The idea is that grilling or roasting a whole chicken tends to dry it out, something that develops a delicious crust on the outside, but will lead to the horrifying spectre of a dried out chicken breast. To prevent this and the resulting food fight while preserving the crust you have to moisten the chicken from the inside. Now, when thinking of moistening parched things thoughts will naturally turn to beer, so the solution to the conundrum is easy - ram a half-full can of beer up the chicken's butt:
As a rub I used
- 1 1/2 Tbsp salt
- ~ 2 Tbsp of pepper
- 2 Tbsp of honey
- 3 minced cloves of garlic
- A handful of basil leaves, chopped
- 3 sprigs of rosemary, chopped
- ~1 tsp of ginger
- 1 tsp of dried thyme
- some olive oil
Of course you can mix and match, all woody herbs should be fine. Rub the rub over the chicken and in the cavity. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180 centigrades. If you can, you might want to use only bottom heat, or else loosely cover the top of the chicken with a piece of aluminium foil. Half-empty a beer can. Take another one and retry, this time making sure you don't drink all of it. Continue until you have a half-full one, and stick the chicken on it (you can add a couple of holes to the top of the beer can to ensure optimal moistening). Stand it up in a metal bowl or roasting tray and put it in the oven (you can just put it on the floor), making sure the #%!@$ slippery chicken doesn't fall over and leaks beer all over.
After about half an hour or so add potatoes, carrots and/or whole onions to the bowl. Remove the tin foil from the chicken, and roast for another half hour to forty-five minutes. And then:
You can add some of the beer left in the can to the gravy, if you think you can stand even greater awesomeness.
Enjoy!
and i bet he LOVED it!
ReplyDeleteI made it last night for my MAN (I thought it was the sort of meal a man might enjoy). We used a VB can but emptied the VB out of it and put in some coopers. Phew. No way was I going to poison that poor chook.
ReplyDeleteVery moist. Very tasty.
It looks like it would very much appeal to my husband.
ReplyDelete@moof: Glad you two liked it! And I am in full agreement with you re: VB - never could stand the stuff. No wonder Oz exports it! ;)
ReplyDelete@Stephanie: Yes, something about beers, chickens and anal penetration seems to appeal to the male psyche - although I'll leave drawing conclusions from this to more daring souls!
When you put it that way, Boris, it seems far less appealing to me.
ReplyDeleteSo, we tried it. It was, as advertised, fresh, moist and delicious.
ReplyDelete