Here in Chester we are lucky enough to have an indoor market right in the mid-town by the town hall. It is filled with some cafe's and a variety of small businesses, butchers, cheese monger, fish monger, greengrocers, etc.
They have been a God-send during this time of quarantine and lock-down. Each one are offering packages of their goods for home deliver, which has been a real blessing to me.
The other day I got a meat pack from the butcher. Geoff Hughes Family Butchers. I got the healthy eating pack which was filled with lean meats, sausage and chicken, and I added a medium roasting chicken to the order.
I have always been really happy with any meat that I have gotten from them. Contactless pay, and free contactless delivery. Safe. Safe. Safe.
Just look at that beautiful roasting chicken. Free-range and organic. Lovely and plump. I decided to spatch cock it for roasting.
Quite often I will spatchcock a chicken when roasting it. There are two great benefits to spatchcocking a whole chicken.
The first is that a spatchcocked chicken cooks faster and more evenly
than a chicken left in its naturally state.
This is fantastic for
when you want to cook a whole chicken on a barbecue, but its a method that is as equally
good when you’re wanting to roast the chicken in the oven.
The second advantage is that, with a spatchcocked chicken, all of the
skin gets lovely and crispy, not just the bits facing upwards in the
oven.
Even in a convection oven, roasting an unflattened chicken won’t
give you the same uniform browning as roasting a butterflied chicken. Salty, crunchy, golden skin is one of the best
things about a roast chicken. (Tell me I am not alone in this)
So you get a nice crisp skin, whilst maintaining the moist delectability of the roast chicken meat itself. Win/win! (Complete instructions are in the recipe on how to do this.) Today I inserted a mix of butter, herbs and lemon zest beneath the skin and rubbed a bit on top as well.
On this occasion I chose to roast my chicken on a bed of chopped root vegetables, aromatics and herbs. Carrots, parsnips, onion, celery, garlic, a quartered lemon and fresh thyme.
I softened them in a bit of olive oil first and then laid the spatchcocked chicken on top. Finally I squeezed a lemon over it all.
Oh boy but this smells pretty amazing when it is roasting . . . .
I start it at a high temperature and then turn the temperature down for the remainder of the roasting, basting the chicken partway through the roasting time.
The high temperature at the beginning really helps to create a nice crisp and golden skin . . . just look at that perfectly cooked wing . . .
my favourite bit . . . that and those little scallops on the underside near the thigh . . .
The aromatics roasting beneath the chicken serve as a trivet and also help to infuse flavour all the way through that meat . . .
And then of course the butter herb mixture beneath the skin helps to insure that the meat is really well flavoured and succulent.
I served it with some of my homemade Sage and Onion Stuffing. (I made a double batch so I could freeze some for another time.) This is so good. I could eat it wih a spoon, even before I cook it.
I cooked some cubed swede (rutabaga), carrots and broccoli stems for a vegetable. Broccoli stems are nice. Just peel and cube. No waste here!
The pan juices are really lush spooned over top. This was a fabulouslsy tasty dinner!
Yield: 4 with leftovers
Roasted Spatchcock Chicken
Tender moist and flavourfull chicken with a lovely crisp skin. Cooks to perfection in half the time.
Ingredients:
- 1 medium sized whole chicken, at room temperature
- 1 stalk of celery, trimmed and sliced
- 1 carrot, trimmed and sliced
- 1 parsnip, trimmed and sliced
- 1 onion, peeled and sliced
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled and bashed
- a few sprigs fresh thyme
- a splash of olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 lemons, divided
- 1 tsp dried sage
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 4 TBS softened butter
Instructions:
- You will need a good pair of kitchen scissors for this recipe. Pat your chicken dry with some paper towelling and ten place it onto a large cutting board, bottom side up, neck facing you. Holding the neck in one hand, and using the kitchen scissors, cut down along the spine on one side, working as close to the spine as you can so that you don't waste any good meat. Repeat on the other side. Wrap the spine (chicken back) up tightly and freeze to make some chicken stock another time.
- Flip the chicken over on the cuttong board, breast side up. Using the heel of your hand press down firmly, flattening the breastbone (you will need to break it) so that the chicken and legs are all one thickness. I like to tie the legs together and tuck the wing tips under the skin of the thigh. (see photograph)
- Mix together the softened butter along with the dried herbs, and the zest of one lemon. Loosen the skin on both the breasts and the thigh and push some of this mixure under the skin. Rub any remaining mixture on top and dust generously with salt and black pepper.
