Beer Can Chicken

I like to try new ways of cooking things and at the weekend a friend convinced us to try this interesting recipe for Beer Can Chicken.

It really is a very simple concept, take a can of your preferred tipple, drink half of the contents and then place a seasond chicken upright over the can. Cook in the oven at 170 degrees for an hour and a quarter for a medium chicken.

 So here we have the prepped chicken. This has to be one of the strangest things I have placed in the oven.

Part way through the cooking process and the chicken is cooking nicely.

Now the theory behind this is that the beer steams into the chicken, which as well as flavouring the meat also aids in cooking it quicker by steaming the inside of the chicken at the same time as it is cooking on the outside. The meat was certainly very moist and very tender and it did have a very subtle sweetness from the lager we chose to use.

The finished article. Beer Can chicken with roasted sweet potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and a selection of vegetables.

We will certainly be cooking this again and will definatly experiment with different beers, stouts and lagers and also adding different herbs and spices to the mix.