Cheers, Ferret – Here’s the results of the experiment. I’ve taken the liberty of making a few improvements on the septic’s video.
Take one raw chicken. Season inside. Insert a half-full can of beer up its bottom and set the can on roasting tray.
Rub skin with olive oil, season with rock salt, freshly ground black pepper and dried thyme.
Add some scrubbed, whole potatoes to the tray, in my case one large one.
Place the tray in a pre-heated oven at 180ºC for 90 minutes.
Eat.
The chicken was tender and moist, but to be honest not better than I regularly produce on the barbecue. It is, however, simple and foolproof, which is probably why it is popular across the pond where a bucket of McNuggets is the norm.
OZ
Boadicea's Chariot 
http://bearsy.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/a-barbecue-for-claire-and-rick/#comment-24703
OZ
Hee Hee,
Nice one OZ.
I’m still gonna have to try it for myself. 🙂
Good luck, Ferret. I’d be interested to read any feedback on your cajun spice alternative.
Another thing, brought to mind by my ‘bucket of McNuggets’ thought. Have you seen those adverts for ‘flame grilled’ burgers from one of the major chains? WTF is that all about? If you have flames licking round your burger you’re going to get a black, carbonised crust on a raw burger. Steady heat on a grill hot enough to prevent the flaring of dripping fat is the only way, as any fule kno.
OZ
Are you aware that the ink on the beer can is probably toxic and would certainly contaminate the chicken? Especially under heat?
Most inks are toxic to one degree or another.
Would you lick the print off the newspaper?
Talk about shit for brains!
Christina – Oh, and back in the day you never ate fish ‘n’ chips wrapped in newspaper? I certainly did and I’m still here. Anyway, this was purely an experiment following a septic’s recipe. 🙂
OZ
Well if the can became completely airtight up the chicken’s ar*e and exploded said can, contents and chicken all over the kitchen, causing terminal damage to the house it would make for an interesting insurance claim. I wager not many claims start with, “I stuffed a half empty can of beer up a chicken’s ar*e, etc, etc.
Back in the day when these were in use
and bearing in mind they were rationed, the population of the UK were forced to wipe their bums on torn up pages of daily newspapers. Didn’t seem to do them any harm.
OMG – How to put this delicately? I doubt the chicken’s ‘arris would ever be tight enough to make it airtight, whatever the diameter of the can. There would be copious, erm, breaking of wind instead of any potential explosion. Anyway, the chicken no longer has inner plumbing or a neck and is open at t’other end so the carcass would give way long before the can. Pity really, it would almost be worth it just to submit such a claim.
OZ
Oh blimey. I’m genuinely shocked. Never was a bunch of blokey bloggers more, ahem…domesticated. 😉
There was always a white paper liner inside the newspaper, deliberately there because the printing ink was poisonous, still is, but less so.
Only inks used for children’s use are to be guaranteed non poisonous, made from veg matter which is why children’s coloured pens etc are so expensive compared with adult art supplies which are mineral based.
Printing inks are made from some seriously nasty chemicals including many volatiles which would be driven off by heat into the food.
Not an experiment to be repeated.
What is this use of the the word septic? Do you mean sceptic or are they all dripping puss?
This fine blog seems to be going down the toilet. 🙂
Mrs Osborne,
Septic as in Septic Tank rhymes with Yank. Honestly for a well travelled and edjoocayted bird you can be awfully slow at times. 🙂
As for the ink on the tinny, Puhleeeeze.
Do you wear pinnies..?
Toc – And who’s to blame for that then?
Christina – Rhyming slang – septic, short for septic tank = yank = transatlantic colonial. 🙂
OZ
Oops! Sorry Ferret 😀
OZ
“Since I couldn’t get a go-ahead from the government as to whether or not beer-can chicken is a safe food to eat, I called Steven Raichlen, grilling guru and author of a new cookbook titled “Beer-Can Chicken,” to find out if his publisher had tested the inks of the beer cans for toxicity when heated.
Raichlen said he was confident there was no problem food safetywise because the beer can doesn’t get that hot. “We did a lot of research on this,” Raichlen said. “Inks (edible) are applied to a can at a temperature m excess of 500 degrees. The can never gets hotter than 212 degrees in the process of making beer-can chicken. Additionally, we tested numerous different birds and beer and soda cans in a laboratory, and there was zero leaching of chemicals, ink or metal from the can to the meat.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3469/is_30_53/ai_90192626/
In fact it would appear that beer and soft drink cans are printed with non-toxic inks in the US. I suspect it is probably the same here.
Probably me OZ? That really wasn’t my intention though I was just adding a little humour. Sorry. 😦 Well done on your effort to replicate Ferret’s recipe.
Toc – Lighten up. 🙂 I’m an easy going wolf as I hope should be obvious by now and half the pleasure of this blog is seeing how a post can ebb and flow according to the comments thereon. If ever anyone is deemed worthy of a lupine snarl (and it almost certainly wouldn’t be anyone currently riding Boadicea’s Chariot) there’ll be plenty of warning signs. 🙂
OZ
I prefer rubbing a chicken with a combination of herbs, spices, olive oil, and sour cream and then baking it. It is based roughly, very roughly, on a Russian recipe. As for food in the USA… There are the pockets of the country where there are still real people and then there is suburbia… The former has fantastic food, sights, and sounds. The latter is like Hell except less interesting.
Christopher – The beer can recipe is fine for those who either a) are American or b) can’t cook and c) can’t read a recipe. I would much prefer to try your version, which I certainly shall – it’s somewhat similar in concept to Ferret’s yoghurt and cumin concoction for spatchcocked lamb.
Sour cream or yoghurt seems an absolute essential for a good marinade for white meats. I use yoghurt with lemon juice and various other goodies when preparing the grandcubs’ favourite chicken-on-a-stick for the barbecue.
OZ
OZ: sometimes I marinate chicken in coconut milk with garlic, onions, and lime juice before grilling it in banana leaves. It comes out rather tender.
Christopher – That’s another good one. Sounds a bit Thai or Goanese to me. Have you ever been to the Pacific Islands where they wrap chicken (and fish) marinated in coconut cream and chillies in banana leaves and bake the parcels on hot stones covered in sand? The meal is called ‘umu’ or ‘mumu’ depending on which island you are on. The Samoans have a staple dish of taro leaves, corned beef and freshly grated coconut called palusami’. It can be reproduced using spinach, corned beef and coconut cream and either is to die for. They also roast breadfruit on the embers and if I knew where in Europe I could obtain breadfruit I would be a very happy wolf.
OZ
OZ: yes, I lived for a time in Hawai’i. That is where I learnt to make it originally.
In Hawai’i it is called laulau. Okey, so they use taro leaves but banana leaves are easier to
obtain on the mainland… Okey, I need to get going now. I am beginning to think too much about Hawai’ian barbeque and such…
And I of Samoa.
Drool!
OZ
Absolutely true. At 200 degrees C the can is definitely not ‘food quality’ packaging.
Wrong! It was the toxic content of newsprint that forced chippies to use plain paper.
Yikes. I don’t fancy the cooked can either. Why not just pour the beer over chicken and seal tightly before baking?
Love the way you have chicken-sized potatoes out there, OZ. They must have cranes for lifting those babies from the soil!!
Jolly good blog this OZ. When I cook chicken like this I use the chrome kitchen paper roll stand to shove up the chicks opening. No extra cost involved, just wash it after and put the kitchen roll back on it.