Recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson

Spatchcocked Birds

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  • Level: Easy
  • Total: 1 day 55 min
  • Prep: 20 min
  • Inactive: 1 day
  • Cook: 35 min
  • Yield: 7 birds

Ingredients

For the 1 marinated chicken:

For sprinkling over the 1 chicken:

For the 2 marinated hens:

For the 4 marinated quails:

For sprinkling over the 4 quails:

Directions

  1. Set each bird in their respective marinade in a dish into which they fit snugly, cover with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator, preferably overnight or for 24 hours, though even a couple of hours would have an effect.
  2. When the grill is good and hot, lift the birds out of their marinade and cook until the flesh has lost all raw pinkness but is still tender within and the skin is crisp and burnished and blistered. It's hard to be precise about times, since grills differ even more than ovens do, but on my grill - a gas-fired Outdoor Chef, which I love to distraction and, since it has a lid, I use even in the winter rain - the chicken takes about 35 minutes, the Cornish hens 15 and the quail about 7.
  3. Along with sea salt, sprinkle freshly chopped parsley over the chicken and cilantro over the hens and quail, or use whatever herb seems right for the marinades you've concocted.