I have but a single gadget in my kitchen that I would replace in a heartbeat should it break. The beeroaster. This is a simple round metal dish about 12″ across and 1.5″ deep. At the centre of it stands a metal cylinder about 4-5″ tall and almost 2″ across. Into this goes the liquid you’re going to roast with, the chicken is them impaled on it, upright. Into the oven, roast, enjoy.
As you’re cooking, all the fat drains from the chicken into the tray leaving you with ample juices to make a gravy with. The beer (or wine, fruit juice, whatever) inside the cylinder boils, steaming the chicken from within. So the succulence you lose from the fat draining is replaced with the flavours of your chosen beverage. Golden. Plus the skin ends up cooked from all sides so you’ve got an entire chicken’s worth of skin to munch on.
Following last week’s pulled pork I had a fair quantity of the masala marinade left over. Not wanting to waste it, I marinaded a 2kg chicken in it overnight (and through most of the next day) to prep it for the beeroaster. The cylinder was filled with roughly 2/3 home-brew lager and 1/3 remaining marinade.
Oven to 180C, chicken in, set timer for an hour. Now it’ll take about an 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 hours to cook completely but if you set for an hour you know you’ve got plenty of time to sort out the trimmings.
After about 10 minutes, the smell in the kitchen was almost unbearable. So good, so very, very good. Had to leave the room. Back in when the timer went off it was like walking into heaven!
New potatoes, bit of butter and fresh parsley from the garden. Onion gravy made by my wife – secret weapons for gravy making are mushroom and anchovy ketchups along with a tube of unknown “Umami paste” – and some buttered carrots to round everything off and stop it turning into the usual meat feast!
The skin? Crispy, cruncy, delicious.
The leftovers? Some bones. Wing tips. Gristle. One chicken carcass, picked clean.
Verdict from the kids? Best roast chicken EVER.
