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Tuesday, November 1, 2022
A one-pan delight
Chicken and sausage come together in an easy, no-mess recipe
BY AMY DREW THOMPSON
Orlando Sentinel
I’ve been wanting to feature this recipe for
some time now, as it’s pretty much perfect.
It has few ingredients. It requires one pan
that can double as a serving dish. Prep, which
can be done up to two days in advance or right
before cooking, is virtually zero-mess. It smells
fabulous. It looks gorgeous. It will lock in your
rep as a slayer in the kitchen who gets it done,
even on the busiest days.
And now that I’ve made it for Austin Fuller
and Anne Simpson, I can add that it’s also a
great choice to help stressed friends decom-
press.
Fuller is my colleague. A business reporter
for the Orlando Sentinel, he, too, covers restau-
rants and we chat about our beats and food in
general quite often. He likes lemon-blueberry
combinations. He loves fried chicken. He texted
a dozen or so food pics during his recent vaca-
tion in New York City.
And so when he and his girlfriend were dis-
placed from their apartment after Hurricane
Ian flooded the place, like many of their friends,
I asked what I could do to help.
At the moment, he said, they were covered
— staying with friends and such — “but don’t
be surprised if we hit you up for a hot meal at
some point,” he said.
I wasn’t surprised they needed one.
Fuller had awakened around 4 a.m. on Sept.
29 and wet his feet when they hit the bedroom
floor.
“At that point, the entire unit had water in it,”
he told me. “We weren’t sure how much deeper
it would get as the rain was still coming down.”
Bailing proved an exercise in futility and the
days that followed — during which both he
and Simpson, a librarian, were still working
— were “too chaotic and packed to adequately
describe.”
But community emerged from the chaos.
“So many people reached out and offered to
help that we didn’t really have to ask,” he says.
“So many people were generous in offering
places to stay, meals, money, to ship us stuff, or
just to talk.”
And the value of those hot meals, at my place
and others?
“It was nice to decompress with people we
enjoy,” says Fuller. But he’s also pragmatic. “One
can only eat so much fast food in so many days
before longing for a home-cooked meal.”
Nigella’s dish — crisp chicken, bone-in and
juicy, alongside snappy sausages, all beautifully
browned — makes for a wonderful low-carb
meal alongside green vegetables or a nice salad,
all while bringing to life those traditional stuff-
ing-like flavors of sage and onion. I always cut
a couple sausages in half to further infuse the
meats with whatever flavor you choose.
Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel-TNS
Prep could not be simpler.
Amy Drew Thompson/Orlando Sentinel-TNS
Supermodel on the plate. Use a pretty pan and you can just take it from oven to table.
ONE PAN SAGE AND ONION CHICKEN &
SAUSAGE
Regarding the ingredients, I’ve been known to cheat juuuuust a little, using whatever mustard’s in
the fridge — deli to Dijon. I generally use fewer sausages, as well (6-8) and cut a couple in half to
let the flavors combine during the cook. Regardless of tweaks, this dish is always a crowd pleaser
and you can find it here: nigella.com/recipes/one-pan-sage-and-onion-chicken-and-sausage.
1 large onion
1/2 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons English mustard
1 tablespoon dried sage
1 lemon, cut into eighths
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
4 pounds chicken (jointed into 10 pieces)
12 sausages
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage (or chives or watercress to serve)
Pepper
Peel and cut the onion into eighths, and put into a freezer bag with the oil, mustard, dried sage,
a good grinding of pepper and the Worcestershire sauce. Squeeze juice from lemon wedges into
bag and toss them in. 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 degrees Fahrenheit. Allow the chicken to come to room temperature in
its marinade.
Arrange the chicken pieces in a deep roasting tin, 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 tin into the oven to cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes
— though note that fan ovens may cook this more quickly, so do check after 1 hour. Turn the
sausages over halfway through to color them evenly.
Arrange the chicken and sausages on a large platter.
Generally I go mild or spicy Italian (depend-
ing on who’s coming) and have used a turkey
version with success on more than one occa-
sion. Next time I might try Lawson’s suggestion
of heat-laden Spanish chorizo, which sounds
scrumptious.
Unless you’re pointedly abstaining, this dish
begs for carbs. I’ve served it with simple rice (I
like it sticky), with crusty bread for that lemony
jus and on this night for the first time, with ol-
ive oil-roasted potatoes, simply seasoned with
salt, pepper and fresh sage and thyme. Orzo
could be a great pairing, as well.
Simply put, this dish is a looker. Roast it in a
pretty pan and it goes from oven to table like a
culinary cover girl.
I hadn’t made it in quite some time and
never before in my new place. In fact, they were
kind of my first official dinner guests. As usual,
Nigella’s recipe came through.
“I liked the lemon flavor,” Fuller told me,
both on the night of the meal and afterward.
“And you know I love a good chicken dish.
We’ll be looking for the recipe to make it some
time ourselves.”
Though at press time the pair were still
floating — staying in the home of another co-
worker who was out of town for the week —
soon they’ll have a cute, new Baldwin Park flat
in which to make the dish.
