Oven Roasted Butterflied Whole Chicken

"What's the two things they tell you are healthiest to eat? Chicken and fish. You know what you should do? Combine them, eat a penguin."
- Dave Attell

Chicken is one of those meats that you can dress up or down any which way you choose.  A roasted chicken is an excellent base for other meals (Chicken Salad), and it pairs so easily with a million side dishes that you can serve it every night and never have the same exact meal.  I prefer to roast mine with the skin on but without any additional spices or seasonings.  You can certainly rub on some rotisserie seasoning, but I peel the skin off before I eat it so to me it seems superfluous.  You can roast it whole in about an hour-and-a-half, but if you butterfly the bird it takes half that time.  If you are unfamiliar with how to butterfly a chicken, Alton Brown has a YouTube video showing the process (approximately 01:00 - 01:54).  It may seem daunting at first, but once you get the knack it is actually pretty easy and gets dinner done much faster.

Oven Roasted Butterflied Whole Chicken

1 ~5.5 pound whole fryer (tends to be juicier than a roasting hen)
sharp kitchen shears/scissors

1.  Remove chicken from packaging and pat dry with paper towels.

2.  Turn chicken breast side down.  Using shears cut through the meat and rib bones on each side of the back bone from "laying" end to "neck" end.  Remove back bone.  You may choose to simmer this with vegetables and herbs to make stock, or you may discard it.  It makes good gravy base as well.

3.  Cut through flesh surrounding the keel bone that divides the breasts.  Remove and discard keel bone.

4.  Pat inside of chicken dry.

5.  Place breast side up on a greased pan (I used a jelly roll pan greased with Crisco).

6.  Turn wing tips under upper wing bone to secure them.  This also keeps wing tips from burning.

7.  Place Onion Potato Wedges around chicken and roast at 425° for 45 minutes, or until an instant read thermometer registers 165° in the thigh.  Remove to cutting board to carve.