After the Surgery, the Heat.

I blogged yesterday about my first ever attempt to Spatchcock a chicken.
Well last night was the chance to taste the fruits of my labors. I put the chicken and the remnants of the marinade into a roasting pan (adding more Rosemary on the way) and also diced up some potatoes and carrots and tossed them in some oil and then added more rosemary and seasonings.

Then it was into the oven for 45 minutes.

The smell in the kitchen was wonderful - very comforting. And I needed comfort, I climbed on my bike for the first time in 10 months yesterday and went for a 30 minute bike ride. I'd been reading some of my old blog entries over at Myspace where I was cataloging my weight loss. As it's now become 'former weight loss' I figured I should do something about it. So out came the bike.

And - after making my kitchen smell yummy, out came the chicken.

I was very pleased with the glorious crisp golden-ness of the skin.

So how did it taste?

To be honest although I could smell and taste the Rosemary, I couldn't taste the lemon from the marinade at all. It tasted o.k. but not brilliant. I do wonder about the quality of the chicken. If I had splurged and bought one of those 'run free on the hills and fed on a diet of fresh air and angels before being laid to rest in the most humane manner possible (a sort of poultry Logan's Run)' kind of chicken whether it would have tasted better than my 'cheap, fed crap, hung upside down and brutally slaughtered' chicken that I used.

I was rereading the hilarious 'Julie and Julia - my year of cooking dangerously' last night. In it Julie talks about how cooking styles had changed. Her parents would take a mediocre piece of meat and work with it until it tasted fabulous, whereas today's style of cooking involves finding the most superior ingredients that you can find and doing as little too them as possible.

The cookbook I got the recipe from did go into great detail about how to pick the best bird possible, so it seems there is some truth to her assertion.

I either need a better chicken or a better marinade.

Time for more culinary experimentation.