Spatchcocked Roasted Chicken

 Roasted chicken is one of the most basic comfort foods, and a favorite in my house.  It is my daughter's dinner of choice for special dinners, and my son always looks forward to them because where there's roast chicken, there's gravy, and where there's gravy, there's mashed potatoes!  This is a bit of a twist on basic roasted chicken, because prior to roasting, the chicken is spatchcocked.  Yes, spatchcocked.  What the heck is that? It's just a fancy (humorous?) term for removing the backbone to essentially butterfly the chicken.  The advantage to this method is that it takes less time to roast than leaving the chicken whole.  For my chicken, I chose to marinate it prior to roasting, but you can do a simple roast without the marinade.

Roasted Garlic-Lemon Spatchcocked Chicken

Ingredients:

 1 whole roaster/fryer chicken, about 4 pounds
Olive oil, about 1/2 cup
4-5 cloves garlic
1 lemon
3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary, removed from stems and coarsly chopped (or use a tbsp or so of dried)
Salt and pepper (or grill seasoning, which is what I used)

Instructions:

1.  Place chicken breast side down on cutting board.  With a knife, make an incision along the right side of the backbone from top to bottom.

 2.  With kitchen shears (or a knife, if you prefer), cut along the incision all the way through.  This is easiest if you can find where the ribs meet the backbone, and cut right along where they join.

3.  Repeat with the other side of the backbone to remove it completely.

  4.  Wash lemon and slice 1/8 inch thick slices.  Crush garlic cloves to remove skins.

5.  Place lemon slices and garlic in a large self-sealing bag, along with the olive oil, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste.  From the outside of the bag, squeeze some of the lemon slices with your fingers to release the juice into the marinade.

6.  Add chicken to bag and seal.  Turn bag so that marinade evenly distributes and coats the chicken.

7.  Marinate at least one hour, but several is preferable.

8.  Place a rack in your roasting pan, or use a baking sheet with a wire rack.  Remove chicken from marinade, open chicken up and place on rack skin side up.

9.  Roast at 375 for 30 minutes.  After only 30 minutes, my chicken already looked like this:

10.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue roasting, approximately another 40-50 minutes, until meat thermometer registers 170 degrees in the thigh.  Baste occasionally while roasting.

11.  Allow to rest 10 minutes before carving.

This chicken was SO moist and tender, and had great flavor from the marinade.  I marinated mine about 4 hours before roasting.  I did not make a gravy this time, as we were having rice with this rather than potatoes, but you certainly could make a gravy with the pan drippings if you wanted to.

We all like the breast meat best, so had thighs and drumsticks for leftovers.  I made a simple chicken salad for sandwiches with those leftovers, and since the meat was infused with the garlic, lemon and rosemary from the marinade, I thought that adding pesto to the chicken salad would give it something a little different.  It was very tasty!  I used about 2 parts mayonnaise and 1 part plain yogurt until I got the consistency I wanted, then added a couple teaspoons of prepared pesto.  I really liked the zing that the pesto gave it.

This makes a great Sunday dinner or celebration dinner without too much fuss.  The chicken can go into the marinade early in the day, and then just pop into the oven a couple of hours before it's time to eat.  Skin-on chicken is not the healthiest of meals, but every once in awhile doesn't hurt.  I like the fact that it takes less time to roast when it's spatchcocked like this.

That's all for now- next time I will be back with an interesting side dish that I hope you will like.