Mr L's Saturday Night Dinner ... Whole Chicken on the Barbie ...

[mr_lebowski]

I cleaned the excess skin, clipped the wingtips, spatchcocked her, brushed w/Olive Oil, dusted the outside with my dried 'Scarborough Fair' mix (do I have to tell ya?), cracked black pepper & kosher salt, and then shoved sprigs of fresh Thyme under her skin. She's cooking (indirect, of course) in the Weber Kettle, with soaked Oak and Hickory in the smoker box laid atop the coals.

Tonight I'm just eatin' barbeque chicken with a baked potato with butter/sc/chives, and some corn. Nothing too fancy.

But on the stove I got chicken soup brewing. Got the neck and back and wing tips in the pot, along with celery, carrot, italian parsley, 1/2 head of garlic, 5 green onions (just the thick part), a whole shallot ... seasoned with pepper corns, whole coriander, bay leaves, and a buncha fresh thyme. Letting that simmer for a bit then will refrigerate.

Tomorrow I'll strain it, put all the rest o' the bones from the chicken into it and simmer 4 more hours or so. Then strain again ... then cook in fresh carrot, celery, peas, some kinda starch ... noodles or potato most likely ... maybe orzo if I motivate to hit the store ... then shred in the remaining Hickory-Oak smoked barbeque chicken ... and have soup for the week.

Probably set a bit o' the meat aside and make a bit of chicken salad outta that, instead of putting it in the soup ... now that I think of it.

What are YOU making (or made) tonight?

[Glamrock]

1. Jack's frozen Mexican pizza!

Delicious!

[mr_lebowski]

2. Rockin' it, Brother! (nt)

[stevil]

3. Baked wings with salt as the only seasoning.

Tied to keep it as simple as possible. Admire your dedication to recipe execution. I normally go all out but I'm in the middle of a movie marathon.

[hunter]

4. Lentils and brown rice with my secret herbs and spices.

Probably one of my major "comfort foods."

"Secret" changes over time. Tonight's includes extra virgin olive oil, fancy onions, and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't afford when I was young.

In less prosperous times, my dumpster diving days, the "secret" was sometimes Taco Bell hot sauce packets discarded unopened, or worse, McDonalds ketchup. Whatever Ronald Reagan was claiming in those dark ages, ketchup is not a vegetable.

[fierywoman]

5. You really know how to cook! Bravo.

[mr_lebowski]

6. Thank you ma'am ... latch-key kid, started fending for myself at a young age ...

Eventually figured out that cooking good grub ... was a way to a woman's heart as well

[fierywoman]

7. I was impressed that you knew to put the spatchcocked chicken bones in the soup pot tomorrow.

Cooking to me is a kind of alchemy that allows you to live very well with very little money.

[MissMillie]

10. When my son was young

I used to sit him at the kitchen table w/ his homework while I made dinner. Thankfully, he was both a good student AND curious about the food. He would often ask me about what I was making and how I was making it.

He sometimes still calls me to ask about how to do something.

[MissMillie]

8. When I cook chicken, I almost always cook 2

and there's only 2 people in my house.

There's so much you can do w/ leftover chicken and w/ the carcasses. And both the cooked chicken and the carcasses can be frozen for use at a later date.

Besides that, I think that roasted chicken--or even "beer can chicken"--is may favorite thing to eat.

[mr_lebowski]

9. I was THINKING about 2! But there's only 1 of me, so ... (nt)

[panader0]

11. Okay, I had to look up "spatchcock".

Do you remove only the backbone or more? Could you describe
your technique? I'm not much of a cook and, at 68 it may be too late
for me, but I'd like to learn.

[mr_lebowski]

12. Trim the excess skin off around orifices, then yeah, cut out the backbone

from front to back, using kitchen shears. Then you flip it over, and press down hard on it to crack the breastbone, which makes the bird lie flat (I actually wasn't able to with this bird, but it's not critical to do so). I also clip the last section off the wing, it's good for soup and they just burn anyway, usually.

Then I just plop it on the Weber, skin side up, directly on the grill, using indirect method (baskets of charcoal to either side). Takes about 50 mins at steady grill temp of 350F.

Here's how she came off looking. The breast was only dry on the very outside surface, where it's brown-looking, that dryness is not 'deep' at all.

Spatchcocking is a great way to get a whole bird cooked evenly all the way through, as a lot more of the meat is directly exposed to the heat.