Curtis Stone’s spatchcock chicken with romesco sauce

Now we all love a good roast chicken, don't we? But I'm going to show

you a way to make it extra special. And it's extra simple. It's my

spatchcock chicken with romesco sauce. It's packed with flavour, and it's

perfect for entertaining. Now when we say spatchcock, we're talking about

both the dish and the method we use to open up the chicken. It's also

known as butterfly theory. Very simple and easy. Alright, now let's preheat

our oven 200 degrees Celsius, or if you're using fan-forced 190. Here I've

got a large chicken that weighs about two kilos, you can see I've already

removed that backbone for you. So it's very, very simple and easy. The

last thing I want you to do is just put your hand over that breastbone and

just push down. You'll just hear a little pop. That's it, you want to make it

nice and flat. You know you've got a good chicken when it has really nice

tight skin, covering the meat of course, and then the fat that you can see,

it should be white. So if we turn that over, yep, that's exactly what we

have - any of that fat, nice and white. Time for the rub. So I've got paprika.

I've got a little bit of granulated garlic, salt flakes, and some black pepper.

Next what you do, grab your chicken, go ahead and rub a little bit of olive

oil over the chicken and then get your spice mix. And just generously coat

that all the way over the legs, the breasts. Sprinkle it everywhere over that

chicken. Just another little drizzle of olive oil. Here's the trick to perfectly

golden roast chicken. Make sure you use a non-stick frying pan that can

go into the oven. Okay, then pick up that chicken, bring it over to your pan

and pop it straight on in. Okay, now the pan’s nice and hot. So we're only

going to let it toast for about two minutes, you're going to smell those

spices all toasting underneath there. It doesn't have to be perfectly golden

brown because it's actually still going to continue to cook in the oven and

develop colour. So have a little peek after just a minute and make sure it's

not too hot. All that's looking good. Okay, so what I do now is I lift my

chicken up out of the pan, transfer it back over here to my roasting tray

and then in the same pan, grab a few slices of bread. Now I know this is

unconventional, but go with me. I know what you're thinking, what on

earth is he doing? I'm going to make a little base for the chicken to

actually sit on. Okay, so next, I take my capsicum, go ahead and sprinkle

those all over the bread. And I take a clove of garlic that's already been

peeled straight into the centre there, and then you go ahead, lift up your

chicken and drop that right back over the top. Oh yes, all that flavour is

going to come up and infuse the chicken as it cooks. All of that delicious

juice that comes out of the chicken is going to be soaked up by that

wonderful bread. Then we go ahead, that last little bit of dry rub back over

the chicken. And now it goes into the oven for 50 to 55 minutes. The smell

of roast chicken has to be one of my favourite smells on the planet. Once

the chicken’s cooked you'll see the skin is nice and crisp on top. And the

inside is that perfect internal temperature. Listen to that crispy skin. I just

love it. Now I'm gonna set it aside over here to rest for just a minute. And

you might be wondering what to do with the capsicum and the sourdough

that's underneath the chicken. Well, guess what, it just soaked up all of

those delicious juices from the chicken while it was cooking. And this is

going to be the base of your romesco. It's a Spanish-style sauce that goes

great with chicken or seafood. I absolutely love it. First of all, let’s lift that

chicken up and reveal all those beautiful capsicum. I’m going to sit my

roast chicken up there just to continue to rest. You can see it right?

Beautiful capsicum that's all cooked down with those beautiful juices from

the chicken. You put all of those roast capsicum into your food processor.

And then, in the food processor with one of the slices of sourdough, that'll

be enough, but have a look how it soaks up all of that crunchy, delicious

flavour. I gotta tell you, this is going to be amazing. Go ahead and pop

that in. This of course helps to thicken the romanesco. You only need

enough bread to thicken the sauce, so save the other two. We’ll actually

serve those with the chicken and they're going to be delicious. Next, add

some toasted almonds, some parsley, some sherry vinegar, and a little bit

of extra virgin olive oil. Pop it on and blitz it. It should only take a couple of

seconds and that is it. It is going to be so delicious. Then, if you want to

sort of add a little bit more extra virgin olive oil you can, but I kind of like

this consistency. I mean you can imagine what this tastes like, right? With

all that roasted chicken flavour. You might not need all of this sauce for

the chicken, but you can keep it. It'll stay in the fridge for a couple of days.

You can use it as a dip or a spread, serve it on top of a soup as a garnish,

salad, even spread a nice sandwich with it. It really is very, very versatile.

Now the last thing that we need is this beautiful chicken. And we're going

to serve it with some greens. Into a hot pan, a little drizzle of olive oil.

We're going to actually cook some kale. I love kale, it's a very hearty

green. I've got some thinly sliced shallots to toss those in, and then throw

in a handful of your kale. Once you hear that sort of sizzle, you know that

you've got a nice intense heat in your pan so you can put a splash of

water, but I'm going to put a splash of grape juice, otherwise known as

wine, just a little drizzle. Give it a toss, and then season it with salt and

pepper. Now kale takes about seven or eight minutes to cook all the way

down. Now before I even cut the chicken, the first thing I like to do is to

take that wonderful crunchy bread. That was the base of what we roasted

the chicken on. I cut that into a few little pieces and I put that onto my

serving platter. Next, you want to split the chicken straight down in half.

So just go straight on in. You feel that breastbone, and then just push a

knife all the way through. You just go straight on in like that, pull it to one

side. If you want to go even further and separate the thigh and the

drumstick you may, and right beside that of course my beautiful kale has

been wilting down as we cook. And lastly, our gorgeous sauce. If I was

going around to someone's house and they served this, I think I'd be

pretty stoked. It is so delicious. Enjoy.