Really crispy, sweet potato fries.
And I have a top tip that is gonna change your life.
If you haven't already come across it
Or probably putting it in one of your cookbooks already:
Corn flour or corn starch, okay.
Yeah.
This is what's gonna give you
Really crispy sweet potatoes.
If you've made sweet potato fries
And they've been miserable, soggy,
And just haven't gone crisp in the oven,
What you're gonna do is add a little corn starch,
It coats the fries.
It gives them a little kind of a buffer and a bit,
It kind of helps to draw out the moisture
And leaves you with crispy, crunchy fries
That are absolutely gorgeous.
So you're gonna season this up, salt and pepper it,
You could go any spice here.
If you have a nice Cajun rub,
Or A Cajun spice that you like,
Stick it in here as well.
You're gonna toss that through
So that it gets completely coated in the corn starch,
I have an aversion to touching corn starch
'Cause it kind of gives you that chalk on a chalkboard
Nails on chalkboard moments.
(Rachel Laughing)
That's just me.
But it works! I do that
I do that with pumpkin fries too.
Right.
Like a hard squash fries
Yeah.
I don't know what it is. I don't know.
It's just a horrible feeling.
Anyways, this goes into the oven,
Gets them nice and crispy,
And I don't know if you can hear this over zoom,
But there's a, there's a crisp,
There's a crunchiness.
There's a beautiful, you can see, they're not soggy.
They're really crispy and crunchy and
No you can hear them dropping on the pan!
Yeah, yeah
Yeah! That's what we're after!
And that's what the corn starch does here.
So it really does make a difference.
We have to make up our, our hot sauce
Our sauce is going to coat the chicken.
So in this, in this little pot,
I've got some melted butter and
I've got some smoked paprika.
We're going to add to that a little bit of honey,
Which has melted down as well.
I'm also going to season it up with some salt and pepper,
But the key ingredient here, of course,
Is the ratio of hot sauce to butter
Right!
Because you got, you got to make it super spicy
But super luscious and indulgent as well.
So our hot sauce goes in.
You're going to bring that pot to a nice,
Steady simmer, and it's going to simmer away
Just until it thickens and reduces ever so slightly.
And when it has you get left with something that looks
Glossy and gorgeous and red and
Ridiculously smooth like that.
Yeah!
I absolutely love spatchcocking chicken because
It is one of the easiest ways to treat your bird.
So if you get a nice, lovely free-range bird like this,
This is not something to be scary of-
Scared of
It's something that you really should learn
To do in the kitchen, 'cause it's a handy one to have,
I do it a lot. We do it, we do it a lot.
Because this is the quickest way you will roast the bird.
Right!
You can do this with the kitchen sheers,
But all I'm going to do is run the knife on one side of it
Here and then use the knife to do exactly the same.
Flip the bird and do it right down the backbone here.
So the key thing here is that this backbone should not be
Thrown away. This backbone is the source of all the flavors,
For the stock, of course!
Right? Right!
What you're gonna do now, flip the bird over.
We're going to take the heel of our hand.
And you're going to place that right down
In the breastbone here,
And give that a good mash
To make sure that this bird is nice and flat.
Now, if you're doing this on a barbecue,
You could put skewers across and that means you've got
Something you can literally lift onto your roasting tray.
So very handy from that perspective.
And then what we're going to do is once you've had.
I just want to mention,
The whole point of this is more even cooking
And a quicker cook time.
Absolutely. And if you are a time strapped family
This is the way to treat your roast bird.
(Rachel clapping)
'Cause you're not going to have to wait
Like an hour and a bit.
You've literally got something that's going to cook
In about 45, 50 minutes. So it's really, really simple.
Next, we're going to take up some of that hot sauce.
You're going to slather it over the bird,
And you're going to get really gorgeous action
All the way here.
So the key thing is to get this completely coated
And you can do that with a spoon
Or just grab up a little pastry brush
And you're gonna pop it all the way over here
And get your bird nicely coated,
Season that up with some sea salt and some black pepper.
And then this is going to go into the oven
And it's going to roast off
Just until it goes crispy and golden here.
Gorgeous!
Don't add too much stuff
Because otherwise it doesn't have
The opportunity to go nice and crisp,
But it's going to cook off at about 400 degrees Fahrenheit
For about 45 minutes or 50 minutes
Just until it's crisp and golden,
But keep your eye on it!
Don't just listen to my cooking times, every oven varies.
So use what you have to hand,
But really important at this point
To give your hands a very good wash.
That is such good advice
'Cause so many people rarely check
That their ovens are running to the correct temperature.
Great tip.
Right? Right.
When it comes to serving, we've got our chicken,
We've got our sweet potato fries.
But the last little thing that I like to serve
Alongside this is a very simple share salad.
And that is some gem lettuce that's been cut up,
Some blue cheese, some nice chunks of celery and everything.
And last little touches are this gorgeous,
Blue cheese dressing,
Which I'm just going to drizzle in nice big globs
Globs? I think that's the word now.
(laughing)
Right over your salad,
You can season it with a last little bit of black pepper.
And then lastly, you take a little bit of that
Hot sauce, and just pour it over your chicken.
This is winner winner, chicken dinner,
Oh that's gorgeous!
Every time.
Winner winner chicken dinner!
You guys should grab a copy of "Everyday Cook" today.
It is available now.
I highly recommended it.
(upbeat music)