June 30th, 2026

Absolutely NOT wedding related, but still it was something old, something new - well new to me anyway, and that counts!   Ever hear of a spatchcocked chicken?  That doesn't sound right, does it?  Well it 's a real thing and I cooked a couple of them on Saturday for the very first time!

First of all Spatchcocking is not new at all. It harkens back to the 18th century in England and Ireland, which means I am very late to the party.  But I'm glad I finally got there :) And Second of all, what it means is that the birds backbone is removed and then it's all butterflied or flattened out.  And when cooked, it looks a little something like this:
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Spatchcocking, allows the chicken to cook faster and more efficiently which also means juicier and more flavourful. All good things.

It was Tim's idea. Not mine.  I had only ever heard the term once while sort of watching an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown.  I like the show, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the time, (to be honest most of the time) I'm only ever sort of watching any TV show while also doing other things.  At any rate, all I remembered about that show was the funny word.   "Spatchcocking" is a funny word, let's face it, and that it looked very complicated. And since I am, to be perfectly honest, kind of lazy, mentally I wrote it off as something I would never do and then continued doing whatever else I was doing while sort of watching the show.

Never say never.

This past Saturday we had guests coming for luncheon.  So obviously during the preceding week, Tim and I were discussing the menu.  I had thrown out the idea of cooking chicken on the grill, probably thinking chicken breasts or tenders.  Tim asked what I thought about the idea of doing spatchcocked chicken.  I said, "excuse you?" before I remembered that I sort of knew what it meant.

After a quick google search I courageously said, "Why not?"  I had never made it before but I can be brave.  Well, not the kind of brave that jumps out of airplanes but the sort of brave that means cooking something I've never made before for guests!  That is it's own sort of courage. It is, I swear!

Anyway, I landed on a recipe that sounded do-able and Tim found a place with chickens already cut and flattened and ready to go so I didn't have to do the hardest part. Woohoo, Even Better! I was ready to roll.  

I read through the recipe multiple times to be absolutely sure what I thought I was doing and then, I took a deep breath and commenced. 

The particular directions I was following required "dry brining" which was another thing I had never done before.  If you've never done it, it means pulling the skin gently from the meat of the bird so that the brine which is a salt/pepper/baking powder mix, can be tucked between the skin and the meat first and then rubbing the mixture all over the outside of the skin as well and then putting the uncooked, brine bird, on it's  foiled tray into the fridge overnight, uncovered.  

About an hour before serving the entire bird comes out of the fridge and is then rubbed thoroughly with herbed butter.  After that it's into the oven for roasting for 45 minutes,  broiled for 5-10 minutes, let it sit out of the oven for about 5 minutes and voila, it's done and ready to be served.  

Yes its true there is a little more prep work than usual, but not difficult work. The hardest part was pulling the skin gently away from the meat while not tearing it but I did the best I could.   I will be honest,  I didn't do a particularly good job of it, but I did the best I could and since it all came out great, I suppose it was good enough.  Perhaps next time I will do better?

And I promise you, there will be next time because it was so tasty!  And a little impressive looking!   Our guests could not stop talking about how good it was, so I guess it really was good and not just me being full of myself.  I am so glad that Tim had the idea and that I was brave enough to try it.  

I find it so easy to fall into a same old, same old kind of routine with cooking. Everything is so expensive that if a new dish doesn't turn out well, it is money down the drain and that hurts!  Ouchie, right in the tender wallet. I totally understand the why behind constantly making the same tried and true dishes over and over again. But I definitely feel the need to be braver and try more new dishes, more new techniques even if we don't have guests. Just for us.  As long as I'm very careful and judicious in my choices, why not?

Eleanor Roosevelt famously said that a person should  do one thing that scares them every day.  I'm pretty sure she wasn't talking about spatchcocked chickens but, who knows, maybe she was?

Try new things.  Even new things that are really very old ideas :)







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