“We’re eating salads right now,” Fuller said
with a chuckle. They’re trying to cleanse after
a preponderance of displacement-induced fast
food consumption, but the outpouring of sup-
port has been as comforting as french fries, re-
minding them that they’d surely land on their
feet.
“We are going to be fine because of everyone
who helped,” he said. “We are very grateful to
everyone who helped in any way.”
It takes a village, goes the saying, and I feel
lucky to be a part of one. Especially when I get
to cook.
Melville Building has a long, varied history
GINNY
MAMMEN
OUT AND ABOUT
The area of 1427-1429 Adams Ave. in down-
town La Grande was the location for a dwelling
during the late 1800s and early 1900s. During this
period it varied between being a single residence
and a boarding house. By 1913 it was serving as
the latter, operated by Chris Miller, with several
boarders.
There was a Miss Clark who engaged in teach-
ing china painting to the ladies and drawing and
watercolor classes for the children. Also living
there was Rhoda Pierce, who sold various hair
goods. In 1915 Chris and Maggie Miller purchased
a home at 1510 Adams and were still renting out
rooms and where Chris had a business of buying
and selling fur pelts.
Sometime between 1915 and 1920 the home
was purchased by the Arbuckles, James and Katie,
who ran the Model Restaurant. By 1923 they were
ready to retire and take a well-deserved vacation
from the restaurant business and were offering
both the business and their home for sale.
Very likely the purchaser of the lot and house
was John Melville, who operated the hardware
business in one of the wood buildings across the
street at 1428 Adams. John and Mary, his wife,
lived in a house behind the shop. John, born in
1856 in New York, had been working in La Grande
since 1895 when he arrived and started his plumb-
ing business. Over the years two of his sons joined
him and in 1922 they expanded the plumbing
business to include a line of crockery.
The business had done well. In 1926 John was
70 years old yet he saw an opportunity to further
expand during this period of new growth in La
Grande. He took action and made plans for a new
building across Adams at 1427-1429. It was No-
Fred Hill Collection
The Melville Building, 1427-1429 Adams Ave. in downtown La Grande, has been home to a variety of tenants
since it opened in 1927.
vember 1926 and both the Curry Building next
door and his new Melville Building were nearing
completion. Unlike the other buildings on this
block, the Melville building was to be two-story
with four apartments, three large and one smaller,
to allow for a wide stairway with an outside en-
trance, planned for the upper floor. It had two
commercial spaces on the street level and the rear
of the building included a one story sheet metal
and plumbing shop. By mid June 1927 the build-
ing was fully completed for occupancy.
The first occupants in the commercial por-
tion of the new building were the Baldwin Piano
Company and the Melville Plumbing Company
under the management of Melville’s sons, Vic-
tor and Harry. The piano store was the first to be
opened by the company in Eastern Oregon and
advertised a piano for everyone’s budget ranging
in price from $285 to $21,500. Melville Plumbing,
in addition to offering plumbing for bathroom
and kitchen plus hardware items and service,
added more to their china and pottery display.
The Melville Building, for the following 30
years, experienced many changes in occupants.
It is unknown what happened to the piano busi-
ness, but in June of 1928 Gus Read opened the
Green Market in the western portion of the new
Melville Building. It was primarily a delicatessen
providing homemade salads and lunch meats
and featured fresh produce. It was a good idea,
but although Green Market remained in this lo-
cation, it changed owners three times in the first
year. By 1930 a new owner was Harley Stoneking,
who eventually changed the name of the mar-
ket to Stoneking’s Grocery where he offered a
wider variety of grocery items. This remained
here until March 1937 when Harley was bought
out by Mike Lukson, who later partnered with
Bert Webb forming B & M Grocery. Then Webb
bought out Lukeson. By 1940 the new owner of
the grocery, now to be called Ware’s Market, was
Fred (Buck) Ware, a man in his late 60s, who ap-
pears to have been a retired merchant.
By 1950 Fred was unable to work, but his wife,
Gertrude, and daughter, Georgia, had taken over
the operation of the grocery. This continued un-
til early 1956 when Fred became ill and died. The
grocery was then offered for sale by the family.
For a while the space at 1427 Adams remained
unoccupied. In July of 1957 The Church of Christ
Scientist located a reading room at this location
and remained there for many years.
Over the years the Melville brothers changed
from the plumbing business and concentrated
more on gift and homeware items. In 1946 Virgil
Choate and Nylic Lewis purchased the Melville
Building as well as the business. In February of
1946 The Observer ran an ad stating that Mel-
ville’s was open under new management. This
was the store that was here for many years to pro-
vide useful household items as well as the beau-
tiful gift items that graced La Grande homes for
weddings, birthdays and Christmas.
Currently the Melville Building is the loca-
tion of Allied Mortgage Resource and The Royal
Clothiers.
Keep looking up! Enjoy!
Ginny Mammen has lived in La Grande for more than 50 years
and enjoys sharing her interest in the history of people, places and
buildings.