CT 016| Spatchcocked Chicken with Glazed Vegetables

In this video we combine various cooking techniques to create one of the most amazing roasted chicken dishes you can possibly produce in a simple home kitchen. The only equipment you need is a 12” sauté pan, a sharp knife, and a working oven. First, let me give you a quick run down on the ingredients and techniques used in this video, then we’ll talk about why the approach works and how you can make it your own.

Ingredients

• 1 5-6 # Whole Chicken - (Or any other whole bird that is suited for roasting)
• 2 Tbl Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper To Taste
• 1 # Carrots - Peeled and Cut on a Bias
• 1 # Pearl Onions - Peeled
• 1 # New Potatoes (or other, “smallish” potato) - Halved
• 2 Large Shallots - Sliced
• 4-6 Cloves Garlic - Minced
• 3 oz Ginger - Minced
• Chicken Giblets - Minced (Optional)
• 1 C. Dry White Wine
• 4 C. Chicken Stock or Broth
• 5 oz Butter
• 1 # Asparagus - Peeled and Blanched
• 1 Bunch Rainbow Chard - Stems Removed, Chopped & Blanched, Greens, Chopped
• 1 Lemon - Zested
• 1/4 Bunch Thyme - Stripped From Stem and Minced

As you can see, the above ingredient list is divided into six distinct categories, three of which are purely optional. These categories are, in order given:

1. Poultry
2. Root Vegetables
3. Aromatics & Spices - Optional
4. Liquid
5. GreenVegetables-Optional
6. Garnish-Optional

The beauty behind this technique is it’s simplicity. The basic idea is this:

1. Fill a large pan with root vegetables sliced to the same,relative size.
2. Cover with liquid (water, wine, stock or a combination thereof).
3. Add your favorite spices and aromatics.
4. Butterfly chicken by removing the spine and wish bone, and lay on top of liquid covered vegetables so that the skin is exposed to dry air. Roast in a hot oven, (about 475°F/246°C), for 45 to 75 minutes depending on the size of the chicken and the thermal efficiency of your oven. You chicken is done when a probe thermometer stuck into the thigh registers at 150°F (carry over cooking will easily raise the internal temperature to 165°F).
5. Remove chicken from pan and allow to rest. While the chicken rests, reduce liquid with vegetables over high heat, adding more liquid if necessary, until the vegetables are tender to the bite, the liquid is almost gone, and a glaze has formed.
6. Toss blanched green vegetables with glazed root vegetables and serve along side the carved chicken.

Although the idea behind this dish is very simple, there are some intricacies to the combination of techniques that are important to understand. As I always preach, technique is king, and the more you understand the underlying hows and whys of a technique or a dish, the better equipped you will be to make it your own.

What Is Spatchcocking?

Spatchcocking refers to removing the backbone of poultry which allows you to lay it flat. The etymology of spatchcocking has a few different explanations, but my favorite (and most believable version) comes from the Irish combination of the word “dispatch” (as in quick), combined with cook. This makes senses, since laying a bird flat by removing its back-bone and butterflying will indeed cut down on the amount of time it takes to roast a whole bird. Thanks to my twitter buddy @Conundric for pointing me to this helpful post that examines the origins and use of the term “Spatchcock.”

Besides a brief one day introduction in culinary school, I forgot that spatchcocking even existed until last November, when J. Kenji López Alt of Serious Eat’s Food Lab, wrote a great post on Spatchcocking a Turkey for Thanksgiving. Ever since then, I’ve been thinking about how to work this concept into a simple “chicken dinner approach” that anyone could re-create in their home. The above video recipe is a result of this thought exercise.

When roasting a whole chicken traditionally, there have always been tradeoffs. The most glaring concession; “do you prefer succulent breast meat and chewy legs, or dry breast meat and tender legs?”

