Playing chicken

Thursday, June 05, 2008

I recently finished Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Admittedly, I was super jealous about all the poultry they were able to raise on their land.  Out here in Aldan (that’s Delco), we are not zoned for farm animals so I have to live vicariously through others.  My mother laughs at me - she spent her formative years trying to avoid egg duty on the farm: she and the chickens had a hate-hate relationship.

Even if I weren’t interested in supporting the local foodshed, I’d probably still go out of my way to purchase locally grown, pastured poultry.  The difference in taste is astounding.  The texture is way, way better than commercially produced chicken, not to mention true pastured chickens are less fatty and have higher nutritional value - like cows with cheese, happy chickens make happy...chicken meat.

The Fair Food Farmstand carries chicken parts from Shady Acres Farm in Elizabethtown, PA - they’re a small family farm who raises pastured poultry.  Also cool is that they supplement their poultry flock’s diet with locally grown grains.  Not surprisingly, a package of the chicken legs came home with me the other day, and featured in my second One Local Summer meal of the week: onion stuffed chicken legs, mashed potatoes, and asparagus..

Chicken legs, Shady Acres Farm - 99 miles
Onion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
Garlic, the last of my preserved garlic from last year - 0 miles
Rosemary, my garden - 0 miles
Butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
Cream, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
Chicken stock, homemade from a local chicken carcass - 0 miles (sort of, maybe 50-60 miles if you count the chicken)
Potatoes, Green Meadow Farm - 50 miles
Asparagus, Rineer Family Farms - 69 miles

not local: salt and pepper

Here’s a recipe for the chicken (for two servings):

1/8 c. finely chopped onion
1 Tbsp melted butter
1 Tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
1 clove garlic, minced
2 chicken legs
1/2 c. chicken stock

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Mix onion, butter, rosemary, garlic.  Season with salt and pepper.

Carefully loosen the skin on the chicken leg.  Rub half the onion mixture under the skin and mound the other half over the skin.

Place chicken in a roasting dish.  Pour the chicken stock over the legs, being careful not to knock the onion off.

Roast for 50 minutes, basting every 10 or 15 minutes.