Spatchcocked Chicken

Turkey Tracks: May 28, 2021

Spatchcocked Chicken

I saw an article from The Washington Post the other day that demonstrated how to spatchcock a whole chicken.

Spatchcock is a term I never heard until very, very recently. Don’t even ask… As much as I cook, how could I have NOT heard about or tried this roast chicken preparation before now???

Anyway, I tried it last night. And WOW! I’ll never go back to roasting a whole chicken again—unless, I suppose, I’m doing several chickens and need the space in the oven? Never is a strong word.

The process was truly easy—as long as one has really good kitchen shears, which I do. I did an earlier blog post on mine last year, and I really like them. They come apart for cleaning too. You can see that post here: https://louisaenright.com/?s=A+Kitchen+Treat

So, I put fresh sage leaves under the skin and topped the chicken with fresh tarragon, garlic, more dried herbs, sea salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. It cooked in an hour—it would have been shorter if I’d used the convection oven I’m sure, but I had a Zoom meeting to attend and didn’t want to hang around the oven to make sure the chicken wasn’t burning, but browning. The whole house smelled…divine.

Here’s the link to the WAPO article, but I’m sure if you googled, you’d find lots of videos of how to spatchcock a chicken.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/interactive/2021/how-to-spatchcock-chicken/?fbclid=IwAR1bAqzIWX6Ml91BasK1hLKEnN-nfKwqDoTkujBV5N5SB1y_H5CyXlg_js0