Spicy Spatchcock Chicken

Last weekend I met Matt from Melody Street Foods and had a great chat with him. He has 2 great products and you should buy them if you see them in your local shop. They are very reasonably priced and taste amazing.

I bought the Melody Sauce (a Spicy Tomato sauce) and immediately started to think about new recipes to create with it. I settled on this spicy spatchcock chicken recipe. I mixed a couple of tablespoons of the sauce with some natural yogurt and marinated the spatchcocked chicken with it by rubbing it under the skin of the chicken.

Spatchcocking a chicken is quite easy – it is a matter of removing the back bone and flattening the chicken. It is also called butterflying. You can ask your butcher to do this for you if you don’t fancy trying it yourself but there are lots of videos and tutorials on the internet on how to do this.

Spatchcocking allows the chicken to cook more evenly and quickly and thus remain really moist. It can be bbq’d or roasted. As it still isn’t warm enough for bbq’ing at the moment in Ireland I roasted my chicken.

I made sure to collect the roasting juices and made a delicious gravy using the juices, extra marinade, a little more of the spicy sauce and cornflour. I have to say it was pretty special.

My spicy gravy

I served the chicken and gravy with roast potatoes and steamed green vegetables (a mix of green beans, sugar snap peas and broccoli). You can serve roast spicy potato cubes or regular roast potatoes.

You could also adapt this recipe to use chicken pieces and marinate in a similar way.

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Spicy Spatchcock Chicken

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Marinating Time 2 hours

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 1 1.5 kg whole chicken
• 3 tbsp spicy tomato sauce (melody street foods)
• 100 g natural yogurt
• 1 tbsp cornflour

Instructions

• Combine 2 tbsp of the spicy tomato sauce and natural yogurt and mix well
  
• Spatchcock your chicken by removing the back bone. You do this by placing the chicken breast side down with the legs facing you. Cut along each side of the bone to remove it, pressing down hard on your knife to break through the ribs. Press down on both wings at the same time until you hear the breast bone crack.  Cut off the wing tips at this time.
  
• Rub 1/2 the marinade under the skin and leave to rest for 2 hours. If you don't have time to leave you can cook immediately but it is better if you can let it rest.
  
• Preheat the oven 180 C or 350 F or Gas Mark 4
  
• Place the chicken on a roasting tray and add some water. The water will mix wit the juices and will be used to make the gravy later. make sure to top up the water if it starts to dry out.
  
• Cook in the oven for about 45 minutes until fully cooked. Use a meat thermometer to verify that it is full cooked

  Leave to rest for 10-15 minutes making sure to cover with tin foil and a towel to keep it hot
  
• Add the remaining marinade, 1 tbsp spicy tomato sauce and 1 tbsp cornflour to the roasting juices and heat on a ring. Mix well to ensure no lumps until it comes to the boil. If the sauce is too thick you can add some water and if it needs thickening add more cornflour.
  
• Serve with roast potatoes and steamed green vegetables