A Recipe Recommendation (Butterflied Chicken)

To continue the food geekery posts, I had Dan and Daniel over for dinner, and wanted to share the recipe I used. I broiled up a chicken, using Alton Brown's Broiled, Butterflied Chicken Recipe; also made oven-roasted rutabagas, Japanese pumpkin (kabocha), and califlower--a very wintery meal. A fun evening, and great company.

Butterflying chicken (or spatchcocking--a cool word learned from Dan) is a pretty neat procedure--it makes the oddly-shaped chicken into a flat plane that cooks much more quickly and evenly. Also, using poultry shears to de-backbone a carcass is friggin' cool--a good reason to have one. [cronch cronch] After removing the backbone, you open it up like a book, and remove the keelbone (at the center of the breast) to make it lie flat. The step of stuffing flavorants under the skin (cracked black peppercorns, garlic, olive oil, salt) worked really well.

Oh yeah... a picture. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures tonight, but this is the Pollo Al Mattone (Chicken under a brick) that I made out at U5's a few years ago; similarly butterflied, er, spatchcocked.


Yes kids--you too can play "Wicked Witch of the East" with your food!

Yeah, I should be running simulations and writing instead. Arg. Anyway, seven wakeups, and I'm on a plane to Boston. See you folks in town soon!