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Posts Tagged ‘spatchcocked chicken’

Dinner for four/six–though we were three!

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged , , , , , on July 19, 2012| 13 Comments »

Spatchcocked chicken, roasted onion and sweet potato and a new courgette/zucchini dish

Joy!

We sat on the terrace last night and ate this simple meal, while Beau played tag with the cows…

and the harvesters were hard at it in the field beyond the road.

Just the three of us–our friend Romaine came back with us from London.

The chicken she and Meredith bought would serve six and there were more onions and an extra sweet potato in the basket for unexpected guests.

The kilo of courgettes–slow cooked and melting–would easily stretch to six.

Happy to be home–we tucked in.

The courgettes/zucchini recipe is from Skye Gyngell’s version in her book  How I Cook.

It is cooked slow and is mushily delicious with a little kick from the chili.

 Slow cooked courgettes/zucchini with garlic and mint.

for 4 

1 lb courgettes/zucchini--sliced thin

2 garlic cloves–sliced thin

1 small dried red chili–chopped

a handful of mint (if you have it)-chopped

salt and pepper

1 tblsp olive oil

  • In a medium pan,  gently soften the garlic and chili in the oil.

  • Add the sliced courgettes/zucchini and turn them over in the oil to coat them thoroughly.
  • Season generously with salt and pepper.
  • Turn again to distribute the seasoning.
  • Cover the pan and cook for forty minutes on a very low heat.
  • Uncover and fold in the mint, if you have it–which we have, but I forgot it!

I made it again today with a pound (500 grams) of the courgettes and we enjoyed it tepid as a salad.

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Spatchcocked chicken with lemons and bay

Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged , , , , on December 28, 2011| 9 Comments »

I’ve decided on single word resolutions for 2012–which beckons.

My first is SIMPLIFY!

Something simple–for New Year’s Eve perhaps…?

I’m spatchcock-crazy at the moment.

To spatchcock or spattlecock or butterfly is to remove the back and breastbones of a chicken (simply and effectively demonstrated in this video) or any other bird (I just watched someone spatchcock a turkey!) in order to open it up and flattened it out–as you might do a book. This allows the bird to cook more quickly and evenly.

Spatchcocking is an easy and oddly satisfying technique. All you need is a pair of poultry shears or strong scissors and the nerve to try it!  (Or your friendly butcher might do it for you….)

Earlier this week I had two spatchcocked birds in the fridge–a chicken and a guinea fowl–and two recipes I wanted to try.

I took  the guinea fowl out to make this dish–inspired by a recipe in The River Café Classic Italian Cookbook .

We ate it thinking “How good this spatchcocked guinea fowl tastes!“.

The next day I went to the fridge to get the chicken, to marinade it overnight for the other recipe–and found the guinea fowl!

We’d eaten the chicken thinking it was guinea fowl!

I put it down to Christmas fever.

Ideal for serving four people–the bird (whichever comes to hand!) divides easily into quarters thus dispensing with the need to carve.

You could use chicken or guinea fowl quarters instead.

1 chicken--spatchcocked

2 lemons–halved

3 tblsps olive oil

6 bay leaves

salt and pepper

set oven to 200C

While the oven is heating–

  • Squeeze the juice from two lemon halves into a pan, halve them and leave the quartered lemon in the pan with the bay leaves.
  • Rub the skin of the chicken with the two remaining lemon halves.
  • Lower the spatchcocked chicken over the lemon halves and the bay.
  • Season well and spoon the oil over the chicken.
  • Add the other two lemon halves to the pan.
  • Cook–covered–on a low flame for 30 minutes.
  • Uncover, spoon over some of the juice and place in the upper part of the pre-heated oven.
  • Cook on for 40 minutes–checking and basting a couple of times.

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