1/2-1 cup white grapes, with or without seeds (enough to loosely fill cavity)
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbsp fresh parsley
1 Tbsp fresh sage, or 1/2 Tbsp. dried rubbed sage
1/4 tsp fresh thyme, or slightly less dried
other herbs as desired (fans of Scarborough Fair might like some rosemary)
1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice or white wine vinegar
1 small roasting chicken (or 2 game hens)
1/2 cup chicken broth (or, in a pinch, water)
cinnamon, sugar, ginger, and salt to taste
Combine grapes, garlic, herbs, and lemon juice. Stuff the chicken with grape mixture and place in slow cooker. Add broth, and cook about 6 hours, or until done, on med. Remove skin if desired. Sprinkle bird with spices and serve.
Notes
The original medieval recipe from which this is adapted calls for sour grapes; if you can get unripe grapes and want a more authentic dish, use them and leave out the lemon juice or vinegar. If you are using ripe grapes, I would suggest using the smallest ones you can get, although it comes out quite well even with huge mainstream ones.
Adapted from: Hieatt, Hosington, and Butler, Pleyn Delit : medieval cookery for modern cooks. University of Toronto Press, 1996. ISBN: 0802076327
The rest of the story
The food bank's TEFAP commodities this month included a frozen chicken, which was nice but wouldn't fit in my freezer. So with it thawing in the fridge, I hit the books and found a nice medieval roast chicken recipe, but it was, ideally, to be cooked in a clay pot. Well, I don't have a clay pot, but it sounded fairly suitable for my slow cooker, so I tried that.
The idea of fruit combined with meat surprises some, but it's not that unusual even in mainstream fare: turkey with cranberry sauce, pork and apples or applesauce, ham in raisin sauce. I'm a big fan of fruit/meat combos:
Pork and peaches
Chicken, asparagus, amd pears
Fish and bananas
Esperanta traduko: this post is also available in Esperanto, because Dana is a language geek.
