This is chomping food. You know the food that makes you ravenous just to look at it and you don’t want to be polite.
You want to chomp.
You want to dip the chicken in its juices and you want to lick your fingers.
Go ahead. It’s good for you. Open some wine white.
Pull apart some hot french bread. Dunk, Dip. Chomp and still feel good at the end of the meal.
About a year ago I bought cutlery sheers and put them on my nifty magnetic strip and then I forgot about them.
Today I put them to good use cutting the back out of a small chicken and spatchcocking it.
That’s a fancy work for splitting the chicken open. It reduces cooking time and is also a good method for grilling.
It looks cool too, and then I did something really weird.
I laid it over a head of cauliflower to roast and made a marinade
Dijon Mustard
Olive Oil
Thyme
Garlic
Sea Salt
Red Pepper Flakes
You can marinate the chicken for several hours (even over night). Or, you can marinate for about an hour at room temperature.
Use a meat thermometer to test the chicken. You will want to get to 165 ° F. Then let the chicken rest for at least 15 minutes, even though it will be hard and you’ll want to pull that wing on and start chomping.
About that Whole Roasted Cauliflower
I’m sure there are many ways to do this. I cut the stem off and roasted it underneath the chicken, but you could roast it whole beside the chicken or all by itself using the same marinade. It gets very soft, very flavorful, and not anything like water soaked cauliflower of the past.
My life lesson here is that simple food can be really good, soul soothing food that’s as easy as a hug or kiss. It makes your day better and it’s not a lot of trouble.
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More Roast Chicken
60 Minute Whole Roasted Chicken
- 1 small roasting chicken
- 1 small head cauliflower
- ½ juice lemon
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons fresh thyme
- ½ teaspoon red chili flakes
- sea salt
- black pepper
- Cut the backbone out of the chicken with sharp knife or poultry sheers. Pull the chicken open.
- Rinse in cold water. Pat dry. Salt chicken on both sides.
- Mix lemon juice and mustard together well. Add olive oil garlic cloves, thyme, lemon juice.
- Reserve enough of this to put on the cauliflower, before marinating chicken.
- Put chicken in marinade for one hour at room temperature. You can put chicken in marinade overnight, but take out an hour before roasting.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Cut core out of cauliflower, leaving it intact and whole. Some pieces may come off, and you'll reserve those to bake during the last 20 minutes.
- In a shallow baking dish, place cauliflower, doused with the marinade, salt and pepper.
- Place chicken on top of cauliflower and roast. You have an option of baking both separately. Placing chicken on top of cauliflower will give cauliflower extra flavor from the chicken juices.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Reduce oven to 400.
- At this point, take chicken off cauliflower and let them roast separately.
- Chicken should be done in 40 minutes; however use a meat thermometer and remove from oven at 165 degrees.
- Let chicken rest for 15 minutes before cutting.
- Serve with cauliflower and pan juices.
Looks delicious and I would go right along with you and chomp — may I use my fingers?? If were chomping I figured we’d be informal 🙂 Great recipe for winter!! Thank you for sharing.
I’m fond of this method on the grill where I weight the bird down with a foil-wrapped paver stone. I like that this version is done indoors. GREG
I love how you roasted the cauliflower whole like that! I love roasted veggies in general, but never have done a whole cauliflower. It looks absolutely gorgeous, though.
This sounds delish and looks fairly simple. Thanks for the great dinner idea!