Archive: Around Town

	A few years ago, my heart stopped functioning properly. A cardiac artery was blocked, and I felt some strange and scary symptoms. The blockage was relieved with a stent, and the hospital that installed it included a detailed lecture to all such patients. They don’t want to see us again. Heeding that information has kept me healthy, and I want to share what I’ve learned. To the reader who asked why this column hasn't appeared lately, I’ve been moving, which is an all-consuming endeavor for most folks, let alone an old man with heart trouble. So writing happens in moments of down time, which are rare. The other reader apparently hasn’t noticed my absence. Be that as it may, I’ve wanted to share a great recipe.

A common dinner entree at our house is baby chickens. That’s what we call them, because I used to raise chickens for market, so I know that so-called Rock Cornish Game Hens are rarely a Plymouth Rock/Cornish Game cross, and they’re never hens. They're usually a white hybrid, both sexes, butchered at barely four weeks. The size sold as halves for barbecues are only six weeks old. Hens are females a year old or more, and they are sold as an ingredient in canned chicken soup and pet food.

So baby chickens it is, and they’re delicious. And cheap, at Aldi.

Line an iron skillet with nonstick foil, set it in the oven, and start heating it to 400-425. No iron skillet? A metal pie plate will do, or a small baking pan, as heavy as possible.

Thaw the bird, if you haven't already. No need to hurry; that pan needs to get really hot. Give it 30 minutes.

With kitchen shears, cut back to front along the backbone, spread the chicken open, remove any ice chunks, and flatten the bird, skin side up, on a plate. As you may know, this is called butterflying.

Season the skin with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic.

Remove the lined hot pan from the oven — this is a time you’ll love those welder’s gloves I’ve talked about —and slide the baby chicken into it. Tightly cover the pan with foil (or with a cover!) and put it back into the oven.

After 30 minutes, remove the top; then bake 30 minutes more, and serve.

All that metal under the chicken makes the bottom as brown and crisp as the top, but never dry. We heart patients eat the white meat, and give the skin and dark meat to whomever’s eating with us. One bird, with starch and veg, feeds two hungry people.

This takes some lead time, but while it’s in the oven, you have time to pull everything else together. You don’t always have 90 minutes for this, but you actually work only about 15 of those minutes. And it’s so worth it! Enjoy.

Grilling season’s upon us, and baby chickens are easy to split into really cute halves. They also get done faster than bigger birds.

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