- 1 whole chicken
- 3 limes
- 1 medium onion
- 2 whole bulbs garlic
- 1 tbsp butter, softened
- 1 tsp chili pepper flakes
- 1 tsp fresh cracked pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- olive oil
Preheat oven to 375F.
Slice onion and and two limes, and lay out in the bottom of your roasting pan. They will serve as a bit of a rack for the chicken. Cut the tops off the two blubs of garlic and drizzle with olive oil. Zest the third lime, and combine the zest, butter, chili pepper flakes, salt and pepper in a small bowl.
I forget the technical term, but basically you are going to flatten the chicken. Place the chicken breast side down on your cutting board. Using a sharp knife or kitchen shears, cut out the back by cutting straight down, about half an inch on either side of the spine (toss it in the freezer and save it to make stock later). Flip the chicken back over and press down on the breast bone to flatten it. Tuck the wing tips under so that they don't burn.
Spread the butter/lime/chili mix over the whole chicken. Place in the roasting pan, on the lime and onion slices. Set the garlic bulbs in beside the chicken. Put in oven, and roast for about 30 minutes.
Cut your remaining lime in half and baste the chicken with the juice. Remove the garlic from the pan and allow to cool. Put the chicken back into the oven for another 15 minutes or so (use your meat thermometer to be sure that the chicken is close to done).
For the last five minutes, crank up the heat to 400F to brown the skin. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes.
I served the chicken with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. I used one of the bulbs of roasted garlic in the potatoes, and have smooshed-up the second one and am saving it for later in the week.
It tasted absolutely incredible. The only change I am going to make is to increase the chili flakes a bit. There was a little zip, but could have used a little bit more heat. So that's what we had for dinner tonight... and I wish I could somehow communicate the smells still wafting around our house.
oh yummy, that looks amazing.
ReplyDeleteWow looks great, wish I could have that smell forwarded to me through the blogosphere...
ReplyDeleteOMG does that ever look amazing!
ReplyDeleteyum! could never cook it though... grossed out by having to flatten the bird.
ReplyDeleteLooks delicious!
ReplyDelete[drool] So hungry now. Looks like a fab recipe. I have a book that recommends using roasted garlic straight out of the oven to spread on bread like butter. Oh man, it's fabulous. Oh, and the cooking term for the "flat" chicken is buttefly. Keep up these posts. I lurve them.
ReplyDeleteI'm a vegetarian, but even I can state that it's very pretty. Bookmarking the recipe because I do cook chicken all the time for Josh.
ReplyDeleteOh my. That looks delicious! Too bad my husband doesn't like garlic or limes...otherwise I'd be cooking this right now! LOL
ReplyDelete@Callista~ You can make it with a pre-cut chicken...I do that when I make high-roasted chicken and potatoes, because I'm icked out by the whole cutting and flattening the chicken too. The precut chicken works just fine...you could even do it with just chicken breasts if you want. :)
I'm going to give this a try this week. Though I am scared to cut the chicken. Eek!
ReplyDeleteThat looks so yummy I'm gonna have to give it a try. Do you reackon I could leave out the chilli as I can't eat it ?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds yummy. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI tried this on Sunday and you're right... it's delicious. I think it will become a regular feature around here. Thank you!
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