I did it! I spatchcocked a chicken!
6 months ago
This was a first for me. I'm kinda proud of myself :op
It came out wonderful. Very juicy and evenly cooked. Only problem I had was I couldn't find the wishbone to remove it before cooking, I kept feeling up the bird but no luck. Oh well, it was easy enough to remove when carving.
I'll do a couple more before I move onto a turkey.
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Spatchcocking Turkey?
Comments (13)I did turkey breasts and thighs one year. Only way to have a turkey and a half. :) They were great. Even when it's a gorgeous whole bird, we carve in the kitchen, so there's none of that presentation like in the movies. I haven't done a bird over stuffing, but I often roast a splayed chicken right on top of vegetables. It's glorious. The main thing is to get any large fat deposits out (great big lumps). It helps that yours is a farm raised bird. Some fat is good and necessary for keeping the meat moist and making the "inny" texture, but too much just makes for nasty slime. Most stuffing recipes call for some kind of fat and other liquid. I'd leave that out for your method, and try to keep all the stuffing under the bird. I hope you'll report back about how it goes....See MoreSpatchcocking problems
Comments (9)When cutting out the backbone, you do have to crunch through the ribs as they leave the backbone. It may be easier if you don't try to cut right next to the backbone, instead cut about half an inch away, so you are definitely just cutting ribs and not vertebrae. It still might be hard if your scissors are sort of light duty. Do you by any chance have some small gardening shears aka pruning shears? What you'd use to lop off a 1/4 inch rose stem or bush branch in the garden? That will zip through the ribs like butter. Don't worry if the cut rib bones are sharp, no-one will be eating that part of the bird. As for the breast bone, you don't need to remove it, cut it, or break it. A big bird should be heavy enough to lay fairly flat even with the breast bone intact. You might end up popping the leg and wing joints, but even that won't be necessary....See MoreSpatchcocking Turkeys?
Comments (22)See, I don't think it's counter intuitive to use a rack. Getting the heat/heated air to all sides makes more sense to me. Of course, my cooking knowledge is average and only growing because of others' info. I do roast chicken on a rack so that the heat is even around the bird and we devour the results. I'll put veggies below the rack for an extra special meal. All those drippings! Kenji's food lab entry explains why it works. I tend to trust someone who's willing take the time to try out different methods....See MoreTalk to me about spatchcocking
Comments (58)I think I really messed up my syntax on my post, I didn't mean to imply cutting through the bone was the way to do it. Maybe the way I've done it on a chicken was down the breast side, I've only done it twice and kind of 'wiggled' the knife through what must be called cartilage and tendons, not bones. My apologies - I'm out of my depth in what is more of a technical discussion of techniques. Elmer - Our Mary's turkey was provided through Matanuska Valley Meats, they have a nice shop near my house called Butcher Block 9 (referencing their 9 kids). They carry lots of local meat but not limited to that. It was sold as 'Mary's fresh organic turkeys, $5.49 a pound'. Beyond that, I trust that it was a high quality bird, it sure tasted great ! They also offered 'Northwest Natural Turkeys' at $3.49 a pound , but because I've enjoyed Mary's chickens from our store 'Natural Pantry' , I chose that brand. The air-chilled versus water is something I've read about and do my best to choose those... we can get local chickens from Polaris farms now that are much less $$ than Mary's - I'll have to look into the process used - thank you....See More
6 months ago
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