These days, summer in New England almost feels like two different seasons, with heat waves stretching longer than I can remember in years past. As we hold steady in what I’ll dub the enviably cool summer subseason, cooking inspiration wavers between the grill and the oven, with roast chicken on repeat.
To truss or to spatchcock, that is the question when preparing a roast chicken. Depending on the size of the chicken, spatchcocking can shave off anywhere from 10-20 minutes of cook time, will yield more crispy chicken skin, and does well on either the grill or in the oven. This technique requires kitchen shears and a willingness to manipulate raw chicken.
If cutting out a chicken’s backbone and pressing the remaining carcass into a butterflied shape is a bridge too far, Copicut Farms sees you. Each Tuesday, Copicut brings raw spatchcocked chickens to the Lexington Farmer’s Market (LFM), ready to be seasoned and roasted at home – just remember to tuck the wing tips back and underneath the breasts before cooking. Copicut has noticed that LFM shoppers – compared to those at other markets – are often excited to try new recipes and are not just looking for the quickest-to-prepare cuts of meat. On that note: if you don’t need to cook your chicken tonight, consider sprinkling ¼ cup kosher salt mixed with 1 tablespoon baking powder on top of your chicken as a dry brine, and leaving it uncovered in the fridge for 12-48 hours to absorb. This week’s chickens were unusually large, with most of the spatchcocked cuts coming in at over 4 lbs, so be prepared to double that dry brine recipe for optimal coverage.
For a simple upgrade to your next bacon and eggs breakfast, consider Copicut’s jowl bacon; cut from the cheek rather than the belly, it maintains more of its shape than a long strip of belly bacon can after cooking because it doesn’t have as many layers of fat that shrink. In my book, jowl bacon levels up any recipe that calls for belly bacon because it adds more seasoned meat to bite into while still rendering its tasty fat into whatever will soak it up: pasta sauce, sandwich bread, beans. Spaghetti carbonara is often made with belly bacon because it is easier to source, but purists know that the recipe technically calls for pork jowl bacon, better known in Italy as guanciale.
Copicut Farms, www.copicutfarms.com. Home delivery available.
If 45 minutes to roast a pre-spatchcocked chicken is still a bridge too far, Ovenbird Cafe sees you. New to the Lexington Farmer’s Market this summer, but no stranger to the area, Chef Jason Reed brings a few of his signature roast chickens each week to the LFM along with a generous portion of gravy. Truth be told, the gravy isn’t necessary; the chicken is so moist and flavorful that it doesn’t require sauce.
A professional recipe tester once told me that she never cooks dinner after shopping a farmer’s market. Give in to the temptation of the prepared foods at the market for dinner that night, she explained, and repurpose your market-inspired cooking energy to meal plan and prepare vegetables for the rest of the week; your future self will thank you and your present self will delight in Ovenbird’s side salads. By name they sound like typical picnic fare, but these dishes are anything but typical. The cabbage and carrots in Ovenbird’s coleslaw are thickly cut and coated – not drowned – in the perfect ratio of spicy dressing to vegetables. Potato salad is made with mayonnaise but the acidity suggests it is made with plain yogurt, a delightful surprise. The vegetables in the succotash are market fresh; kernels of corn are still lined up in rows just as they were on the cob, while blistered cherry tomatoes still burst with flavor. If this all sounds appealing but you are just not in the mood to do dishes, remember that Ovenbird’s Cushing Square cafe offers table service and the roast chicken is always on the menu.
Ovenbird Cafe, https://www.ovenbirdcafe.com/lfmpreorder. Retail store at 105 Trapelo Rd., Belmont, is open Mo-Sa 8am-5:30pm, Su 9am-2pm.
A classic wine pairing for roast chicken – or should we say poulet róti – often comes from Burgundy: pinot noir for red wine drinkers or chardonnay fermented in stainless steel for a chilled option. For a more terroir-driven pairing with locally raised chickens, look to Massachusetts’ burgeoning hard cider industry. Stormalong Cider is new to the Lexington Farmer’s Market this year, but has been making cider in Sherborn, Mass for the last decade. With offerings that span from the European tradition of minimal residual sugar, also known as “dry ciders” to a sweet holiday offering to which they even add brown sugar for flavor, Stormalong aims to have a cider for “everyone.” For a quick taste of the tropics, pop a can of the the seasonally available POG Punch; for a daytime indulgence, try Light of the Sun; subtitled lemon, lime, yuzu and jasmine green tea, the floral notes of the jasmine tea linger brightly and make for an elegant pairing with Ovenbird’s roast chicken.
Stormalong Cider, www.stormalong.com. At the LFM on September 3, 17, and October 1, 15, 29.
Black Eyed Susan’s Sheep Dairy, blackeyedsusansheepdairy.com.
Read our past dispatches from the Lexington Farmers’ Market here, here, and here.
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