turn.)
Remove the chicken to a carving board and let rest. Skim off any fat from the pan juices, and set the pan on top of the stove over low heat. Add the orange juice, rosemary, and shallots; raise the heat; and bring to a boil. Lower the heat again and simmer until reduced and thickened. Season with salt and pepper. You will want to have about 1 cup/240 ml of orange gravy.
Remove the clementines from the chicken cavity, cut them in half, and use them as garnish on the serving platter. Carve the chicken and pass the sauce separately. Halve the baking potatoes lengthwise and serve them alongside the chicken.
(* Recipe out of From a Polish Country House Kitchen– Chronicle Books, Fall 2012- by Anne Applebaum and Danielle Crittenden, Reprinted with permission of the publisher)