Spatchcocked Crispy Happy Chicken With Rich Orange Sauce

From: Codychop

On Mar 26, 2007

I didn't follow the recipe at all so I am leaving zero stars. For the chicken I cooked a whole (3lb) chicken in the crock pot for 5 hours. I used the spice rub (mostly shoved under the skin of the bird) for this recipe and let it sit overnight before setting up in the crockpot. I made the sauce the night before our dinner, too (a lot of my dinners work out this way having a full time job and 19 month old!). For dinner I took off the skin and served the oh so tasty, tender, and very moist meat over rice with the sauce on top. It was very tasty. The sauce was a little too sweet for us, but OK. Would make again but tweak the sauce a little. When I have more time on a weekend I may try the 'brick' method.

From: French Tart

On Mar 18, 2007

A delectable recipe which we thoroughly enjoyed for dinner with friends! The sauce was just the right balance of sweet and sour, not too overpowering at all. I have cooked chicken by this method before funnily enough, so I was eager to try this out, as I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to see it as an RSC entry. It would have been 5 stars for us, but I spent a long time prepping it and also the cooking times were out by about 30 minutes; it may have been the size chicken I used, it was a large one weighing in at nearly 3 and 1/2 lbs, but after I had spatchcocked (butterflied) it and trimmed it, it was not far off the weight in the ingredients list. The rub was delightful, as was the sauce and I was delighted to see a "real" recipe entered for RSC with complex and challenging cooking methods - well done! It was a fabulous list of imaginative ingredients - and I am thoroughly delighted to have discovered it - I will be making this again and using the rub for all sorts of other meats and poultry! Good luck and thanks for posting this! P.S. I call this method of boning a chicken, spatchcock by the way!

From: 3KillerBs

On Mar 17, 2007

The contrast between the spicy, yet not overly intense, rub on the meat and the sweet and sour sauce was delicious. I'm not a fan of sweet and sour but this one was so good I had sauce on every piece. The skin was crisp indeed yet the meat remained moist. Very flavorful. Its the second best contest recipe I've tried — second only to My Orange Roast Chicken and then only because this recipe with both a rub and a sauce is so involved and complex to make while the other is so easy. I anticipate trying the rub on beef and pork as well because it was incredible.

From: Zurie

On Mar 17, 2007

This one had the "wow!" factor! I found the method intriguing. I prepared the chicken as directed, mixed the rub and let the chicken marinate. I used a large, heavy old iron pot which was perfect. I found two bricks which I covered with foil, and fried the chicken with great doubt: was it going to burn on the skin side?? I didn't substitute a single thing, except I wasn't sure what the cook meant by "chili powder". I only had cayenne pepper, which seemed a bit rough, so used 2 teaspoons flaked dried hot pepper. (Oh yes: the bricks in foil were perfectly easy to handle as they did not become hot and I could handle them with bare hands!) And the chicken did NOT burn! The sauce was prepared exactly as directed. The chicken was finished off in the hot oven. As I had no idea what Longevity noodles were, I made rice and cauliflower as side dishes, and the usual salad. The chicken was scrumptious and juicy, with the crispy skin the cook predicted! I commend this cook for the correctness of her timing and instructions — it is clear that he/she tested this recipe carefully. The sauce improved on standing in a warming oven for a short while and was totally delicious, to our tastes, by the time we could eat. For the judges: this recipe is actually a hair's breadth away from 5 stars and would be a knockout with a fully deboned chicken. I might try that soon. Congratulations, cook, I loved the "different approach" of this recipe!!