Spatchcocked Chicken!
Who knew?? I usually always stuff and roast whole duck, chicken and turkey. When I've tried cooking unstuffed, they go faster, but seem drier with less flavor. I saw this done on a cooking show. . .zip-zip-zip and it was ready to roast. I found a YouTube video just to be sure, and that demonstrator had similar results. . .with the zip-zipping. So, I sharpened one of my trusty chef's knives, pulled out the closest thing I have to heavy duty kitchen shears and started.
'Spatchcock A Chicken' they said, 'It's Easy' they said. . .Well, not so much, when you don't have a good pair of Industrial Strength Kitchen Shears. That's going on my IKEA list. I found myself apologizing to the chicken and so very happy I never felt a career call to any kind of surgery! Using a knife and / or a good pair of kitchen shears, cut on both sides of the backbone with the chicken on a firm surface, breasts down. Mine was 6½#. Remove the backbone, attached meat and skin. Save this to make chicken stock.
Sooo, it wasn't pretty, but I think I accomplished the goal, which was to flatten the chicken, stuff compound butter under the skin, drizzle with olive oil and roast. It takes less time and supposedly has great flavor. Compound butter is just a fancy way to say seasoned or flavored butter. You could season yours with lemon pepper, Thai, Mexican or Italian seasonings, or whatever flavor profile you want to impart. Today I kept it more conventional since I also used it on the vegetables.
Compound Butter
1 stick of butter
2T coconut oil
½t± red and black ground pepper
2 green onions - minced
a good sprinkle of garlic salt
Microwave, just enough to soften, mix and put about ⅔ of it between the skin and meat of the chicken. Press to spread it out on your chicken on a jellyroll pan lined with parchment paper.
Roasted Vegetables
1 lg. red beet
2 med. carrots
3 sm. yellow onions
1 sm. med. zucchini*
3 lg. cauliflower florets
1 long skinny sweet red pepper
Cut the vegetables pretty much as shown to assure everything cooks evenly. The beets and carrots cook the slowest. Scrub them but don't peel. Keep the beets separate after chopping. Put them in a bowl and rinse well, until the water stays clear. Then drain and dry. Put the other sliced-chopped vegetables in their own bowl.
Melt the remaining compound butter in the microwave and drizzle in about ⅛-¼c good quality dark olive oil. Stir then pour about a third of this over the beets and the rest over the other vegetables. Mix to cover everything then put on a parchment paper lined jellyroll pan. Put both pans into a 400° preheated oven. Vegetables will be done in 45 minutes. Stir them after about 20 minutes. Chicken takes a little bit longer. Poke and baste it until skin is crisp. Probably a total of an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.
Save all the chicken drippings, skin and any bones that easily pull out, in a pot in your 'fridge for a couple days to make really good chicken and vegetable broth.
Make more vegetables than you need - they taste so good! *(I should have used more zucchini--it roasted so well!) I'm sure I'll blend them into roasted vegetable soup in the next couple days, but I wish I had more! Roast them separately from the chicken. The vegetables on that pan basically cooked in chicken grease, which isn't a good thing, but after draining them on paper towels, they tasted okay. Now that I've tackled Spatchcocked Chicken, I'll make this again. It turned out really well. Good flavor and it wasn't dry.
Be Bold - Be Creative - Happy Cooking! . . . Lin
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