My mother has roasted a chicken almost every other Sunday for as long as I can remember. She’d season it in a wet, garlic-heavy adobo, fill it with a box of Stove Top stuffing, and roast it covered for what felt like hours and hours. The end result was always a bird with the dark meat barely hanging onto the bone, and the white meat definitely a little overcooked (sorry, Mami!), but it all ended up okay because there was so much juice in the pan. Thanksgiving followed a similar method, but with a turkey, of course, and the results were usually a bit more erratic. (Once again—sorry Mami!)
It wasn’t until a few years into my self-taught cooking journey (I never did get to go to culinary school) that I saw a cook on Food Network—I wish I could remember who it was—cut the backbone out of a chicken with a pair of kitchen shears, then somewhat violently press down on and break the breastbone so that it could lie as flat as possible. “425°F for an hour,” they said. I thought I misheard them when they said “spatchcock,”— which is Old English for cutting a bird down the middle and pressing it flat. My mind couldn’t wrap around how it would be thoroughly cooked and not just burnt on top. I’m admittedly a bit squeamish when it comes to cutting through bones, but I gave it a shot with a dull pair of craft scissors that I cleaned very well. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be, and I was impressed with how evenly I cut it despite it being my first time. The breaking of the breastbone wasn’t as dramatic as the TV cook made it seem, and into the oven it went for an hour. I have never cooked chicken, or any other bird for that matter, a different way ever since. Read More >>
