Chicken Under a Brick - How to Make Chicken Roasted Under Bricks

hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with chicken under a brick that's right i'm going to show you how to use a couple old bricks to create one of the best roast chickens you've ever had and while we're totally going to take credit for this it really is gravity that's doing all the heavy lifting here well actually technically i guess it would be more like pulling but regardless let's move on to more pressing matters like why pressing matters so to start you're gonna have to find a couple bricks and by the way make sure you're getting a real brick all right a clay brick it should be very heavy for its size if you pick it up and it feels kind of light that's probably made from concrete and it's really not heavy enough for what we want to accomplish here and of course i'm not getting mine at those big corporate home and garden stores i use some local handcrafted artisan bricks made from reclaimed clay from broken vintage pottery oh it's nice stuff and what we'll do is we'll just wrap those in some foil and please make sure the shiny side of the foil is facing out you never know when you're gonna have to check your look so we'll wrap two of those up in foil one for each half of our chicken and speaking of chicken that's the next step we're gonna go ahead and prep our chicken by using the old spatchcock method and in case you missed that video that's just a way to cut it so that it opens up and lays flat but before we do that i decided to take off the wings right at that joint where the flat meets the drumette i just think it makes for a little nicer presentation plus we can cook those wings alongside so we're not wasting anything so i'm going to trim those off and then we will proceed with the aforementioned spatchcocking and the best tool for this is definitely a pair of scissors or kitchen shears and all we need to do is make sure our chicken is breast side down back side up and all we're going to do is cut along each side of the backbone which is very easy to find because as you may remember from medical school the neck bone is connected to the back bone so find the neck that will lead you to the backbone put your scissors on one side of it and just simply cut from one end to the other and then we'll take our scissors and we'll cut down the other side and that backbone will come right out but really that's only half the battle because it's still not really going to lay flat so what we need to do is take a knife and make a cut into that soft cartilage right above the breastbone in fact let me turn this so you can see it a little easier so we'll make a cut right into that and you'll see that breastbone right underneath so all we need to do is cut enough so we can kind of pop that bone up through and that's what's going to allow this to lay completely flat and some people actually like to remove that whole piece but i don't i think it adds more flavor and cooks more evenly if you leave it so that looks good and at that point our chicken has officially been spatchcocked no i never do get tired of saying that and then once that's been accomplished we'll go ahead and season this up so we'll start with the skin side down and we'll give it a generous application of kosher salt i'm also going to do some freshly ground black pepper a little shake a cayenne and then last but not least i decided to put a little bit of dried herb i'm using an herb de provence which has some rosemary thyme lavender oregano and a few other things but of course this part is totally up to you you can use any herbs you want you are the robin thick of your chicken under brick and then we'll go ahead and flip that over and speaking of blurred lines i know you want it i know you want it i know you want it so the skin side looks really really good so on this side we're only going to do salt and pepper sometimes dried herbs can kind of char and look weird on the surface so we'll just do salt and pepper and then what i like to do is just let this sit out at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes just like that don't worry it's not going to spoil and what's going to happen is that salt's going to pull moisture from the skin which before we cook this we'll want to blot off with a paper towel dry skin equals crispy skin so like i said just let it sit there for 20 30 minutes and then dab it with a paper towel and then before this thing hits the pan i like to brush it with just a little bit of oil and that way we won't have to put any in the pan which is going to be super hot and then once we've brushed that on i do like to re-season because we lost a lot of that salt when we blotted with the paper towel so we really should reapply that so that's what i'm doing here and at this point our bird is ready to hit the bricks well actually the bricks are ready to hit the bird but you get the idea so we'll head over to the stove where i have a large cast iron skillet on high heat and we're gonna preheat that very well i left mine on high for like four minutes until it was fairly smoking hot and then we'll go ahead and we'll place our chicken in skin side down and by the way in the spirit of full disclosure this video is in fact an evil trick to force you to go out and buy a 12-inch cast iron skillet also known as the best 25 you'll ever spend and yes it can work in other pans which i'll cover on the blog but this is by far your best option so we'll place that chicken in skin side down and then we will carefully and thoughtfully place our bricks over the top in whatever position you think presses the chicken down the flattest and most uniformly and sometimes i like to cheat the bricks towards the thicker end a little bit so we'll position our bricks and then very carefully this thing's heavy so use two hands we will transfer that into the center of a very very well preheated 425 degree oven for about 25 minutes at which point we'll pull it out we'll carefully remove the bricks and we'll take a look and what's happened here because that very hot oven and the weight of those bricks pressing down this chicken should be very close to being cooked through but also the bricks insulated that surface from the heat so that's why that still looks kind of raw so all we need to do is flip this over and pop it back in the oven for just a few minutes until it's cooked through and of course that's going to depend on the size of the chicken and then if you want there's one optional step that i really must insist you do right at the end here switch your oven from bake to broil on high and will give that gorgeous skin one last blast of heat so like i said that step is technically optional it'll still be good even if you don't do it but it is so fast and easy why wouldn't you do it and then once our chicken has reached our desired level of doneness i usually go for about 160 165 for internal tap in the middle of the thigh but when you think yours is done you're going to pull it out and let it rest about five minutes before serving and if everything's gone according to plan your skin should sound like this and trust me these sounds have not been put through any crunchiness filter but anyway like i said we'll let that rest about five minutes and then we'll plate up i decided to serve mine with a wild arugula and shaved heirloom rainbow carrot salad yes again and of course you're insane if you don't deglaze the pan with a little bit of chicken broth or other flavorful liquid and serve those accumulated juices alongside that just makes sense and as crispy as that skin is and as gorgeous as that looks the real magic of the brick method is in the texture and not only does the weight from the bricks make this cook faster and help create a beautiful brown crispy skin it also kind of compresses the meat and you get a really beautiful firm yet still very tender and juicy texture it really does seem to make a difference and for whatever reason because the bricks do compress that flesh into something a little denser it seems like it actually intensifies the flavor so i really do love this technique and i could have stopped the video right there but it was so delicious i decided to plate up one more piece and one of the things that makes chicken so tasty is that layer of fat between the skin and the meat which as you can see here is pretty much gone it's all been rendered out pressed out by the weight of those bricks but it's almost as if that fat and flavor was somehow pressed into the meat which as i think about it is probably physically impossible or is it yeah it probably is but no matter this really is a great technique in fact my only regret with this i totally forgot to cook those chicken wings with it but anyway other than that i was extremely pleased so i really do hope you give this a try head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 551,235

Keywords: Chicken (Animal), Under a Brick, roasting, roasted, technique, chef, john, foodwishes, dinner, entree, main course, food, cooking, recipe

Id: oMUXF4eG4j0

Length: 7min 15sec (435 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 19 2015