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Smoked herb crusted butterflied chicken

The tricky part when you smoke a whole chicken, is not overdrying your meat. If you are cooking a big bird, it’s even trickier because it will require longer time to achieve the desired internal temperature, and the longer you expose your chicken to heat, the more it will dry. To prevent this to happen, you can butterfly your chicken. It will help having an even cooking and it will take less time to cook. The second advice I can give you, is smoking your chicken at a lower temperature. It will take more time to cook but it will dry less faster. It will also help preserve the herbs seasonning, without burning them, therefore, maintain the flavors that we want to taste in our recipe.

Smoked Butterflied chicken

Spatchcock (butterflied) chicken, smoked with greek herbs
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Prep Time 15 mins
Cook Time 3 hrs
Course Dinner, Main Course
Cuisine Mediterranean
Servings 4 people
Calories 141 kcal

Equipment

  • Pellet smoker
  • Cherry Rum pellet flavour
  • Sharp kitchen scissors

Ingredients
  

  • 4 lbs whole chicken
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp meaux mustard or dijon mustard
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice

Greek seasonning

  • 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
  • 2 tsp fresh basil finely chopped
  • 2 tsp oregano finely chopped
  • 1 tsp fresh parsley finely chopped
  • 1 tsp fresh rosemary finely chopped
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme finely chopped
  • 1 tbp fresh sage finely chopped
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper

Instructions
 

Chicken preparation

  • Place the chicken breast down. With a sharp pair of kitchen grade scissors, make two cuts, 1.5 " apart on the backbone from tail to neck. Remove the central strip, then, turn over the chicken.
  • Fold the legs and the wings in a way the chicken is as flat as possible.

Seasonning

  • In a small bowl, mix the olive oil, the mustard and the maple syrup together
  • Add all the herbs and dry ingredients together with the olive oil, mustard, maple syrup and lemon juice. Whisk well.
  • Baste the herb mixture with a brush all over the chicken. Keep the remaining mixture aside.

Cooking

  • Fill the hopper with Cherry Rum pellets
  • Preheat your pellet smoker at 250°F.
  • Place the chicken, breasts up directly on the smoker grates
  • If your smoker has a probe, place it in the thicker part of the chicken, more exactly in the breast. Don't place it too deeply. It shouldn't touch the bone.
  • Smoke for about 3 hours or until the chicken has reached an internal temperature of 165°F.
  • At mid-time cooking, baste another coat of herb mixture.
  • Serve hot
Keyword butterflied chicken, greek style chicken, smoked chicken, Spatchcock chicken
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