Shinn's Chicken - Farm to Table All in One Afternoon

Well we had quite the adventure Sunday.  One of my colleagues at school has been raising all natural chickens to sell to a farm co-op.  He had enough left over to sell a few to some of the teachers at school.  Bill and I love chicken so we jumped at the chance to try something truly special.  We drove to the farm in the afternoon, a lovely spot on the top of a hill in Canaan, New Hampshire.  Not only is Canaan the land of milk and honey but it is just around the corner from Cardigan Mountain School and Shaker Village.  Our chicken was a Cornish Hen Cross and was pasture fed for the last 8 weeks.  Each day Dave moved the pen to a fresh patch of pasture and the hens feasted on fresh grass and critters with no antibiotics and no tiny cages.  These chickens were clean, healthy and happy. 

 Bill decided to stuff the bird with a mixture of fresh lemon verbena, fennel and chopped up whole lemon.  He drizzled olive oil, kosher salt and pepper all over the skin and put it on a skillet in our charcoal grill.  We are big fans of Victoria Taylor's Seasonings and used the Tuscan Seasoning on the outside of the bird with the other seasonings.  A word on the setup of the grill.  The grill is a Char Griller 2222 with a smoker attachment.  We always use hardwood charcoal.  Bill put the charcoal on the right side of the grill away from the smoke stack so that the heat would pull across the chicken and up the chimney without burning the bird.  We placed the whole stuffed chicken (the stuffing was for flavor not for eating) on a flat skillet inside the grill and left it there for approximately one hour (this was a huge bird).  When the heat started to die in the grill Bill moved the chicken to the oven on a bed of onions, carrots, and celery at 350 degrees until the internal temperature of the chicken was approximately 155 degrees.  We then let the chicken rest while we finished the sauce and plated the sides.  This mirepoix rack takes the place of a rack and adds a lot of flavor to the juices that we later used to make sauce.  The flavors from grilling and the combination of vebena, lemon, and fennel were sublime.  Our hats off to Dave Shinnlinger and his Cornish Cross Broilers!

PS...The tart in the background is an apple tart I made to go along with dinner.