Fast Food

     I got started late on my meal preparation yesterday.  I had in mind roasting a whole chicken on the grill but didn't have sufficient time to spend waiting for it to cook through thoroughly.  So I decided to spatchcock the bird.

     But mention spatchcock and ladies blush, men frown and children giggle, even though the word has been in our lexicon for three hundred years.  It is generally considered to have originated in Ireland and appears in Irish cookbooks as early as the 18th Century.  Spatchcock is probably a shortened version of the term "dispatch the cock" making reference to a quick way to cook a chicken.  According to the Oxford Companion to Food it is:

     "a phrase used to indicate a summary way of grilling a bird after splitting it open down the back and spreading the two halves out flat."

     In other words, the backbone is removed and then what was once essentially a three dimensional object is reduced into two dimensions.  This permits the chicken to cook more completely in a shorter amount of time thus safely cooking the dark meat of the legs and thighs without drying out the white breast meat.

     And sure enough, in just a little over a half hour I had a nicely roasted chicken on the dinner table!