My neighbor Rachel told me about this mouthwatering way to cook chicken and let me borrow her “Mad Hungry” cookbook that the recipe came from. I liked it so much I ended up ordering a used copy of my own, though I do make this dish slightly differently than the cookbook. Just chalk it up to laziness and the “it still tastes good” excuse.

1 whole chicken prepared as explained below.
salt and black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 cloves of garlic, crushed

Heat oven to 400.

Lay chicken on its breast. Using a kitchen shears, cut out the backbone. Push down hard on both sides of the chicken until you kind of “split” the breast. Season the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, heat 1 Tbsp of the olive oil in a cast iron skillet on medium/high heat. (Watch so it doesn’t start smoking.) Lay the chicken breast side down and cook it for three minutes. Flip it over and pop the skillet into the oven. Bake it 1 1/4 hours.

Remove chicken from pan and let sit for 10 minutes while you make the sauce. If there is a lot of chicken fat, you can remove most of it and save it for another time.

Add butter, garlic and lemon juice to pan, scraping up as much of the browned on bits as you can. Cook 2 or 3 minutes. Add remaining olive oil and red pepper flakes.

Cut chicken into pieces, lay on a platter and pour pan sauce over the top.