March 21, 2009

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!

25 comments:

  1. This looks wonderful! I have a tough time with chicken on the bone, I don't know why!! I'm great with chicken breast though! LOL!!

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  2. Looks yummy! I'm a little scared to work with a whole chicken like that (plus, living by myself I never really need that much meat), but maybe next holiday I'll have to give it a try...I love rosemary with chicken (or anything, really). This post is making me hungry.

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  3. Chicken & lemon: you can't go wrong. This looks delish; I can't wait to try it!

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  4. That looks wicked good. I've been wanting to try that method, but haven't gotten around to it. One more impetus. :)

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  5. This looks out of this world. I'll bet it was good!

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  6. That's gotta be the winner - great recipe!

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  7. Karen- This looks absolutely wonderful. I bet its so delicious with that lemon. It certainly does look perfect for comapny, it looks restaurant quality!

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  8. I love cooking chicken this way. It comes out so good. It is a pain to flatten the chicken and is such a slimy mess but I do a better job than my butcher!

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  9. I often prepare chicken in this way for the barbecue, it's so quick and easy.

    Your version sounds delicious, I like the combination of the lemon and herbs.

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  10. This looks delicious - I have a whole chicken in the freezer that I haven't decided what to make with yet, will have to try this!

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  11. How lovely and colorful. Our local paper sounds like the Holtville paper. One Sunday, I was laughing and laughing because the lead story was about an old woman who crochets dresses and hats out of plastic grocery bags. It's funny because it's so quaint and charming.

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  12. I love chicken.... and I LOVE your plate/platter. Very nice. Chicken is such a nice dish to make...most everyone loves it and it is so versitle.

    How have you been?

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  13. Ohhh yes! This chicken looks so good!

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  14. What's cool about this recipe is that on the final plate it looks like it was a very complicated process but in reality it doesn't sound too difficult to make. Awesome!

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  15. I wish I could find a local police log for this area. Poor kitty though :(
    This meal looks really good. Rosemary, garlic and lemon, YUM! Did you redo your blog while I was gone? It looks fantastic! Or is it a new header?

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  16. All of my favorite things in one! This looks absolutely delicious! I bet your house smelled wonderful!

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  17. That chicken looks fantastic!! Thanks for the video!

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  18. Wow! This chicken looks really really tasteful! With all those lemons... Awesome!

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  19. What a beautiful roasted chicken! I love all the lemon you used.
    Small towns do have interesting police logs!

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  20. I will definitely take this chicken over the flat cat! It looks fantastic, all roasted and covered with lemons - delicious. The honey and chipotle pepper sauce is my favorite part!

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  21. LOL Karen! I can relate to the news paper. Our college newspaper used to report things like "opossum found on porch of dormitory" and "suspicious male found in parking lot of mall. Officer approached the vehicle and the man was just eating lunch."
    Love your chicken!

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  22. Oh, I want this for dinner! Looks so delicious. I love those hometown newspaper police blotters!

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  23. This is cooked just perfectly! Healthy and delicious looking. Oh the color. Love it.

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  24. Your chicken looks lucious and that was a great tutorial. I never really butterfly chicken; that will be on my "to do" list--just in time for summer BBQ season.

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