What’s better than a store-bought rotisserie chicken and almost as easy?  A spatchcocked chicken (split down the back to open flat) on the Big Green Egg.  Whole raw chickens are cheap and frequently discounted at the grocery store.  With a sturdy pair of poultry shears, I cut out the backbone and spread the chicken out nearly flat.  No need to cut out the keelbone–a firm shove with the heel of the hand flattens the breast sufficiently.  Prepped in this fashion,  a 4-lb chicken will cook in an hour (largely unattended).   I rubbed my chicken’s skin with a paste of garlic, salt, olive oil, and fresh basil, pounded in a mortar until smooth.  After heating the BGE to 350, I put the chicken on, insides down, on the grill (directly above the fire, for all you Eggheads keeping score).  After 50 minutes, it looked great (as pictured), but I decided to flip it just to crisp the skin a little.

Verdict:  it’s a little more trouble than a beer-can chicken, since you have to cut out the backbone, but the results are worth it.  As compared to a beer-can chicken, it was a little juicier, a little more succulent, yet every bit as caramelized and crispy.  And it was light-years better than a supermarket rotisserie chicken!