Recipe: Lemony Chicken

Today I was very productive! I broke down four chickens -- half a chicken (butterflied and split) set aside for dinner tonight, and the rest broken down into seven legs (drumstick and thigh together, with skin on and bone in), seven breasts (boneless and skinless) and seven wings (set aside together in a bag for making buffalo wings at some future point), plus a full gallon bag of giblets and bones for stock, and a good pint of chicken skins that are currently rendering down for fat. (I'll use the chicken fat to confit three of the legs tomorrow.)

It took about an hour all told, and now I have schmaltz, stock-makings, and a lot of meat for dinners.

Then I used the half-chicken I'd saved to make lemon chicken. (jmpava and I have found that half a chicken is about right for dinner for us, so unless I have a plan for the extra roast chicken meat, I butterfly and split a chicken and then cook just that much.)

( Lemony Butterflied Chicken )

I served it with orzo risotto (whole-wheat orzo pasta, cooked like a rice risotto), and a salad made of beets, carrots and red onions, cut in big pieces, roasted until tender, and tossed with honey mustard.