And at least some of us prefer chickens in a more convenient shape. A whole chicken fits neatly in my oven. A cut-up chicken is easy to cook on the grill, and I can turn and/or remove each piece as needed. I guess if you have a truly enormous roasting pan, you can put a whole spatchcocked chicken in the oven, where it will cook almost exactly the same as a whole chicken, except take up more space. And I guess if you are good at maneuvering a giant floppy piece of meat you can grill it, and just accept that some parts will be over-cooked by the time the thickest part of the breast is done.
Maybe I need to buy a larger roasting pan to understand why people get so excited by spatchcocked chickens. But it just seems like a nuisance to me.
Anyway, my grocery store often carries them. But I imagine many don’t because it’s sort of a specialty item that’s fussy to cook, so there’s not a huge market.
Vancouver, BC, spatchcocked chickens available, marinated and in a form-fitting plastic container. We also spatchcock whole chickens. We like them because they roast up more quickly than a whole chicken and the cooking is more even, although we roast whole chickens often, too.
I wouldn’t call it “fussy to cook.” I spatchcock because it’s quicker and easier to cook than a whole roast bird, and it cooks more evenly. Same with turkey. Once I figured on spatchcocking that bird, I haven’t looked back.
It’s got to be because with a good pair of poultry shears, spatchcocking a chicken takes maybe 3-4 minutes tops. It’s just not that much of a labor saver.
Disassembling a chicken into its parts is a bit more time consuming (although still not hard), so that’s maybe why we see a whole chicken sold as parts on occasion.
All those reasons apply to much pre-preprepped food, and yet it sells fine. It’s not hard to cut a piece of chuck steak into stew pieces, yet almost every supermarket sells “stew meat.” That’s even less of a prep than spatchcocking a chicken, which requires a little bit of skill and idea of the bird’s anatomy. And meat prep is actually fairly priced, IMO, as opposed to prepped veggies which are wildly marked up. Stuff like chopped celery, chopped onions, shredded iceberg lettuce, etc.
I think it’s mostly people being unfamiliar with spatchcocking, hence there not being much of a demand for it.
Just another post to say that both Whole Foods and Wegmans near me sell spatchcocked chickens. I’ve bought them a few times to use Kenji López-Alt’s recipe for easy roasted chicken. If I’m out of soup stock I’ll buy whole chickens and do it myself.
Yeah, and even that is a generous estimate, if you include getting the chicken out of the fridge and packaging, putting it on the cutting board, rummaging around the kitchen drawers to figure out where you left those damned shears*, and cleaning up. The actual process, once bird and shears are in place, is maybe … what … 30 seconds?
*(I’m always misplacing those damned shears, or they fall apart and I can only find one half of them, so I’ve just given up and use a chef’s knife. It’s not that much more difficult with a knife.)
My first inclination was to say “a couple of minutes”, but I figured inexperienced people might take longer to get it oriented, find the backbone, etc…
I keep good tabs on my shears; I bought a pair of OXO poultry shears a couple of years ago. They’re a bit precious (hand wash only?), but they’re fantastically bad-ass for spatchcocking. As in you can spatchcock a 15 lb turkey in 3-4 minutes with them- they’re sharp, have great leverage, and comfortable handles.
Is it these? Those do look quite nice. The ones I have are straight bladed and have your typical scissors-style handles on both ends. These look a lot nicer and sturdier. Just being able to bear down with your palm on the top side looks very practical:
Those are the ones! The handles really do make a big difference- you can really power through the ribs with them.
The only imperfect part is the hand-wash only aspect. I’m a little surprised, if only because raw poultry is considered so bacterially suspect, and dishwashers are a bit better at getting things cleaned and de-germed (or a lot if you have one with a NSF certified sanitize cycle), than hand-washing.
I don’t mind the hand-wash. I generally hand wash my chef’s knives and the such. While I am quite careful about chicken, I use a wooden cutting board and just clean it off with hot water and soap when I’m done cutting up the chicken without issue (and sometimes I spray Star San, a no-rinse contact sanitizer that is usually used in home brewing to sanitize) so cleaning the shears in soapy water is no biggie for me. Salmonella only lives for about four hours or so on a dry surface, anyway.
I’m curious what size you have or what kind of enormous chickens you are buying? My normal roasting pan probably would fit two spatchcocked chickens, but I haven’t tried. I find that a 12" cast iron skillet is the perfect size.
So I checked today, and at my grocery, it’s not spatchcocked – they sell marinated half chickens: half a breast, a thigh, a wing, and a leg all in one piece. But not both halves together as a spatchcocked bird.
They also sell sawn/split chicken leg quarters – I forgot to mention that. That’s one you can’t really do at home unless you have a good meat saw. I can’t find a good picture of one, but imagine taking a chicken leg and cutting it in half through the middle of the bone, longway through.
Actually, here’s a decent photo. Are these common?
You can buy them in Belgium, made in Portugal and frozen. Here’s a picture:
Nice to know you call them spatchcocked, beautiful word. If you want to incease consumption, though… ah! Never mind.
I think there are four types of people. Those who divide people into four types, those who prefer spatchcocked chicken and do not want to do it themselves, those who prefer it and can easily do it, and those who do not want it or know what it is. The supermarket has to appeal to at least three of these types.
I do not dispute meat prep is usually fairly priced. I prefer spatchcocked chicken when grilling, but not roasting if I stuff the insides with bread, butter or herbs. It makes it look like you are getting less chicken. Though basic cooking, not everyone knows what it is or wants it since chicken has thousands of potential uses.
I buy chickens that weigh about 5lbs, including the neck and giblets tucked in the cavity. I just measured one, And it’s about 9 inches from neck to tail, and (whole) about 6 inches wide. If the body were perfectly circular, spatchcocking it would make it pi * 6 inches wide, just under 19". I imagine it’s a bit less than that, since it’s not a perfect circle. Still, it’s got to be more than 12”, plus, the legs will stick out oddly.
My regular roasting pan, which i use to roast whole chickens, whole ducks, rack of lamb, and small beef roasts, is 8"x12" at the bottom, nearly 9"x13" at the top. A spatchcocked bird would overflow it.
And my frying pans are mostly 10". I do have a larger one, but i don’t know if it would fit in the oven.
I guess the giant roasting pan i use for turkey would fit a spatchcocked chicken. And i suppose i first decided i couldn’t make it fit when a friend suggested i spatchcock a whole turkey.
What size chickens do YOU buy that fit into a 12" frying pan, and where do you find such small birds?
My normal roasting pan probably would fit two spatchcocked chickens, but I haven’t tried. I find that a 12" cast iron skillet is the perfect size.
