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Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Grillmistress: Grilled Spatchcocked Chicken

So.
Remember in January when I Spatchcocked a chicken and roasted it in the oven?  Well, at that time, I bought a couple of whole chickens and froze them for later.
Later finally arrived when we were cleaning out the freezer for the move.
While I was looking for something to do with a whole chicken, I came across this recipe with an interesting marinade that would use the pastes provided to me from Garden Gourmet.  A win all the way around as I tried to clean out my freezer and prepare for the move.
Now I need to buy another whole chicken so I can do this again.
I present to you now from Martha Stewart Grilled Spatchcocked Chicken:

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, quartered
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 c Italian herb paste (such as Garden Gourmet), or 1/3 c fresh herbs, chopped
1/4 c oil
Lemon zest from 1/2 a lemon, in strips
1- 3 to 4 lb chicken, spatchcocked
Salt and pepper

Method:
1.  Spatchcock the chicken:  With a pair of kitchen shears, cut down both sides of the backbone of the chicken.  Turn chicken breast side up and flatten chicken out.
2.  In the bowl of a food processor, combine onion, garlic, herb paste, and lemon zest with the oil  Puree until finely chopped and well combined.
3.  Loosen the skin on the chicken with your fingers and rub the onion mixture between the skin and the breast.  Rub remaining puree on the skin of the chicken.  Put into a zip top bag, and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, or overnight.
4.  Heat grill to medium-high.  Wipe most of the puree off of the chicken.  Grill chicken, breast side down, for 10 to 15 minutes, until dark and brown.  Flip the chicken, cooking 25-30 minutes more.  Let rest 10 minutes before carving.
From Martha Stewart

This?  This smelled amazing.  With fresh herbs, lemon, garlic and onion, how could it not?  Using the herb paste made it even faster to make - no washing a chopping.  But honestly, it's fast either way.
I ended up putting this in a bag and keeping it overnight before grilling.  I think the flavour was probably enhanced as the onion had more time to soak into the chicken.  It seemed somewhat weird to be wiping off all the marinade, but it would have fallen through the grates and burned.
Here it is on the grill, having just been flipped.  Such a great colour!  You want to ensure that the chicken reaches a temperature of 165F in the thickest part of the thigh to make sure it's cooked through.  Over medium heat on the grill for 30 minutes, that isn't too hard.  But better safe than sorry!
This fell apart when I went to carve it.  J and I both loved it.  I should really do this again soon.

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