Rosemary and Roasted Grapes

When I roast a chicken, I like to add veggies and things to roast alongside - only one pan to clean up, just adding a little green to the plate completes it, and I get to experiment with all kinds of combinations.

I almost always toss in some potatoes, either red potatoes or fingerlings - they are more or less a "given". I also love shallots roasted whole. I just drizzle the veggies with a tiny stream of olive oil and roll them around in it to coat, adding different herbs or seasonings as the mood strikes me.

This time, I had two ideas for the same chicken. I still had some of the fresh rosemary that Chilebrown brought me a week or so ago and there were some green grapes in a bowl on the counter, looking less and less likely to be eaten by the day. So, I stripped the rosemary twigs of their soft leaves and mixed those with the potatoes and shallots and sprinkled a fair amount in and over my chicken. I roasted as usual - about 375 degrees for 50 minutes, then threw in a cup of the grapes, scattering them around in the pan, for the last 10 or 15 minutes of the roasting.

What an amazing combination of sweet grapes, savory shallots and rich, tangy rosemary was with the chicken! The skin of the chicken was crisp, the meat moist and this wonderful herby-sweet grape "compote" made what might otherwise be a pretty boring chicken into a truly heavenly dish. I'm going to try this rosemary-and-roasted-grape combo again later this week with pork chops and, yes, shallots again. These flavors were meant to be together - happy marriage.