Flattened Chicken with Herbs & Sticky Lemon

The population of Holtville, California, when I lived there around 1996, was about 5,500. The Holtville Tribune was the local weekly newspaper and as you can imagine, most of the time the newspaper staff had to work mighty hard to dig up "news" for this quiet town.

There was a police beat column that listed all of the calls the small police department had during the week. I picked up the paper one evening and noticed there was only one entry that came from the police logs that week: "Officers reported a flat cat at 6th and Walnut."

Thankfully, I didn't have to wait for a chicken to cross the road for this recipe. Flattened... butterflied... spatchcocked... it's all the same thing and it refers to removing the backbone and breastbone (keel bone) from a chicken. This allows the chicken to lay flat, and speeds up the cooking time a little, too.

Because it's difficult to butterfly a chicken and take pictures at the same time, I found this jovial fellow on YouTube who does a good job of making this look easy.

It is easy! After I butterflied the chicken I cut it in half and marinated it in white wine overnight in the refrigerator.

Rosemary, thyme and garlic cloves go into the pan that will hold the chicken.
The chicken is set over the herbs and then is sprinkled with salt and pepper. This goes into a 400F oven for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, thinly slice one lemon. Also, mix up some honey and chipotle pepper sauce... we'll use this to baste the chicken later.
After 20 minutes in the oven, 1/4 cup of sherry vinegar is poured over the chicken and it's back into the oven for another 15 minutes. The aroma of the rosemary and thyme was intoxicating!
Lay the sliced lemon over the chicken, then baste with the honey and chipotle mixture. This goes back into the oven for an additional 10-15 minutes.

Put the chicken on a plate and sprinkle with chopped parsley and toasted sliced almonds. The honey and chipotle sauce made a perfect balance of sweet and smoky and the roasted herbs gave a wonderful aroma to the chicken. I'll make this again and will also use the honey/chipotle basting sauce for chicken on the grill!

This recipe is from National Chicken Cooking Contest Pacific Region winner Elsie Lalor of Issaquah, Washington. If you love chicken and are looking for a recipe that's good enough for company, this one's for you!