- Preheat the oven to 225*C/425*F/ gas mark 7.
- Place all of the cut vegetables in an oven proof skillet (I use my cast iron one) with a splash of oil, and cook for about 10 minutes, tossing and stirring. Add one of the lemons quartered and then the sprigs of thyme. Place the spatch-cocked chicken on top of these in the skillet. Squeeze the juice from the zested lemon over top.
- Place the skillet in the preheated oven and roast for about 25 minutes. Lower the temperature to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Baste the chicken and roast for a further 35 to 45 minutes until the chicken juices run clear and the skin is a lovely golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and let rest for about 10 minutes before slicing to serve. If you wish you can use the pan juices to make a gravy, or you can just spoon a few of them over the sliced chicken to serve. Delicious!
We had plenty for dinner on the day. Leftovers for sandwiches, some for a casserole and the bones for a soup. Roast chicken really is the meal which keeps on giving!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan@aol.com
I think you are really going to enjoy these delicious biscuits I am sharing with you today, and by biscuit in this case I mean bread/biscuits, not cookie/biscuits! Over here in the UK, they call cookies biscuits. They don't really do baking powder biscuits, although they do scones.
Scones and biscuits are two entirely different things. The difference mainly boils down to one single ingredient and that is an egg. Scones usually contain eggs, biscuits normally do not. Biscuits tend to be flaky, whereas scones tend to be crumbly and more cake like.
When it comes to flaky, they don't get flakier than these Mile High Greek Yogurt Biscuits!
Just look at all of those flaky layers . . . because the butter in this recipe is quite cold when blended in and is only coarsly blended into the flour mixture, when it melts it leaves lots of air pockets, which is what creates all of that flakiness!
And yet . . . there are only 4 TBS butter in the whole recipe, which works out about 1/2 TBS per biscuit.
More of the flakiness comes from the baking powder reacting with the acid in the Greek yogurt, causing the dough to expand exponentially. (Love that word!)
The end result is a biscuit that is light as a cloud, and filled with lots of flaky pockets.
Because the biscuits themselves are relatively low in fat, you don't need to feel guilty at loading them up with cold butter when it comes to the eating. What's your favourite thing to enjoy with hot biscuits?
Personally I love them spread when they are hot with plenty of cold butter and creamed honey. OH boy . . . you don't get much better than that! Unless you add some shaved ham in between . . . mmm . . mmm . . . mmm . . .
Hot biscuits, cold butter, creamed honey and shaved ham . . . . a bit of baking powder biscuit heaven to my way of thinking, and no, I am not from the South.
Athough Nova Scotia (where I am originally from) is in the Bible belt of Canada, which kind of equates to the Southern States which are the Bible belt of American and where they really enjoy their biscuits and ham!
One thing is for certain and that is this . . . these are delicious and a real family pleaser whether you serve them with honey and ham or not. Butter is not optional. If you are a person who eats biscuits without butter you are on the wrong page!
Mile High Greek Yogurt Biscuits
Yield: 8
These easy biscuits rise really tall and flaky, but are considerably lower in fat than many others. Fabulously tasty!
Ingredients:
- 280g plain flour (2 cups unbleached all-purpose)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 4 TBS cold butter
- 245g low fat Greek yogurt (1 cup)
Instructions:
How to cook Mile High Greek Yogurt Biscuits
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Have ready a baking sheet.
- Sift the flour into a bowl along with the baking powder. Stir in the salt. Drop the cold butter into the bowl and cut it in with a pastry blender, until the flour mixture resembles coarse sand with chunks of butter the size of small peas. Using a fork stir in the yogurt. Gently mix to a soft dough in the bowl.
- Tear off a sheet of baking parchment large enough for your baking sheet. Put the dough on the sheet of paper and pat out to a rectangle, roughly 1 inch in thickness. Cut into 8 smaller rectangles. Gently push them apart leaving plenty of space in between. Carefully transfer the paper to the baking sheet.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or unti they are well risen and golden brown on the top and bottom. Best enjoyed whilst still warm.
All kidding aside you really do need to bake these biscuits for your family this weekend. Not only are they low in fat and high in flake and flavour, but they are very quick and easy to make as well. Just remember one thing and you'll be okay. A light touch is always the best option when dealing with biscuits. Oh, and another positive thing, no flour is wasted in this recipe. Every scrap gets used up.
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