Farmhouse Lemon-Rosemary Chicken

If you can only cook one thing and do it well, let it be roast chicken. Roasting a chicken with just a few ingredients, especially one this good and green, is all that’s necessary, really, to enhance the deliciousness of a bird raised the way nature intended.

Today we roasted a certified organic chicken from Elmwood Stock Farm in Georgetown, KY (www.elmwoodstockfarm.com) on the "Wellness Cooking" segment on WLEX-TV.  Elmwood has been home to six generations of the Bell family. Today Cecil and Kay Bell reside and farm full-time at Elmwood. Cecil oversees his Black Angus cattle herd, makes hay, and maintains pastures, barns and on-farm construction projects.

Cecil’s son and his wife, John and Melissa Bell oversee all of the vegetable production, burley tobacco crop (they grow tobacco organically), partners in the cattle herd, makes compost, and manages the on-farm labor. John’s sister and her husband, Ann Bell Stone and Mac Stone, are more visible at farmers markets. They maintain the organic poultry, sheep flock, farmers markets, and CSA pickups of Elmwood products.

I started buying their chickens about 3 years ago when I first moved to Kentucky and it was love at first bite. What so special about these farm raised chickens? Raised outdoors on a green, grass pasture organic chickens have a higher amount of good-for-you omega-3 fatty acids. Organic chickens are also raised without antibiotics, hormones or steroids, with no GMO grains or animal products in their feed. Everything they eat is certified organic from the land they graze on to their vegetarian feed.

Chickens from Elmwood are butchered, cleaned and dressed by a small processor in Kentucky that is USDA certified organic inspected.  

Farmhouse Lemon-Rosemary Chicken

Serves 4 to 6

Marinating overnight saturates the chicken with lemon and rosemary and makes it extra juicy. You can also cook this on a rotisserie. Otherwise, roasting at a high temperature speeds the cooking and creates a crisp bronzed skin and juicy meat.

1 (3- to 4-pound) chicken, preferably certified organic or pasture raised by a local farmer
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons finely minced fresh rosemary leaves
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 cups chicken stock or organic broth

Remove any giblets and rinse the chicken well with water; pat dry with paper towels. Place the chicken in a medium glass bowl. Mix together lemon juice, salt, pepper, oil and rosemary and rub all over the chicken. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate, turning occasionally, 8 hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 450°F. Place chicken on a rack in a shallow roasting pan and bake 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 425°F and continue baking 40 minutes, basting occasionally, or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 180°F on a meat thermometer, or juices run clear when thigh is pricked with a knife. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.

Meanwhile, remove all but 1 tablespoon of fat from roasting pan and place over medium-high heat. Add chicken stock and wine and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring until stock is reduce by half. After slicing chicken spoon pan drippings over chicken and serve.