Beer Butt Chicken

I never imagined the day would come where I cooked a roast chicken by putting a can of beer up its bum!!!

I had heard this method of cooking mentioned in the past (in fact I think my sister has done it?) but had never seen a recipe until recently.  I was looking through "Jamie's America" by Jamie Oliver and I came across the recipe accompanied by a rather obscene looking photo of the chicken cooking (see first photo).

With friends due for lunch on the Sunday I went out a bought a couple of free range chickens (never battery!) and some large cans of Budweiser beer.  This was going to be a joint cooking effort between Craig and I since there was a barbecue involved!

The whole idea of cooking this way is that the beer in the can heats up and steams the chicken from the inside out keeping it nice and moist while the outside gets nice and crisp.

The recipe starts by making a rub for the chicken and letting it maride for a while.  Once you have mixed up the rub use your hands to massage it all over the chicken making sure you get all the nooks and cranny's!

The rub is made up of the following -

1 heaped teaspoon fennel seeds - ground up in a pestle and mortar
1 level teaspoon cumin seeds - ground up in a pestle and mortar
1 level teaspoon smoked paprika
1 heaped teaspoon brown sugar
1 level teaspoon mild chilli powder
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil

Mix everything together and massage into the chicken in a large dish. Cover and leave to marinade for a couple of hours or overnight.

When you are ready to cook you need to get your kettle BBQ hot.  Move the coals to either side so you are not putting the chicken over a direct heat.  And the BBQ must have a lid.  If you don't have a BBQ you can do this in the oven, you just need to make sure you have the height so you might need to take out the shelves.

You need a 473ml can of beer.  We used Budweiser but I don't think it matter what beer you use.  Drink or pour away a few good gulps so that the can is about half full.  Then lower the chicken over the can so that it is sitting upright.

Then put the chicken on the BBQ for about an hour and 10 minutes to an hour and a half until its golden and the juices run clear.  Its important to keep the lid on while cooking so the heat stays in.

This photo is the chicken ready to get cooking, how weird does that look!  We put a tray underneath them to make it easier to lift them out and catch all the juices as they cooked.

The last photo is the chickens when they have cooked, you can see some juice in the tray.  I think we cooked then for slightly too long however the finished product was delicious.

It was a really fun recipe to cook and it had a "wow" factor however I obviously wouldn't do it like this every time I cooked a chicken.  I would use the rub for a normal roast chicken though or even on chicken breasts on their own.  One word of caution, the beer is very hot when you take the chicken of the BBQ and we accidentally pierced the can and hot beer poured out so be careful (another comical sight - use your imagination!!!)

Have fun :-)

Sharon x