Herb Roasted Butterfiled Chicken

Tonight we are having this, losely based on this NY Times Recipe - no lemon, no rosemary and we mixed oil and spices with some sliced potatoes and added them to the pan on a rack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magazine/30food-t-001.html
Butterflied Chicken With Cracked Spices

By PETE WELLS
Published: May 26, 2010

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons fennel seed

1 teaspoon coriander seed

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

1/4 teaspoon cumin seed

2 teaspoons coarse sea salt

1/2 teaspoon hot paprika or pimentón

Lemon halves or fat wedges.

1. Light a grill or set your broiler on high and give it a 15-minute head start. Cut out the chicken’s backbone with poultry shears, a cleaver or a sharp, heavy chef’s knife. (If you think you will make stock at some point, by all means tightly wrap the backbone in plastic and put it in the freezer.)

Place the chicken skin side up in a roasting pan and press firmly on the breast with the heels of your hands until it cracks and flattens. Position the legs so they lie flat and the drumsticks point out. Tuck the wingtips over the tops of the wings to hold them in place, or cut them off. Rub the bird with the oil. (Don’t worry about any extra oil that may fall onto the pan.) Now wash your hands.

2. Coarsely grind the fennel, coriander, peppercorns and cumin with a mortar and pestle or with 8 or 9 pulses in a spice grinder. Mix in the salt and paprika or pimentón and sprinkle this rub on both sides of the bird, with the emphasis on the skin.

3. Set the chicken skin side down on a grill or skin side up on a broiler rack positioned so the highest point of the bird is 5 or 6 inches from the flame. When the skin begins to brown after 6 or 7 minutes, flip the chicken over. (The easiest way is to grab the knobby ends of both drumsticks with several layers of paper towels if you are in the kitchen, or with clean oven mitts if you are grilling.)

After about 10 minutes, when the bony side is browned, lower the heat to medium-high, flip the chicken again and cook another 10 minutes, or until the skin is very crisp and brown and the thickest part of the thigh reaches 165 degrees when checked with a meat thermometer.

Let it rest about 5 minutes before carving. (If you are grilling, set it on a platter.) Spoon over any juices that have collected in the broiler pan or the platter.

Serve with lemon. In springtime, try to serve this with tender young bitter greens — like arugula, watercress or baby dandelions — tossed in a sharp vinaigrette. Serves 3 to 4.
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This sounds great too but is more work and takes 18-24 hours depending on if its lunch or dinner

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/312785

America's Test Kitchen roast chicken - the best! (long)
On a recent episode of ATK I watched their revised technique for high-temperature roasted chicken with pan-roasted potatoes. Don't leave the potatoes out, their purpose is to soak up the chicken fat so you don't smoke up the kitchen.

The link is here (requires registration):
http://americastestkitchen.com/recipe...

If you're not a member, here's my paraphrased version, with my variations below it.

Ingredients:
1 roasting chicken, 3.5-4 lbs
1 cup kosher salt or 1/2 cup table salt
1/2 cup sugar
1.5 Ts olive oil

2.5 pounds roasting potatoes, russets or Yukon Golds
3/4 ts salt
ground black pepper
1 Tb olive oil

Compound butter:
2 Tb butter
1 clove garlic, mashed
1 Tb dijon mustard
1 ts minced fresh thyme
ground black pepper

Brine chicken in solution of 1 cup kosher salt (or 1/2 cup table salt) and 1/2 cup sugar to 1/2 gallon water for 1 hour.

Pat chicken dry. Cut out backbone (their website has illustrations) to butterfly chicken. Flatten breastbone (just push down firmly).

Mix up compound butter - the website has some other compound butter recipes. With your fingers, loosen skin across breast and as far down drumsticks as you can, do not tear skin. Spoon butter under skin and work across as much of the chicken as possible. Rub 1.5 Ts olive oil over chicken.

Slice potatoes 1/8" to 1/4" inch thickness. Salt and pepper lightly, toss with 1 Tb oil.

Line bottom of grilling pan with heavy-duty aluminium foil. Spread potato slices across pan evenly.

Place grilling rack over potatoes. Arrange butterflied chicken on top, folding drumsticks inward so they cover part of the breast. Roast at 500 degrees for 20 minutes, turn pan around, roast for another 20 minutes or until internal temperature in breast is 160.

Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly. Take grilling rack off, pat potatoes which will have a fair amount of oil on them. Potatoes may stick to foil, peel as much off as possible. Cut chicken up and serve with potatoes. That's it.

I made this over the weekend and it is absolutely the best roast chicken I've ever tasted. It may be heresy on this board, but it beat the Zuni chicken by a mile. The skin is crispy, meat is juicy and loaded with flavor. The potatoes are simply fabulous, roasted in butter and chicken fat and juice how could they not be? Choosing between the potatoes and Zuni's bread salad is a toss-up. I'm thinking of ways to do this with bread as well.

My variations:
I brined for about 6 hours, after putting the butter under the chicken skin, I put the chicken in the fridge overnight.

I zested a lemon and used this instead of the garlic/thyme in the compound butter. In the TV episode they used 4 oz of butter so I did the same.

I took the chicken out at 150 degrees because I loathe dried-out meat. This reduced my roasting time to about 30 minutes, not 40. Because of this the potatoes weren't as crisp as they should have been - I think I'll let them cook a few minutes longer next time.

Last note: We had leftover chicken last night. It's so hot I didn't want to turn on the oven but I wanted the crispiness of the chicken skin. So we used our blowtorch to char the skin, it did an excellent job of recrisping it and improved the flavor by adding a bit of smokiness. Altogether this is a WINNAH!