Don’t fool yourself, you can never truly have both when whole roasting a chicken traditionally (sans brine), and through no fault of your own. Chickens simply aren’t designed to roast perfectly in their whole, natural state. The breast meat is too lean and cooks quickly, whereas the leg and thigh meat have a decent amount of connective tissue in the form of collagen that needs a longer cooking time to break down, allowing the hindquarters to become tender.

Also, there has always been debate and dogma over the positioning of a whole roasted chicken. Should you start breast side up and finish breast side down? At what point do I turn the bird? How do I get my skin to crisp perfectly all the way around? Is it really necessary to truss? How do I truss?

All these questions are done away with when spatchcocking poultry. Since the bird lays flat, the skin crisps evenly, heat is distributed across the bird more efficiently, and the bird is never flipped. As an added bonus, the breasts stay noticeably moist while enough heat is directed towards the leg and thighs, causing the collagen to break down and become tender.

To Brine or Not To Brine

Since the breast meat of chicken will generally dry out during traditional roasting, a brine is often used to add (and maintain) extra moisture. And while I’m a big fan of brining, I’m not convinced that it’s needed in the context of this dish, mainly because the steam from the vegetables and stock act as a temperature buffer.

If I were to just straight spatchcock a chicken or turkey without the glazed vegetable component in this dish, I would consider brining for at least a couple hours or even over night, depending on the size of the bird.

What you’ll notice at the beginning of this video, before I start any other prep, I first butterfly the chicken, rub with oil, and then season liberally with salt and pepper. As I spend time prepping my other ingredients, the salt diffuses slightly into the chicken, allowing it to maintain more moisture during the cooking process.

As I mention a few times in this video, this technique is all about you and your personal preferences. The chicken itself can be brined, marinaded, dry brined (or dry rubbed), using your favorite ingredients or recipe, or simply seasoned with salt right before cooking.

One word of caution: do not over-brine or salt your chicken if roasting over vegetables as demonstrated in this video. The salt can easily transfer to the vegetables, causing them to become overly salted by the time the glaze is formed. That’s why I prefer to season my chicken with salt and pepper, and then rely on the steam generated from the vegetable mix during the roasting process to keep the chicken moist and tender.

The Dual Technique of Roasting and Steaming

In a previous video lecture, we discussed various methods of cooking and why you would choose one technique over another. The basic approach is, if a protein has connective tissues, then it needs to be cooked low and slow, usually with a moist heat cooking method such as braising, poaching or stewing. The moist heat will unravel the collagen into three single strands of gelatin, transforming tough meat into a tender, succulent cut.

If you’re cooking a tender piece of meat with little-to-no connective tissue, then you would normally apply a hot and fast cooking technique such as grilling, broiling, or roasting.

Now let’s take this concept a step further and apply it to our spatchcocked chicken. As previously mentioned, breast meat cooks at a different rate than the hindquarters, based largely on how long it takes for the connective tissue to break down in the leg & thigh muscles. Visualize for a moment the dual application of steam and dry heat that is simultaneously cooking the chicken in this method.

Since the chicken is butterflied or “spatchcocked,” we are able to lay it flat, bone side down skin side up, on top of vegetables and liquid without the skin becoming soggy or water logged. The fact that the meat is still attached to the bone during the entire cooking process adds moisture and flavor, just like any other protein that is cooked on the bone as opposed to off.

As the vegetables and stock slowly come up to temperature during the roasting process, they give off a gentle steam that penetrates through the bone and into the meat, essentially applying a “moist” cooking method. Since water cannot reach temperatures above 212°F/100°C at sea level, the steam acts almost like a heat barrier or “diffuser,” moderating the dry heat of the oven. The “moist heat” from the steam also gently breaks down the connective tissue contained in the birds hindquarters, while simultaneously keeping the breast moist.

