Chicken Under A Brick With Roasted Potatoes

I used a recipe from america's test kitchen and tweaked slightly. Instead of the traditional brick you can use a cast iron skillet loaded with several cans or a large stockpot filled with water. It is important to use a non-stick pan beneath, so the skin doesn't have a chance to stick. This is the first time that i have eaten the skin from the chicken in years, due to health issues, but it is was a rare treat! It is also very pretty. Update: i changed this slightly so that i could add a little more flavor to the meat and not just the skin by adding the spices under the skin before cooking instead of over the skin. As much as i love the original recipe, i can't eat too much skin, so this is is another alternative.

Steps

Technique: butterfly a chicken by cutting along the length of one side of the backbone.

Turn chicken and cut along the other side of backbone and remove it.

Turn chicken breast side up and flatten chicken with the palm of your hand.

Then pound it with the flat side of a mallet to a fairly even thickness.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Adjust an oven rack to the lowest position and heat oven to 450f.

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a heavy bottomed 12-inch ovenproof nonstick pan over med-high heat until it begins to smoke.

Swirl oil to coat the pan.

Place the chicken skin side down in the pan and reduce heat to med.

Place the weight on the chicken and cook until evenly brown for about 25 minutes , checking every 5 minutes or so.

The chicken should be fairly crisp and brown after 20 minutes , if not turn up to med-high heat and continue to cook until well-browned.

Mix the remaining oil , garlic , 1 1 / 2 tsp thyme , rosemary , pepper flakes , lemon juice , 1 / 2 tsp salt an.

Ingredients

whole chicken, salt and pepper, vegetable oil, garlic cloves, fresh thyme leave, red pepper flakes, fresh rosemary, fresh parsley leaves, fresh lemon juice, lemon, red bliss potatoes