FabFood: Butterflied Tuscan Chicken

Want a change from roast chicken? Try it "butterflied" - remove the spine and breast bone, open up like a book and grill it - with or without a weight (traditionally a brick is used...).

With a good, sharp knife removing the bones isn't too difficult - and they can be used to make a decent soup stock - two meals out of one chicken!

Ingredients

1 large chicken
2 leaves fresh sage
1 red chili
1 tsp chili salt (or regular)
pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lemon
To garnish: chopped parsley and lemon halves

Sides:

Fresh asparagus
2 knobs butter
2 cloves garlic peeled and crushed
salt and pepper
Roast-potatoes

Instructions
1. Rinse the chicken in cold water and pat dry. Make an incision to the right of the back bone and carefully cut all the way down. You'll need to cut through a few small bones, and when finished you should be able to "open" up the chicken as below.

2. This time make an incision to the left of the back bone and carefully cut all the way down and remove.

3. Find the breast bone, make an incision at the end and slowly remove from the breast meat.

4. Congrats - you've now butterflied the chicken! And now for the marinade.

5. Finely dice the chili and chop the sage leaves and place in a mixing bowl. Add the chili salt, freshly ground pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.

6. Mix well and pour over the chicken, coat all over. Leave an hour or so in the fridge to marinade.

7. Prepare the asparagus: remove the woody stems by holding a both ends and gently bending; the woody stem will break off naturally. Place asparagus on a large piece of double-folded aluminium foil. Add knobs of butter, crushed garlic, salt and pepper and fold up the foil to make a package.

8. About 45 minutes before your target serving time, pre-heat the grill and remove chicken from the fridge to bring to room temperature. The chicken will take approx 25-30 minutes to cook. If you're serving roast potatoes as a side, now's the time to put them in the oven.

9. When the grill is medium-hot, remove the chicken from the marinade, shake gently to remove excess and prevent flare-up. Put chicken on the grill and cover with a grill-press (or clean brick!) if you have one. Cover and leave to cook for about 25-30 minutes, turning once.
When you turn the chicken, add the asparagus foil package.

10. When the chicken is done (use a thermometer or prick the thigh - juices should be clear), remove and prepare for serving, but cutting into pieces, and garnish with chopped parsley and lemon pieces.