Pomegranate Roast Chicken

This dish, and especially this sauce, has rapidly become a favorite of mine. I’ve cooked it twice now, and used a variation of the sauce for another dish as well. The chicken is tender and moist, the sauce has incredible flavor, and I love the vegetables cooked in the chicken drippings with butter and sage. I got this recipe from In Sock Monkey Slippers, and changed a few things, but the basic awesome recipe is from them. They also truss the chicken, which I’m too lazy to do.

To start, preheat your oven to 425 and cut up a bunch of root vegetables (potatoes, yams, carrots, squash, apples, and brussels sprouts all work well) and put them in the bottom of a roasting pan.

Next, mix together garlic, sage, and softened butter, and rub all over the chicken and under the skin of the chicken.

Put the chicken on top of the vegetables and roast for an hour and fifteen minutes. You’ll probably need to cover the chicken about halfway through with a sheet of foil to prevent the top from burning. I’ve found that the sage pieces are especially susceptible.

While the chicken is roasting, reduce pomegranate and black pepper in a saucepan over medium heat until it becomes a syrup and thickly coats the back of a spoon, about 45 minutes.

When the chicken is done roasting, remove it from the oven and brush half of the sauce on.

Roast for another 10 minutes (again, you may need to cover halfway through), and let rest for 5-10 minutes before carving.

Pomegranate Roast Chicken
adapted from In Sock Monkey Slippers

Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 pound fryer chicken, preferably free range/natural/antibiotic-free
• 2 Tablespoons fresh sage, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 4 Tablespoons softened butter, unsalted
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 4 cups (32 oz) pomegranate juice
• 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
• pomegranate seeds and sage leaves for garnish, optional
• prep as needed and roast alongside the chicken
• winter squash: butternut, acorn, pumpkin
• apples
• new potatoes
• sweet potatoes

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Finely chop the sage and garlic. Combine the butter, sage, garlic, and salt in a bowl and mix well until combined.
2. With your hands (think of it as an expensive hand cream), rub the butter over the entire chicken including the cavity and underneath the skin. Place any additional sage or garlic inside the cavity (optional).
3. Place the chicken in the middle of a roasting pan or cast iron skillet and add any vegetables mentioned above around the chicken. Drizzle the vegetables lightly with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Place the chicken in the oven and roast for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
4. While the chicken is roasting, pour the pomegranate juice in a sauce pot and add pepper. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until the juice has reduced by 3/4 and formed a syrup, about 45 minutes. The glaze will be finished when it thickly coats the back of a spoon.
5. Remove the chicken from the oven and pour a third of the glaze over the chicken. If the glaze has hardened, heat it over low heat until fluid. Evenly spread the glaze over the chicken with a kitchen/pastry brush. Reserve leftover glaze for serving/plating. Return the chicken to the oven and roast for an additional 10 minutes.
6. Allow the chicken to rest for 5 to 10 minutes before carving. Carve and plate. Spoon pomegranate black pepper glaze over and garnish with pomegranate seeds, if desired.