Kitchen fun!
Feb. 17th, 2002 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sierciaSo, in the vein of more kitchen experimenting, I tried something new today... Beer-can Chicken.
First thing that was new was brining the chicken. I know a bazillion people (including the folks at Cook's Illustrated) that SWEAR by this as a preparation method. Essentially, take cold water, mix in kosher salt and sugar, and let the bird soak in the water for anywhere from 2 to 8 hours. Pull it out, rinse it off, dry it, cook it.
Which is where the beer can comes in. beer can chicken is so named because you upend the chicken onto a 2/3 full can of beer, and insert it into the "cavity" of the bird. So, the chicken stands up to roast, and the beer heats up, produces steam, and cooks the bird from the inside with moist heat. Add a spice rub to the inside of the cavity, and you've got steam heat forcing flavor through the bird. The recipes I had seen for this all claimed that the combination of brining and beer would make for an incredibly moist chicken, and they were not wrong.
It was delicious. And I still have half the chicken to nibble on. Now I round out the meal with some Ben and Jerry's, and it's a pretty good day.
Oh, and those of you who haven't, should check out Tako the Octopus on Deep Fried Live. Go to 8legged.com, click on Deep Fried Live and watch the cartoons. They're a stitch!
First thing that was new was brining the chicken. I know a bazillion people (including the folks at Cook's Illustrated) that SWEAR by this as a preparation method. Essentially, take cold water, mix in kosher salt and sugar, and let the bird soak in the water for anywhere from 2 to 8 hours. Pull it out, rinse it off, dry it, cook it.
Which is where the beer can comes in. beer can chicken is so named because you upend the chicken onto a 2/3 full can of beer, and insert it into the "cavity" of the bird. So, the chicken stands up to roast, and the beer heats up, produces steam, and cooks the bird from the inside with moist heat. Add a spice rub to the inside of the cavity, and you've got steam heat forcing flavor through the bird. The recipes I had seen for this all claimed that the combination of brining and beer would make for an incredibly moist chicken, and they were not wrong.
It was delicious. And I still have half the chicken to nibble on. Now I round out the meal with some Ben and Jerry's, and it's a pretty good day.
Oh, and those of you who haven't, should check out Tako the Octopus on Deep Fried Live. Go to 8legged.com, click on Deep Fried Live and watch the cartoons. They're a stitch!
