Spatchcock your chicken...

I've recently learned how to do this. I don't know why I put off learning how.

It cooks really fast, but ALSO ends up better. My son is fussy about meat - really can't stand anything slightly dry or tough. He demolishes it when I prepare it this way, and often refuses to touch it otherwise.

Use a meat thermometer, rather than time. Aim for 65 degrees C at the thickest point, and let it rest for 15 minutes before carving.  Tonight a whole chicken was being dished up 60 minutes after going in the oven.

[youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/qs3IPpOBxPM?si=rEiSn5ThZJAXFzXJ[/youtube]

Spatchcock is a great method when grilling or bbq’ing chicken, it cooks so much more evenly.

If you can be bothered to completely debone your chicken for a roast, the meat stays really moist and the stuffing can stretch the chicken to feed up to eight people if you have lots of roasted vegetables to serve with it - cauliflower cheese, a potato and leek gratin, sweet potatoes, beetroot, carrots, broccoli etc all get cut up and tossed in olive oil and seasoned.

The late Jacques Pepin’s video demonstration of how to debone a chicken is the easiest one to follow.

That looks yummy.  Is it a British dish?

[quote=Anne Miller]That looks yummy.  Is it a British dish?[/quote]

Roast dinners are very British - roast beef, leg of lamb, duck, geese etc.

NZ being a British colony follows the tradition of family roast dinners at the weekend - even in an immigrant Chinese family as a child.

Having lived with a Brit for 46 years, we have continued the tradition for just the two of us but not every weekend!

The leek and potato gratin is a Sophie Grigson recipe from many decades ago, cauliflower cheese is a very traditional British vegetable dish - a roux with lots of sharp cheddar poured over steamed cauliflower and baked in the oven with the chicken.

The potatoes are thinly sliced and layered in the baking disk with steamed leeks, seasoned with salt pepper, garlic and generous drizzles of olive oil.

This is my favorite way to smoke, roast, or grill a whole bird. It cooks evenly, because there's no gaping - or over stuffed - hole in the middle of it. So no dry meat, unless it's left on the heat too long.

So, with a whole chicken in the fridge that'd need to be used, and a retired chef hubby that (at 4:30pm) looked at me and stated, "I can't make dinner tonight. I just can't." Guess what I'm making for dinner, tonight. Lol - I plan to spatchcock it, pat it dry, butter & season it, lay it on a bed of sliced onion, and into the oven it goes. If I remember, I'll get a photo or two. Don't hold your breath, though. My rememberer hasn't been at its best, this week.