While the steam acts as a “heat diffuser” on the bottom side of the bird, the dry heat of the oven crisps the skin, causing fat to render and baste the topside of the meat. In fact, because the skin is largely made up of fat, it will act as a barrier to the dry heat of roasting, first rendering and then crisping. You could even go as far as sticking a few pats of butter in-between the breasts and skin, giving your bird an extra layer of protection and a more assertive, buttery flavor.

It’s because of this dual approach of simultaneously steaming and roasting, that we get unbelievably moist meat from the entire chicken with the added bonus of a perfectly crisp skin.

The Finish: Glazing, Blanching and Garnishing

While the dual steaming/roasting approach discussed above yields an amazing roasted chicken, the true magic of this dish is the glazed vegetables. Since the chicken is spatchcocked over vegetables, all the juices and drippings that are sometimes lost in other applications are instead infused into the liquid which later becomes our glaze. This flavor is re-enforced by the white wine, aromatics, stock, and the vegetables themselves.

This is also why water can be used as your cooking liquid with great results; if you think about it, you’re basically making a flavorful vegetable stock while you’re chicken is roasting. This “vegetable stock” is infused with chicken drippings and then reduced until the starches contained in the root vegetables thicken and form a glaze.

It’s for this reason that you always want your base vegetables to be of the root variety, because without their inherent starch content, a glaze can not be formed. And while only root vegetables are required for this approach to work, they sometimes can become dull and boring on their own, making the addition of green vegetables a nice touch.

Whereas root vegetables are comprised of complex starches that can stand up to long, slow cooking, green vegetables contain a good amount of chlorophyll (the molecule that makes them green). If exposed to heat for too long, the chlorophyll molecule will break down, resulting in an off color and flavor. There are many factors that contribute to chlorophyll molecules breaking down, but a major culprit is the chlorophyllase enzyme (contained in all green vegetables) which is most active between 150-170F. The longer green vegetables are exposed to heat, the more likely it is that the chlorophyll molecule will destabilize and break down, resulting in a dull color and off flavor.

Enter blanching, a technique that allows you to pre-cook any green vegetable in boiling, salted water, and then chill in an ice bath the moment your desired texture is achieved. Since the vegetables are exposed only briefly to the “chlorophyllase temperature window,” (assuming your water stays at a rolling boiling during the majority of blanching), the greens can be cooked to your desired finish texture, while solidifying their color and flavor. After blanching, the green vegetables are reserved until just before serving, tossed with the glazed root vegetables long enough to heat through, and then spooned onto a platter.

In this video, my two “finishing greens” are rainbow chard and asparagus, but you can use any number of green vegetables depending on seasonality and personal preference. Some options to consider are green beans, favas, peas, kale, chard, mustard greens, spinach, and other braising greens.

Variations on this Technique

Also keep in mind that you can completely change the flavor profile of this dish based upon the ingredients you choose to use, including oil, alcohol, stocks, vegetables, aromatics, spices, and seasonings. Here are some examples of how you can make this dish’s flavor structure your own:

Italian: Rub chicken with olive oil, add blanched and peeled tomatoes (or canned tomato product) to your root vegetables, and garnish with fresh basil (both on the chicken and in the vegetable mix). The addition of sun-dried tomatoes would also be a nice touch.

Chinese: Rub chicken or duck with sesame oil, sub shao xing cooking wine for dry white wine, add scallions to vegetable mix, garnish with sesame seeds and green onions. You can even glaze with hoisin and oyster sauce or marinade the chicken in your favorite Chinese style marinade.

Southeast Asia: Sub cooking liquid for your favorite coconut curry, add galangal, lemon grass, and kaffir lime leaf to the root vegetable mix (remove latter), and garnish with lime zest and fresh thai basil.

Indian: Rub chicken with ghee and madrass curry, garnish with vodovan and serve with a yogurt sauce. You can even mix cooked lentils into your root vegetables right before serving to make a loose interpretation of Daal.

As you can see with the few examples given above, the flavor structures and interpretations of this dish are almost infinite when viewed through the lens of your own creativity.