Chicken Lady Chicken {CtBF}
Roast chicken is always a winner in my book. It’s only downside is that in most recipes the chicken takes over an hour to cook, not quite a weeknight dinner. This week’s recipe for Cook the Book Fridays, Chicken Lady Chicken from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen, solves that problem. The trick? Spatchcocking!
What’s that? Spatchcocking? you say. It’s simply a whole chicken with the backbone removed and flattened out. Not nearly as complicated as its name. When the chicken is flat, it cooks much faster. Just 45 minutes. The only advanced planning is preparing the marinade and letting it sit for a day or two.
The marinade is quick to mix up. A garlic paste is dissolved into garlic, white wine, soy sauce, olive oil, lemon juice, Sriracha, mustard, and honey in a Ziploc bag. It smells wonderful! Pop the chicken in the bag and rub the marinade all over the bird.
Roasting a flat chicken takes less time than a whole bird. It gets a head start with a stovetop sear to burnish the skin then finishes in a hot oven.
My chicken didn’t come out quite as well I as I hoped, but I blame it on the cook (that’s me) falling down on the job. The first problem was that when I seared the chicken in my new cast-iron grill pan, the skin stuck to the pan and burned. In an essay in My Paris Kitchen, David Lebovitz raves about the skin, but my chicken didn’t have that much left after flipping it over.
My second problem was that I overcooked the chicken. My chicken was a little bigger than the recipe called for and was cold from the fridge when I started cooking it. I roasted it for the 25 minutes called for without checking the temperature at all as I assumed it would take a bit longer. When I did take its temperature when it came out, it was 20+ degrees higher than it needed to be. No wonder it was dry.
The taste of the marinade lives up to its aroma, so I do plan to give this another try, using a regular cast-iron skillet without ridges and testing the chicken’s temperature partway through its time in the oven.
I served the chicken with roasted potato salad and grilled asparagus. Leftovers made a delicious chicken salad too.
To see if my “Cook the Book Fridays” friends had better luck with their chicken, check out their posts here. To try it yourself, you can find the recipe on Serious Eats or on page 173 of David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen.
Since our last post for Cook the Book Fridays, I had the pleasure of sharing dinner with Katie of Prof Who Cooks while she was on the East Coast last week. As with so many Dorista meet-ups, even though it was our first meeting, we met as old friends and talked (and ate) the night away.
Posted on 17 June 2016, in Cook The Book Fridays, my paris kitchen and tagged chicken, Cook The Book Fridays, my paris kitchen. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments.
A Plateful of Happiness 
The butterfly technique works well for me and I’ll do it again. Chicken for dinner and salad the next day. How delicious! On top of that, meeting up with another blogger. How wonderful!
So nice that you could meet Katie – hooray for Dorista get-togethers! I lost some of the skin, too, though it didn’t burn. I loved the flavour of the marinade and want to try it on other things.
Seriously, your chicken was a success. You learned from your mistake, it tasted great and you met with another blogger! Definitely woth an applause!
I loved the marinade for this, it really gave the chicken a great taste. Jim loved the
blackened skin so I wasn’t too concerned when I burned it in the frying pan. The
roasted potato salad sounds delicious and looks great. Have a great weekend.
Loved this marinade – will use again :) Also had no luck with the chicken skin ;(
Pretty much had the same experience–marinade is fab and the dang skin stuck to the pan. It tasted so good, though, I forgave it its sins. :) It was so fun to meet you, Betsy, and I’m so thankful to you for making the trip!
Spatchcocking is my new word of the day! How do you get all the bones out without cutting it up?
Hi Betsy, I always love your honesty in your cooking adventures and the chicken looks delicious nevertheless, using your new ridged cast iron pan. So lucky you got to meet up with Katie and enjoyed a wonderful time together!
You and Katie had some good time, huh? It was nice of you to make the trip to see her. (Kinda like all the Dorista’s did for us at Hyde Park). It sounds as if you are having a busy but worthwhile summer with your “agricultural” commitment. I think, at heart you are an Iowan, corn knee-high by the 4th of July woman. You and I had some of the same issues with David’s chicken. I couldn’t find a 3 lb. chicken quickly so settled for a 5-pounder, not a good idea. Although I kept a little more crisp on my chicken, mine looked just like yours. Mine was moist and good but probably won’t do it again. I threw mine in the freezer. Chicken salad sounds like a great idea.
So great that you gurls had such a fun time! Next time it will be a smaller bird or half a bird for me! That marinate was good though.
I bet the chicken salad was great, but we had no left overs!! I used a breast only and it was a good amount for both of us. Your chicken may not be beautiful, but it looks great with the potato salad and asparagus!! Glad you met up with another Dorista- how fun!
Your chicken looks great even without so much skin. One trick is to add a little oil to the pan. I find that no matter how hot the pan is, it would always stick. I’ve since used a little oil and haven’t had a problem since! The marinade for this chicken is excellent!