- Hey everybody, I'm Joey and today we're going full bird as we roast a whole chicken. Now, let's turn up the heat and cook some meat. Follow me.

- Chicken doesn't really need much introduction at all, because chickens actually outnumber people by about a three to one ratio. That means no matter where you're located around the globe, chicken is likely available in the market. So let's go ahead and get started, today we have this full bird right here, totally intact and what you should do is try to brine your bird the night before, either wet brine it submerged in water or dry brine it covered in salt but if you're absolutely terrible at meal planning like I am then brining might not be the best option when you're hungry right now. Just know that brining your bird can help turn up the taste. One of the most annoying parts about cooking this entire chicken is the unpredictable cooking times. You see the white meat right here cooks at a faster temperature than this dark meat right here so our solution to that is we're going to butterfly the chicken and remove this backbone. That's a technique called spatchcocking. Yeah I know, try not to laugh but the benefits of this technique are that we lay out the chicken evenly and that allows more predictable cooking times with even crispier skin. That's truly the best part. So, to remove the backbone, here it is, it runs from tail to where the neck was, we have some kitchen shears and we're just going to remove about a quarter to a half inch on both sides. Get that out of there.

- So once you have the backbone removed, what you want to do is just press down nice and hard right here until you hear that crack in half and you'll know, it lays out perfectly flat. Also, I go ahead and just reserve this as well as the organs of the chicken to make some really incredible chicken stock. So, let me go ahead and wash my hands and we'll be right back to make some incredible seasoning. Another way to turn up the tasty on your bird is to make your own garlic herb butter. I don't really have a set recipe for this but what I do have is some butter. This has been sitting out for about an hour. It's nice and soft so we're just going to go ahead and get it in there. The other thing I have is just some fresh herbs that I had sitting around the house. This is just some rosemary, sage and thyme. Use whatever you have and if you don't have fresh herbs use dried herbs, they work just well also. Next we're just going to go ahead and add about a half tablespoon of olive oil in this. This will make sure it just stays nice and pliable, what we're really looking for is something that's closer to a paste with this. So next we're just gonna get in there with our fork and we're gonna mix it all up. In order to get this butter underneath the skin, what we first need to do is create some separation between the meat and the skin. So we're just gonna get our fingers underneath there, we don't wanna totally remove it, just create some space underneath it, right there, right by the chicken breast. Then we're also gonna do it down here, by the chicken thighs, right here go ahead and create that separation again, don't totally remove it. It is a little messy but it's fun, that's part of cooking. You'll notice that I just removed a little bit of the chicken skin right around here, there was just a ton of it. I personally don't like chicken skin unless it's really nice and crispy. You can leave it on or remove it, no big deal if you remove it, it's great to add with the backbone to make some amazing chicken stock. So let's go ahead and keep this moving along, get that butter underneath there like that, and I just put, I don't try to get too far in. I just get a nice lump right underneath the skin and then I just kind of work it through with my fingers. All right, that is gonna help spread it down the back of the breast and get it in there really nice and good. Hey, don't be shy with that butter. You can never use too much, it's just gonna really add some incredible flavors. Next, we're gonna do it down here, right here by the chicken thighs and again just get a lump of that butter in there and then just massage it around with your hands. It's super easy and if you have kids it's really a lot of fun, they'll really enjoy this part. Now we got that, next thing we're going to do is continue to get messy and just get this butter, just like this and just, rub it really nice and thick around on the outside. That's part of the reason why I like to add that olive oil, it just makes this nice and pliable. I wanna get it around the wings, the chicken skin on these wings is gonna be so tasty, you're really gonna love it. Go ahead and get it around there, all the way down here, the thighs and the legs. Okay, this is almost ready to go in the oven and cook to absolute perfection but one more small step you can use or not use, it's up to you. I have a little leftover butter, and I don't wanna let that go to waste so what I have is some vegetables here, some potatoes and some carrots. I'm just gonna go ahead and get those in the bowl with the butter, mix that up with a little bit of olive oil. We're gonna place these around the chicken as it cooks for a truly one pot meal. Once you have your vegetables all mixed up just go ahead and arrange them around the pan, as best as possible, a little on both sides. Just lay those out nice and flat, make them pretty. Just do your best you can, it's not ever gonna be perfect, get it in there it'll all cook and turn out just great, no matter how they're arranged. Now this chicken is almost ready to go in the oven, we just need to season it. Today I'm using jojo rub, this is a simple rub we created using common ingredients in our kitchen. They're probably in yours too, we've included the link in the description below if you wanna try it yourself, or you could just really use whatever you like but we're gonna coat this chicken liberally with seasoning, and just help turn up the flavor profile on it as it cooks. You'll notice that we're gonna get it over the vegetables too. If you dry brined your chicken the night before, you won't want to add any salt to this especially if you dry brined it using salt, it'd be plenty salty. So now that we have this seasoned, let's go ahead and get it in the oven. We had the oven preheating to 425 degrees, and we're gonna cook it in here until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees in the thickest part of the chicken. The exact cooking time will vary depending upon the size of the chicken. This is about a five and a half pound bird so we'll just see how long it takes. Anywhere from about 45 to 60 minutes. It's a tasty recipe but it's not quick. It's definitely worth the wait so while this is cooking you can grab yourself a beer, throw a bet on the big game, or my favorite, try to solve that math equation from "It's a Beautiful Mind"

- All right, so the easiest way to cut this first is just to remove these leg quarters. Literally just cut right through here, there's no connective bone so it's super easy. Just get it right on both sides, it cuts away really easy. Next part I like to do is the wings, and it really helps if you're kind of facing this way. Now there is a bone that connects right here so it's gonna take a little bit more knife work to go ahead and get through there but basically it's right over here, you just kinda cut it at an angle and you'll get some nice wing pieces right there. When you cut these breasts you're gonna wanna cut right through the breast bone right here, takes a little work with your knife but it's super simple. You can cut it that way, or you can carve away the breast for some beautiful slices. All right so this chicken took 55 minutes to cook and it hit an internal temperature of 162 degrees right before I pulled it out. That's perfect because the heat is actually going to rise as it rests, about five degrees which is ideal because perfectly cooked chicken is done at 165 degrees. So, the next thing I did was let this rest for about ten minutes before I cut into it. If you cut into it right away you're gonna lose all that awesome meat nectar, you're gonna have a little lake sitting here on your cutting board. So it's a difficult part, especially with how good it smells but be sure to let this rest. Next, I went ahead and cut the chicken. Here, we have two chicken breasts, two chicken wings and leg quarters, that includes both the thigh over here as well as the chicken leg over here. You really should learn how to make this recipe because its an easy way to cook meat that's fairly lean, high in protein, and this chicken can take on a variety of flavors really well. Also, you should learn how to cook something tasty for yourself, it's kind of an important life skill. Our motto at Red Meat Lover is cooking meat made easy and that's just what we strive to show you every single video. If you liked our video, please give us a thumbs up, like or even better, subscribe to our channel for future updates, we release a new video every single month. And one more thing, I would love to hear from you. Please leave your feedback in the comments below, and we do our very best to respond to as many comments as we possibly can. So, now that this chicken is done cooking, I'm gonna get back to a few of my other favorite hobbies including a a little nitwittery, tomfoolery, and some skullthuggery. I'll see you next time.

- Man, really good