butterflied roast chicken with stuffing

It was Saturday night and 5:30 and Connie and I felt like roast chicken for dinner.  We did not want to eat too late and so I decided to butterfly the chicken before roasting to speed up the process.  This put us in mind of the time that at 5:00 we decided to make cassolet for dinner!  Traditionaly this is a dish that takes about 3 days, but undeterred we we made it and were eating cassolet before 8:00.  I am not really sure how, just put it down to the kitchen Gods and determination.

Butterflying a chicken is much easier than it sounds, but it does require a good pair of kitchen scissors see roast butterflied chicken and potatoes.

Apart from cooking quicker than an un-butterflied chicken, the other advantage is that if you lay the chicken on top of a suitable ingredient the juices from the chicken will be absorbed by it.  Last time I had roasted the chicken on top of potatoes.  This time I decided to make a quick stuffing from some bread that I had that was past it's best.

2 cups of bread roughly chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1 sprig of sage chopped
1 lemon
2 tablespoons of olive oil


In a bowl, I mixed together the cut up bread and onion chopped and a sprig of fresh sage finely chopped. I laid this in the roasting tin and topped it with half a lemon sliced.

I placed the chicken on top and topped that with the grated lemon rind from the lemon and the juice of the other half along with salt and olive oil.

I then roasted this in a 400 oven for about 20 minutes,  and then added some small potatoes cut in half.  I cooked for a further 45 minutes until the chicken was cooked through and the skin was crispy.

This was delicious, my son devoured the bread stuffing barely leaving enough for the rest of us.  A simple but hearty Saturday night dinner along with some roasted butternut squash and a simple green salad, just as fall has taken hold and banished summer for good.