Christmas & New Year Gathering at Karen’s House / How to Butterfly a Chicken / Recipe – Herb Roasted Sakura Chicken

Just two days ago, a few of us met up for Christmas / New Year celebration at Karen’s place! For the past few meals at her house (read here and here), she is always the one busy in the kitchen so this time, we decided to pot luck to give her a break!

Karen prepared salad and got roast beef from Plaza Brasserie.

East meets west sausages. Keropokman and Kopikosonggirl bought these cheese filled sausages and Taiwanese sausages from Cold Storage and grilled it!

As for me, I decided to try something new: Roast a Chicken! The boyf spontaneously wanted to help me with this and I even gave him a youtube link to let him learn how to butterfly a chicken. But he was tied down with work so in the end, I had to do everything myself. 🙁 But nevermind, the consolation is, I can now butterfly a chicken! It is not as difficult as it seems! And I think I did quite a good job as a first timer. If you want to know how did I butterfly the chicken, scroll down to find out!

The chicken didn’t turn out as roasted as we expected and it looks like the Asian version of steamed chicken. But I am glad it turns well. The marinade is very simple but of course you can add more ingredients. I just prefer to keep it simple and not overwhelm it with tons of different flavors. The vegetables are flavoured by the oil from the chicken and the meat is very tender! Perhaps it is because I bought the Sakura Chicken from NTUC. Keropokman gave it a very atas name: Herb Roasted Sakura Chicken with Assorted Root Vegetables and Chestnuts.

The talented Keropok family did Green Tea & Kahlua, Coffee and Cocoa popsicles. I seriously think they can start a business liao, especially now when popsicles are in trend!

And not forgetting my JELLY HEARTS (Recipe here)! This time, my jelly hearts are PERFECT! The strawberry jelly didn’t leak out of the baking tin, my kitchen is not in a mess. And I doubled the amount of my cheese layer! LOVE IT!

Here’s a picture of us! We did a gift exchange and I got a Citrus Reamer and a necklace! HOHOHO!

—————————————————————————————————–

Ok this is a rather gruesome part so if you are not keen to know how to butterfly a chicken, you can scroll directly to the recipe of my Roast Chicken at the end of the post. I actually want to make this a full post, but the gruesome photos will be big and erm, not very appetizing to the eyes lah. LOL

So why do we want to butterfly a chicken? For me, it is because I was late for the gathering and by doing the butterfly cut allows the meat to cook faster. Haha! But seriously, you will see alot of people actually butterfly the chicken during BBQ so that the whole chicken lays flat on the grill and cooks more evenly, since all the meat is about the same thickness. And also, it makes it easier to cut the chicken into two and butterfly shape looks better.

How to butterfly a chicken?
1. Turn the chicken breast side down. Cut away the backbone using a scissors.

2. Now position the chicken so the drumsticks are pointing away from you. Use a knife, cut the carcass open to break the breastbone.

3. Trim away all the fats (remember, they are very unhealthy!).

Rinse the chicken through tap water and it is ready to use. You can cook directly or cut the chicken into half.

TADEH! My first time butterfly-ing a chicken and I am quite pleased with it! So with that, we can start marinating and roasting the chicken!

—————————————————————————————————–

If you are keen to try roast a chicken for a New Year Party tonight, it is not too late! Head to the supermarket now and buy all the ingredients and in less than 2 hours, your roast chicken will be ready! I wanted to have alot of vegetables to pair with my roasted chicken, so that I don’t feel so sinful when eating it! Hehe

Recipe: Herb Roasted Sakura Chicken with Assorted Root Vegetables and Chestnuts

Ingredients
1 Fresh Chicken (about 1.5kg)
100g Onions, cut halves
5pc Water Chestnut
100g Carrots, cut into small pieces
100g Celery, cut into small pieces
3pc Garlic, cut into pieces
some honey
some butter

Seasonings
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
some Bay Leaves
some Rosemary

Method:
1. Brush the seasonings on both side of the chicken. Cover it with clean wrap and marinade for at least 30 minutes. You can definitely use other seasonings such as lemon or butter.

2. Preheat the oven at 200 degree celsius.

3. Place all the cut vegetables on a baking try.

4. Place the chicken on top of the vegetables, with the boney part facing on top first. Roast for 30 minutes.

5. Flip to the skin part, brush some butter and honey, and roast for another 30 minutes.

—————————————————————————————————–

So this is my last post in 2012. Once again, thank you so much for reading. Leaving you with a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:”The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” Happy New Year and cheers to a more tam chiak 2013!