Beer Can Chicken aka Beer Butt Chicken
Elizabeth Karmel

Taming the Flame: 20 Meals from the Grill by Elizabeth Karmel

In this weekly column, grilling expert Elizabeth Karmel shares menus for full meals cooked on the grill. For her first column, she serves up The Original Beer Can Chicken, Lip-Smackin' Grilled Asparagus and Sweet Potato "Chips" cooked on the grill.

About Elizabeth Karmel's Beer-Can Chicken Menu

My motto is "If you can eat it, you can grill it!" And, it came to me quite accidentally when I was teaching a rambunctious and enthusiastic group of Irish cooks at Darina Allen's famed Ballymaloe Cookery School in Country Cork. I was filled with excitement about my favorite American grill and barbecue recipes and the students were new to outdoor cooking and to the traditions of Southern barbecue. I used the phrase to explain my philosophy of using an outdoor grill as an alternative heat source -- it's another way to say everything tastes better when cooked on a grill.

The 100 students seemed to understand what I meant and over the course of the next two days, I introduced them to my favorite backyard fare. And, although I love every single food that comes hot off my grill, this simple meal of beer can chicken, grilled asparagus, and sweet potato chips is what I always fall back on and was the class favorite as well. So, I think it is fitting that I start this column off with my go-to grilled menu: one that's stunningly simple, virtually foolproof to prepare and infinitely satisfying.

I think Beer-Can Chicken is the best way to roast a whole chicken -- bar none. The beer steams and deepens the flavor of the meat, leaving it juicy and flavorful. Meanwhile, the vertical roasting of the bird allows the excess fat to render out of the skin, leaving it crisp and golden brown. It is the kind of chicken that I have seen friends attack with their bare hands and eat with abandon on more than one occasion. And every time I teach it in a class or make it for new dinner guests, I am surprised how many people have never cooked it or even seen it made. Since I have made it more times than I can remember, I sometimes think it is old hat and passé, but chicken this good should never become passé. It's a classic dish made with a new-fangled technique.

Beer-can chicken can be served with any number of vegetables and side dishes but my favorite combination is with simple grilled asparagus, and sliced and grilled sweet potato "chips," preferably cut from a Garnet sweet potato. The bright green of the asparagus and rich orange of the sweet potatoes complement the chicken and make a pretty plate as well. I often make a custardy creamed-corn cornbread to serve alongside these three dishes from the grill and you can grill that or bake it in the oven -- as you wish.

Tips for Making the Beer-Can Chicken, Grilled Asparagus and Sweet Potatoes


Simple Seasonings: Because the only seasonings I generally use are my "Grilling Trilogy™" -- extra-virgin olive oil, Morton Kosher salt and pepper -- it is essential to buy the best quality raw ingredients you can find. You will discover that good ingredients don't need a lot of foolin' around with to taste great!

Timing the Menu: The chicken will take about two to five minutes to prep -- depending on your kitchen skill -- and up to 1 1/2 hours to cook over indirect heat if you have a large bird (about five pounds). You can cook the sweet potato chips on the warming rack of your grill while the chicken is grill roasting -- they will take about 40 minutes to cook through using indirect heat. The asparagus will take five to ten minutes, depending on the thickness of the spears, and you can cook that over direct heat just before the chicken is done or while it rests.

Advance Prep Options: The beauty of this meal is that every dish can be prepped up to one day in advance and kept refrigerated in individual sealed containers or re-closeable plastic bags ( be sure to use freezer bags, which are thicker and heavy-duty) .Clean the chicken and coat it with oil, but do not salt it or apply the rub until just before cooking. Clean and trim the asparagus and slice the potatoes and coat with oil -- as with the chicken, do not salt until just before cooking.

Notes on Beer-Can Chicken: You can use a chicken sitter or use a beer can. The chicken sitter will give you more stability but a beer-can is fun and great dinnertime theater. In each case, you want to make sure that the drumsticks are in front of the chicken -- they will act like a tripod for the chicken and will insure that the chicken is steady and won't topple over, as it gets "tipsy."

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