You just want to barely cut through the skin. Using the tip of a knife, score the chicken all the way down that line to the tail.

See this little white piece of grissel under my finger (just to the right of my finger)? Cut through that with the knife (it is already cut in this picture): Step 2 – Access the keel bone! Now that you have the backbone out, use both hands to spread the chicken out so you can see the underside of the breast area.

Using a sharp knife or kitchen shears (I recommend the latter), start cutting about a half of an inch away from the backbone and cut all the way from the neck to the tail, like so:Ĭontinue on the other side of the backbone until you can remove it like this: Grab him (or is it her? How do you tell on a chicken? Oh who cares…) by what is left of the tail. Here is where we remove most of the structural integrity of the bird. Flattening a chicken is really pretty easy, so let’s take a look at step-by-step directions. This is also the first step I take when “cleaning” a whole chicken, or cutting him up into his various components. Sometimes I like to flatten out the chicken and grill him whole. That method is delicious and funny looking, but we’ll talk about that another day… Beer cans for instance can be used to prop them up so they look like they are dancing on the fire.

There are plenty of ways and gadgets used in whole chicken grilling recipes and methods. There are theories on where spatchcock originated, but it appears no one really knows where that word came from.Įver had a chicken roll off the grill? I have and it’s pretty frustrating. It is also called “spatchcock”, a fun term to use. How to what? Yeah, I said butterfly and that means flatten.

How to cook chicken on a flat top grill