Spatch the Chicken!

After a busy bustling week, we all look forward to a relaxing weekend & especially indulging in some home-cooked delights.  Although rare, sometimes Sunday mornings begin with a bit of a lie-in until at least 8am, snuggling up to the Husband while our beautiful cat snoozes on the foot of the bed, one eye open to see if we’re getting up yet.  Sundays are perfect for relaxed cooking & sometimes you just want an easy, lazy dinner that you can chuck in the oven & forget about (until dinner time that is!).  Nobody wants to be racing around the kitchen, trying to prepare a fabulous feast for the family in record time.  The best meals are those that just fit together, like the pieces of an edible food puzzle.  We tend to eat our Sunday meal at dinner time, giving us a chance to catch up with family & friends during the day, enjoy a crisp Autumn walk in the sunshine together, or simply curl up on the sofa together & watch old films.  Eating later in the day means you can just kick off your shoes, pour yourself a glass of wine & relax for the evening, especially in the chillier months.

Most roast dinners or lunches consist of a delicious, slow-roasted joint of meat or chicken, cooked to perfection & surrounded by a selection of sumptuous sides.  It’s great when you have the time, but not everyone wants to start preparing lunch first thing in the morning (especially when you should be making a pot of fresh coffee & a mini mountain of fluffy pancakes).  This is where a spatchcocked chicken comes in handy.  To reduce the cooking time of a piece of meat, it is sometimes butterflied or spatchcocked.  This bodes well for those long days at work or when you’ve been out galavanting & haven’t the energy to cook a full-on roast dinner, but have guests arriving in a couple of hours or just want to eat before midnight!  Obviously, there is some element of preparation & even a little delegation, but spatchcocked chicken is an elegant yet effortless dish that your family & guests will love.

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I always have a selection of sides in the freezer ready prepared for impromptu dinners & after-work suppers (if you prep them the day before, you can pop them in the fridge, ready for Sunday).  This could perhaps be one of the laziest, most rapid roast dinners you’ll cook if you’ve done the same, so here’s a couple of links to my previous blogs to give you a bit of help:  http://hopeyourehungry.co.uk/freezing-your-assets/  or  http://hopeyourehungry.co.uk/a-kitchen-nightmare-readymeals-set-go/

Ready to spatch the chicken?  Hands washed, aprons on & here we go!

What you need:

1 small/medium Chicken, no giblets (about 1.2 – 1.5kg approx)
6-8 rashers Smoked Bacon
1 large Lemon (or a couple of smaller ones)
Handful of fresh Thyme or Rosemary
2 tablespoons Runny Honey
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Freshly ground Black Pepper
Half a pint cold Water

What to do:

Pre-heat the oven to 200*C.  Prep your tin – get a large roasting tin, drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom & set aside.

Unpack your chicken from the wrapper & cut off the string holding the legs together.  Do not wash the chicken – any bacteria will be killed in the cooking process.   Now I’m not being the recycling police, but please wash the plastic tray in hot soapy water & chuck it in the recycling bin – or maybe use as a plant pot tray in the garden instead (great for sitting trays of seedlings on).

Pop the legs out of their sockets – hold the chicken breast side facing you, leg in each hand & push them back until you feel them give.

On a chopping board, place the chicken breast-side down, so the underneath & wings are showing (they are usually tucked under the body).

Taking a pair of strong kitchen scissors, cut either side of the spine all the way to the Parson’s nose (the wobbly bit of flesh at the top).  You will cut through bone, so your scissors need to be sharp.  Remove the spine & save to make stock (see my blog on preparing a chicken for this – here’s the link: http://hopeyourehungry.co.uk/a-bird-in-the-hand-is-worth-ten-in-a-dish/).

Turn the chicken breast-side up again & lay in the roasting tin, splaying out the body & legs.  Give the top of the bird a firm press down, just to contact the chicken with the tin.

Layer the bacon rashers all over the breast part of the bird & legs if you like too (I use the bacon to cover any areas where the skin has split & it keeps the meat moist, basting it with it’s fat & juices).  Wash your hands thoroughly.

On another chopping board, cut the lemon into quarters lengthways, squeeze the juice all over the bird.  Lay the quarters in each corner of the tin.  If you can’t get large lemons, use a couple of smaller ones.  To get the most juice from them, give the lemons a firm roll on the board first.

Drizzle with olive oil, then season with a good sprinkling of the sea salt & black pepper.

Chuck in a few sprigs of fresh herbs, sharing around the tin to surround the bird.  Thyme or Rosemary are great for this, or you could use some of both.

Pour the water around the chicken.

Place in the lower part of the oven & cook for about an hour, until the chicken is golden & the bacon has turned a beautiful deep rose colour,  perfectly crisp.

To check if the chicken is cooked through, take a sharp knife or metal skewer & pierce the thickest part of the meat.  If the juices run clear, it’s cooked.  If not, put it back in for another 5-10 minutes & test again.

Once you’re happy with your bird, remove from the oven & strain any excess fluid from the bottom of the tin.  Drizzle the honey all over the top, legs & all.  Cover with a baking tin or foil & leave to rest for about half an hour, while you prepare the sides.  Resting the meat will give it a chance to relax & it will carve much easier.

When everything is ready, dish up that dinner!  Whether you have a few roasted potatoes & a salad, or all the trimmings, this rapid roast will feed the family & impress your guests at how quickly you pulled it together.

But it doesn’t end there, you can still make a few more meals with the leftovers.  Any extra slices of cooked chicken (& don’t forget the bacon bits!) can be used for packed lunches, crammed into pots with pasta, roasted peppers & salad, or stuffed in freshly baked baguettes, filled to the brim with rocket, fresh basil leaves & a splodge of mayo or pimped up Greek Yoghurt (just add a pinch of black pepper & dollop of pesto to a cup of the yoghurt).  Plus you can save the carcass to make stock too!  Great for rustling up a rich risotto, making a spicy soup or even for gravy.  See my “Bird in the Hand” blog link I shared above for instructions & just chuck it back in the oven to work it’s magic, while you all tuck in to dinner (multi-tasking at it’s finest of course).

Next time your Sunday is stretched, save some time & spatch the chicken!  Stay hungry!  A 😉 x