One-Pan Sage-and-Onion Chicken and Sausage

Chef: Nigella Lawson

Cookbook: Feast

Publisher: Hyperion Books

Information

• Course: main course
• Total time: half-day
• Skill level: Easy
• Cost: Moderate
• Yield: Serves 6

Notes

I took it into my head one day that I wanted to marinate and cook some chicken with the flavors of a traditional sage-and-onion stuffing. So onion, mustard, sage and lemon infuse the cut-up bird, and sausages are cooked alongside the pieces in one big pan. I started off with English butcher's sausages but this works just as well with Italian sausages (no bread, so good for carb-avoiders) and also, though taking on a different character, with spicy Spanish chorizo.

As you can imagine, it is hardly any work, and if you haven't got time to give a proper night's marinating in the fridge, then leave everything, bar the sausages, to steep in the roasting pan for a couple of hours or so at room temperature. And even if you leave the sausages in, it won't matter.

Ingredients

• 1 large onion or 2 small onions
• ½ cup olive oil (not extra virgin)
• 2 teaspoons English mustard
• 1 tablespoon dried sage
• ground pepper
• 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 4lb chicken, cut into 10 pieces
• 12 sausages
• 2 tablespoons chopped sage leaves

Directions

Peel and cut the onion into eighths, and put into a freezer bag with the oil, mustard, dried sage, a good grinding of pepper, the lemon juice, the squeezed-out rinds cut into eighths, and the Worcestershire sauce. Squidge everything around to mix (the mustard needs help to combine) and then add the chicken pieces. Leave to marinate in the fridge overnight, or for up to two days.

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Allow the chicken to come to room temperature in its marinade.

Arrange the chicken pieces in a roasting pan, skin-side up, with the marinade, including all the bits and pieces, and tuck the sausages around them. Sprinkle the fresh sage leaves over the chicken and sausages and then put the pan into the oven to cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Turn the sausages over halfway through to color them evenly.

Arrange the chicken and sausages on a large platter.

© 2004 Nigella Lawson