Aromatic Brick Chicken
Last night we treated ourselves to a pan-roasted chicken. I used the bricks to flatten the chicken so it cooks more evenly. They also serve another purpose: the weight prevents the skin from shrinking on contact with the hot pan, so the chicken looks perfect when you flip it at the end. That's all about the technique, which you can also use when grilling chicken. What can I say about the flavors? They're Arabic-inspired, sweet spices balanced by a generous amount of lemon juice (next time I might add some lemon zest too) and chili. It pairs wonderfully with a tabbouleh that I prepared following the recipe already on the site, but instead of oil and lemon juice I used the sauce left in the pan from the chicken.
Ingredients
1 chicken (mine weighs 1,250g)
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons oil
Marinade
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 cinnamon stick (about 3 cm)
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
60ml oil (neutral-flavored olive oil or sunflower)
juice of 1 1/2 lemons (about 80ml)
How to prepare aromatic brick chicken
- In a dry skillet, toast the cumin, coriander and cinnamon until fragrant. Put them in a spice grinder along with chili, paprika, turmeric and salt and grind until fine.
- Add the oil and lemon juice to the ground spices and mix well.
- Spatchcock the chicken using the method shown in this video. Basically, first cut out the backbone, then flip it and remove the breastbone. Finally, trim the excess skin from the edges. The video shows these steps very clearly.
- Pour the marinade over the chicken, massage it in well all over, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- The next day, take it out of the refrigerator 1 hour before cooking to let it come to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C. Wrap two bricks in aluminum foil and put them in the oven to heat up.
- On the large burner, gently heat the oil in a large skillet (big enough to hold the chicken and oven-safe). Add the garlic cloves unpeeled, just crushed with the flat of a knife. Let them fry on low heat until golden. Remove them from the pan - we only need the flavored oil.
- Turn the heat up high and get the oil very hot, but be careful not to burn it. Place the chicken in the pan (skin-side down) and quickly (so the skin doesn't shrink) place the bricks on top and press down firmly.
- Reduce the heat to low and let the chicken cook for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan occasionally so it browns evenly.
- Transfer the pan (as is, with the bricks on top of the chicken) to the oven. Let it cook for another 25 minutes.
- Remove the bricks from the chicken and check if it's done (pierce it at the base of the thigh - the juices should run clear). If not done, flip the chicken skin-side up and continue cooking until ready (my small chicken didn't need this step).
- Serve the chicken in the pan you cooked it in, skin-side up, sprinkled with fresh parsley and with lemon slices on the side.
Spatchcocked chicken
The marinade
Marinating the chicken
Infusing oil with garlic
Chicken in pan with bricks on top
Roasted chicken
