Roasted Chicken with Green Garlic

A friend stopped by my Gluten-Free Goodies booth at the farmers’ market today and told me about Green Garlic.

You can only get it for a very short time in the Spring and only at farmers’

markets. It looks like a leek and when I went to buy it I checked with the seller to make sure I had the right root vegetable.

He said to use it like garlic, except you can use the entire vegetable, stalk and all. It has a milder taste, and my friend suggested making aioli, which I thought was a fantastic idea. But I forgot to buy eggs so I had to scour the fridge to see what we had.

The 6-year-old and I bought a free range chicken yesterday and were planning to roast it. I couldn’t find a recipe for Green garlic and Chicken so I turned to Twitter. Amelia of Eating Made Easy saved the day with a great recipe.

She said, in 140 characters, to cut the green garlic in half and place it in the cavity of the chicken along with two lemon halfs. I cut up a bulb and rubbed it on the chicken with olive oil and fresh rosemary from our yard. I sprinkled sea salt on the chicken and roasted it at 400 degrees for about an hour. It was wonderful. The chicken was tender and moist with a light flavor.

I served it with Red Chard that I also got at the farmers’ market. I cut up the rest of the green garlic (once again, stalks and all) and sauted it with olive oil. I added freshly washed, so still slightly wet, chard (I got this from Epicurious) and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. It was very nice.

Then I cheated and rounded off the meal with Trader Joe’s Frozen Mashed Potatoes (they’re really good!) and a sparkling wine.
The best part is that the husband I had dinner after the kids went to bed and were able to have a lovely meal together. Fabulous.

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