Make Ahead

Brick Chicken with Garlic Scapes and Lemon.

by:
June 13, 2010
4.8
4 Ratings
Brick Chicken with Garlic Scapes and Lemon.
  • Serves 4-8
Author Notes

One reason I love to cook is you never know everything. One of the reasons I like food52 is I am always picking up new and interesting tidbits. Garlic scapes for instance. I new I needed to pick them so that all the plants energy would be used for the bulb and not the flower. For years I would snap them off and smell them and always think, "my, oh my, these smell good I wonder if you can cook with them." I had not heard or seen that you could so I assumed they were to tough and would feed them to the chickens. In steps WinnieAb with her pickles with garlic scapes and I come to learn they are edible. Recently it seems I have been seeing a lot of recipes for brick chicken, there is a really good one right here at food52, in magazines, and even online at Saveur.com they have one from Marlow & Sons. All great recipes but I wanted to use my scapes and I just got back from having my flock of Cornish Game Hens processed. This is also one of the first dishes I cooked in culinary school but have not made it in years. You can see where this is going.... By the way the lemons become tender enough that we eat the rind and all, well minus the seeds. I removed the rib cage and the thigh bone but I am not sure it is necessary but I did use a lot of weight, like 22 lbs of weight. I haven't really experimented with less. This is by far my favorite lemon chicken. —thirschfeld

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 2 whole chickens, about 2.5 to 3 lbs each, backbone removed and cut in half
  • 2 lemons, washed and sliced 1/4 inch thick
  • 1/2 cup garlic scapes, minced or 4 garlic cloves minced
  • kosher salt and fresh ground white pepper
  • 1 1/2 cups unsalted chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
Directions
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. Season the chickens with salt and pepper.
  2. Place a large skillet over high heat and add the canola oil. When it shimmers carefully place the chicken, skin side down, into the oil. Place a another skillet, I used a pizza round on top of the chicken and then put your brick or weights on top.
  3. Adjust the heat to medium and let the chickens brown deeply. Remove the weights and turn and brown the other side. All in all the chicken should be in the pan about 30 minutes.
  4. Remove the chicken from the pan and place it on an ovenproof tray. And place in the oven. Set your timer for 15 minutes.
  5. Add the garlic scapes to the saute pan and wilt them. Deglaze the pan with the white wine. Reduce the wine to a glaze and then add the stock and the lemons. Reduce the sauce to about 3/4 cup. Taste and season if necessary. Turn off the heat and add the butter and stir it into the sauce to combine.
  6. Remove the chickens from the oven. Place them on a platter and top with the lemons. Then pour the sauce over and serve.
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8 Reviews

Peter D.
Peter D. July 15, 2023
Great use of scapes. I chose to break down my large chicken fully rather than spatchcocking. I've found large chickens don't cook as evenly as I'd like with the spatchcocking technique. My CSA box had the first new potatoes of the year so I cut them into 3/4" chunks and tossed them in with the scapes. They cooked up great with the sauce as it reduced. Expect that that reduction will take more than the 15 minutes allocated for the chicken cooking in the oven. This dish was a hit and very CSA box friendly.
 
Peter D.
Peter D. July 15, 2023
Oh yeah. Like one other reviewer, I used a lot more scapes but cut them into 1" pieces rather than mincing.
 
Marques
Marques June 29, 2020
Super easy and flavorful. I used more scapes than recipe suggested.

 
Alex R.
Alex R. June 9, 2014
I had never heard of this before and love trying new things. I used the loose bottom of a tart tin which worked a treat. Crispy golden skin and so easy to serve, will be doing this again and again. Thank you.
 
lastnightsdinner
lastnightsdinner July 13, 2012
We love the brick chicken at Marlow and Sons, and Mike has made it at home for us many times, but he always likes to look for new variations. We'll be trying yours soon - it sounds fantastic :)
 
thurston
thurston February 12, 2012
i made this dish tonight and it was amazing. pretty easy, and extremely flavorful. i loved the lemons (mostly rinds) as an edible garnish. the sauce was a slam dunk; i caught more than one of my differ guests dunking their bread into the sauce bowl.

my only disappointment was making one chicken!
 
drbabs
drbabs June 14, 2010
Making this tonight!!
 
drbabs
drbabs June 14, 2010
It was SO great--we couldn't stop eating it. I spatchcocked (as pierino says) the chicken and cooked it on the grill and made the sauce on the side--served it with baby bok choy and chard from the CSA box--really fabulous--thank you for sharing this.