Savory Stuffed Red Ranger Chicken

Gather your ingredients!
Fry up that bacon
In bacon grease, cook mushroms, shallots, and garlic until browned
Mix together baguette, bone broth, bacon, and parsley
Add mushroom mixture, ground fenugreek, and a pinch of salt
Stuff that chicken!
Cook in a closed-lid dutch oven
Eat it up!!

This recipe is a real treat. Why not have an everyday thanksgiving? Cooking the stuffing inside of our Red Ranger chicken gives it that extra punch of pasture-raised flavor, supported by the delectable goodness of dry-farmed shallots. Steps shown in the pictures above are outlined in detail below:

Gather up your ingredients, 95% of which you can likely find at the farmer’s market! You’ll need:

  • 1 Pasture-raised chicken (3 lbs, increase cooking time for larger chickens)
  • 1/2 lb of Mushrooms (we use a mix from Columbia Mushroom Company — so good!)
  • 2 pieces of pasture-raised bacon (We got some uncured side-pork from Treebird Organics)
  • 4 dry-farmed french grey shallots (dry-farmed shallots have more flavor, so you can use fewer of them — if using store-bought or a different variety of shallots, increase the amount to 6 or 8)
  • 1 head of garlic
  • 1/2 a baguette (day old and crunchy is better, but fresh works too. We love White Salmon Baking Co. or Pine Street Bakery)
  • 2 Tsp ground fenugreek seed (we grind right before cooking for superior flavor)
  • 1 Tsp Black Pepper (fresh ground)
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth (we use the bones leftover from our last chicken to make broth and save it in the freezer!)
  • 3 sprigs fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley
  • 1/4 Tsp Sea salt (or to taste)
  • 1 skillet and 1 Dutch Oven

Preheat your oven or barbecue to 250 degrees F. We always recommend cooking our chicken low (temp) and slow (longer time) for the best results in texture and flavor.

  1. Fry up the bacon in a skillet until brown and crispy. Remove the bacon and set aside — leave half of the grease in the skillet, and pour the other half into the bottom of your Dutch Oven.
  2. Chop Shallots and Garlic, and throw into the skillet with the bacon grease on medium heat for 2-3 minutes — add chopped mushrooms, and cook until the mixture starts to brown. Turn the heat off and set aside.
  3. Chop baguette into quarter-sized pieces. Dice the fresh parsley and crispy bacon into fine pieces, and throw together in a mixing bowl. Pour in 1/2 cup of warm chicken broth, and mix until the bread is damp but not soaked.
  4. Add the mushroom/shallot/garlic mixture to the bowl, and top with the ground fenugreek seed, black pepper, and salt (if your chicken broth is already salted, use only a pinch instead of the 1/4 tsp recommended). Mix thoroughly.
  5. Take the chicken, and stuff the body cavity with the mixture from the bowl. This should fill the bird.
  6. Add a splash of bone broth to the bottom of the Dutch Oven with the bacon grease, and then set the stuffed chicken inside. Lightly dust the skin of the chicken in sea salt. Depending on your preference you can cook either breast-up or breast-down, we recommend breast-down if you want the breast to stay more tender.
  7. Cover the Dutch Oven with the lid and cook at 250F for 2 to 2.5 hrs, or until the internal temperature of the bird reaches 165 degrees F. Cool for 15-20 minutes with the lid off, and then part out and serve! The chicken should be fall-apart tender and should part out easily.