This flat roasted chicken is a fantastic and straightforward recipe for making the juiciest, crispiest Sunday roast dinner.
Course Main Course
Cuisine British
Keyword chicken
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 55 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour5 minutesminutes
Servings 6people
Calories 377kcal
Author Lea
Ingredients
1large chicken
salt
olive oil
Instructions
Brining (optional)
Make a brine solution by dissolving 4 tablespoons of salt in 1 litre of water. The water should cover the whole chicken so if you don’t have enough, make more.
Submerge the whole chicken into the brine and leave it in the fridge with a lid on for at least 4 hours or overnight.
Before roasting, remove chicken from the water and pat dry with a kitchen towel.
How to spatchcock a chicken
Lay the chicken breast side down and cut the spine with a sharp pair of kitchen scissors. Make sure to cut through the ribs and not the vertebrae as this is too difficult to cut through.
Repeat on the other side of the spine
Open the chicken up and turn over so you can now push down on the breast to flatten the chicken out.
Roasting
Preheat the oven to 240°C (464 F).
Rub oil around the whole spatchcocked chicken.
Generously sprinkle both sides of the chicken with salt.
Option 1: Place the chicken on the wire rack with a tray underneath. This way the air can circulate around the chicken and you can catch all the nice juices into the tray.
Option 2: If you don’t have a wire rack cut thick slices of onion and place them next to each other on the bottom of the tray. Lay the flattened chicken on top them.
Fill the bottom of the tray with water to protect the juices from burning. Check if there is enough water in the tray during roasting and add more if required otherwise you will completely burn the bottom of the tray.
Roast for 55 minutes.
Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before cutting.