Roasted Chicken and Root Vegetables

This weekend was the beginning of Farmer's Market season and we stocked up. I took the opportunity to try a few root vegetables I hadn't tried before. In the freezer I had a whole chicken I'd bought quite a while ago and it needed to be cooked. So, in a dutch oven I made a bed of chopped root vegetables for the chicken to cook on. The sweet and spicy, yet savory smell of this cooking is truly mouthwatering and not to be missed. For our dinner, I served some roasted asparagus on the side.

Sunchokes (or Jerusalem artichokes), if you have never tried them, are the tuber of a variety of sunflower. The taste is rather like a nutty artichoke and the texture is that of a water chestnut. When boiled, they become mushy like a potato.

Parsnips are pale root vegetables related to carrots. They have a sweet and spicy flavor—perhaps butterscotch-y flavor.


Ingredients

1 whole 3-4 lb. chicken

1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried sage
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Salt

3-4 sunchokes, peeled and sliced thickly
4 red potatoes, quartered
2 stalks celery, sliced thickly
1-2 parsnips, peeled and sliced thickly
3 carrots, peeled and sliced thickly
1 red beet, peeled and cut into wedges
½ cup white wine (Riesling)

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Prep your vegetables and toss them in a large Dutch oven. Pour in the ½ cup wine.

In a small bowl, combine the herbs, olive oil, lemon, garlic, salt, and pepper. Mix well.

For the chicken, rinse the outside and inside. Cut off all of the large excess masses of fat. Discard the innards and neck. Place in the Dutch oven on top of the vegetables and loosen the skin on the breast. Massage the herb mixture under the skin and all over the chicken. Place in the oven and cook for 2 hours. After the first hour, add ½ cup water. The chicken is done when a thermometer registers 170°F when stuck into the thick parts of the chicken.