Cold-hearted Cooking

Recently I learned something new. This was quite exciting as most days I don't, giving lie to the old saying, "You learn something new every day." What I learned was a new word--spatchcock--and a new method of preparing a chicken for grilling.

Who knows, maybe everyone else already knows about it, but Mitch and I did not and so we undertook the whole procedure with a mixture of fear, awe and a tiny bit of nausea, since we would be required to remove the backbone from the chicken with scissors, then flip the bird over, and crack the breastbone, and finally flatten the poor guy by pressing down hard with a large spatula so that he is splayed out like a puppy just learning to walk. (There is a video of the process on YouTube I wish we had seen.)

Spatchcocking is kind of gruesome, but the result is the chicken is cooked to perfection and all the skin is fabulously crispy. Try it, but make sure the chicken is dead before you start.