A Bird in the Pan - S1E5

Whenever poultry needs to be pan fried, sauteed, seared or anything else that requires the stove top, that's my specialty.  Whenever a whole bird needs to go in the oven, that's Jesse's specialty.  But tonight is my turn to change that: I'm going to attempt AB's Broiled, Butterflied Chicken.
<Jesse: Yes, I touch the raw meat but once per year, the Thanksgiving Turkey is mine, the rest is all his.>



Ingredients:
1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns

• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 lemon, zested
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Onions, carrots and celery cut into 3 to 4-inch pieces
• 3 to 4-pound broiler/fryer chicken
• 1 cup red wine
• 8 ounces chicken stock
• 2 to 3 sprigs thyme
• Canola oil

AB suggests that we use a mortar and pestle to coarsely grind the peppercorns, salt, garlic and lemon zest.  Since we don't own one (yet?), we decided to use our Cuisinart Smart Power Blender chopping cup to do the grinding...err..chopping and then added some olive oil to make it into a paste like texture.

Next you need to butterfly the chicken.  I just followed along how AB did it in the episode: first remove the back bone with some kitchen shears by cutting through the ribs on both sides of it.  Next flip it over and remove the keel bone so that the chicken will lay flat.  Now that the chicken has been butterflied, take the seasoning paste and shove some of it under the skin and rub it over the breasts and thighs.  Finally pour some olive oil over the skin and rub it in all the nooks and crannies to so it will brown nicely.



We happen to have some bags of "past their prime" carrots and celery stalks and an onion and potato, so we used them to create the bed for the chicken to lie.  We don't use a rack so that way the chicken won't stick to it and the vegetables will add more flavor to the bird.  

We set the oven on "broil" and placed  it in on the bottom rack.  After 10 minutes, I check the browness of the skin...it looked good so I flipped the bird and put it in there for another 15 minutes.  Finally I checked the tempurature, chicken should be about 165 to 167 for doneness.  Once that's all set, cut and quarter the chicken and serve!

Due to our oven being very uneven, I actually ended up cooking the chicken for almost 20 extra minutes since the breasts were only at 130 degrees when the recipe time was done.  Because of the extra time, I didn't even bother with making the roux since I was hungry at 9PM!  With this amount of time and work, I don't think I'll be doing this again when I can just buy a whole rotisserie chicken from the grocery store for about $7.  Nonetheless, the food was still good, but I think i'll leave cooking birds in the oven to Jesse.


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Price breakdown to come.