Because it's AWESOME. And fun. And cheap, and delicious.
Tonight, BEE and I roasted a chicken, spatchcock-style, with lemon, thyme, and rosemary and young potatoes and fennel on the side. We snagged a 7.5 lb. chicken (a big sucker) for about $10 and now I have awesome food for at least 4 more meals (and a ton of high quality chicken stock).
Spatchcocking is a good choice for roasting a chicken quickly, particularly a larger one, because you're essentially spreading out the meat by eliminating the cavity. To spatchcock, flip your bird so the breasts are facing down onto your work surface. Using cooking shears or a heavy duty set of scissors, cut along the spine on either side, and remove it and the giblets. Turn the chicken back over and press down between the breasts so the bird is folded out.
We placed the bird on a foil-covered cooking sheet, then rubbed the skin with olive oil, salt, and pepper before covering it in dried thyme, fresh rosemary sprigs and thin slices of lemon. We surrounded it with quartered potatoes and diced fennel bulbs, drizzled them with olive oil, and sprinkled with salt, pepper, and some of the fresh fennel fronds. Prep took maybe 15 minutes, tops. So easy. Here's how she looked before she went in:
The chicken cooked at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes. Meanwhile, I threw the spine, meat attached, along with the giblets into a pot of boiling water, which I spiced with thyme, salt and pepper -- cooked for about two hours and I now have homemade, excellent chicken stock for the freezer. Win.
The chicken was incredible; I've paid plenty for worse at nice restaurants. The skin was perfectly crispy and spiced, not too fatty, while the aroma and flavor of the fennel filled the moist and completely tender meat. The potatoes were even better, buttery-flavored from the sheen of chicken fat on the bottom of the pan with just the right bite from the fennel fronds. Friends, the final effect:
I will do this weekly -- the whole meal was under $15 and even excluding the stock I have four meals-worth of leftovers. Plus it's fun, and reasonably fast if you spatchcock. Which is also a fun word to say.