Not to be confused with Butterfly watching. This article is spatchcock chicken the method of food preparation that is sometimes called spatchcocking. For the method of preparing eels known as spitchcocking, see Eel as food. Butterfly” comes from the resemblance of the cut to the wings of a butterfly.
In butchery, butterflying transforms a thick, compact piece of meat into a thinner, larger one. The meat is laid out on a cutting board and cut in half parallel to the board almost all the way to the other side, leaving a small “hinge”, which is used to fold the meat out like a book. For leg of lamb, it is generally followed by boning. Common uses of this technique include creating thin cutlets from chicken breasts for dishes such as chicken piccata, or rendering lamb leg roasts suitable for making roulades. It can also be a first step to dicing chicken or slicing it into strips.
Because the butterflying technique results in a thinner piece of meat or poultry, it allows for quicker cooking times and often more even cooking. Butterflying makes poultry easier to grill or pan-broil. The more specific term spatchcocking refers to a variation on butterflying that also removes the backbone and possibly the sternum, typically from a smaller bird. Removing the sternum allows the bird to be flattened more fully. This is popular for grilling or roasting. According to The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, the word spatchcock could be found in cookbooks as far back as the 18th and 19th centuries.
Spatchcock may also be used as a noun to refer to a small bird that has been prepared by spatchcocking. A butterfly fillet of fish is a double fillet, with the backbone and other bones removed by splitting the fish down the back or the belly. Butterflying shrimp or lobster tail involves cutting the hard top side, without cutting all the way down to the other, softer side. How To Butterfly A Chicken Breast”. Marcus Wareing, Shaun Hill, Charlie Trotter, Lyn Hall, Knife Skills in the Kitchen, 2008 ISBN 0756647568, p. Gourmet Magazine, The Best of Gourmet, 2007 ISBN 1400066387, p.