Labrador tea roasted hutterite hens

I was recently at Stacey's the local butcher shop in Whitehorse rummaging around when I spotted a chicken labeled "specialty chicken". When asked what kind of chicken it was, I was told it was a hutteritte raised free range chicken. He gave me one to try at the lodge, so I began thinking how I was going to cook it. Brine, roast the breasts on the bone, sous vide the legs and crisp them up in chicken fat is what I was thinking. Liver and giblet gravy with wild sage....Hell ya! Now to the brine.

Wild Labrador tea is up everywhere out here and is flowering this time of year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labrador_tea Seeing as I love the flavor so much, I thought I would make a Labrador tea brine for the chicken. Holy Sh#$ is all I have to say! Why didn't I think of this earlier? Anyways, here's what I ended up doing. Recipe as follows...

Labrador Tea Roasted Hutterite Hen

The brine:

• 4 liters water
• 225g kosher salt
• 125g sugar
• 3 tbsp coriander seeds
• 8 bay leafs
• 1 big hand full dried Labrador tea leave
• 1 garlic head cut in half

Bring all ingredients to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes to infuse, cool down completely. (can be done up to a week in advance)

When the brine is ice cold. You can put the chicken in. Use a weight to keep it submerged if necessary. The chicken will need to be in the brine for approx 12-15 hours (this was a 6 pound bird) When out of the brine pat dry all around and air dry in the fridge preferably overnight to form a pellical and insure good browning in oven. I roasted the breast on the bone in a roasting pan on a rack. Under the rack I poured in white wine and threw in another handful of Labrador leaves to get some vapour action from underneath the breast. I sous vide the legs at 160f for 10 hours then rubbed them with beer mustard, wild sage and buttery bread crumbs and crusted them up in a 400f oven for 15 minutes. Giblet and liver gravy.....Potato gratin, and chicken fried carrots.. The chicken was moist and had a real "chicken" kick to it. Hutterite chicken is definitely worth seeking out!