sheet, one side of that sphere will always cook more than
the other.
A spatchcocked chicken, on the other hand, resembles a
cuboid, in which the top surface is skin and most of the
volume is meat. This leads to three end results: First, all of
the skin is exposed to the full heat of the oven the whole
time. There is no skin hiding underneath, no underbelly to
worry about. Second, there is ample room for the rendering
fat to drip out from under the skin and into the pan below.
This makes for skin that ends up thinner and crisper. Finally,
all of that dripping fat distributes heat energy over the meat
as it cooks, both helping it to cook more evenly and creating
a temperature buffer, protecting the meat from drying out.
Advantage 3: Thinner Profile = Faster Cooking
In terms of cooking, a sphere is the least efficient shape—
that is, for a given mass, it’s the shape that’ll take the
longest for heat to penetrate through to the center. Because
of this, a regular roast chicken can take an hour or more to
cook, a turkey several hours. But with a spatchcocked bird
and its slim profile, you can blast it at 450°F and it’ll cook
through in about half the time. If I added up all the time I
could have saved in Thanksgivings past using this method, I
could perhaps—dare I say it—rule the world?
Advantage 4: It’s Easier to Carve
Carving a whole chicken can be a tricky affair. Its shape
makes it tough to find an angle where you can get good
leverage, and I usually resort to flip-flopping the bird
around a few times as I carve it. A spatchcocked bird, on the