Tag Archives: bbq

Chicken Onna Beer Can

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Our Thanksgiving Chook. No turkey for us; we’re having turkey for WinterPaganFestival, and I don’t eat turkey more than once a year.

The Chicken - Front

Recipe in brief:

  1. Dry rub of brown sugar, salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne pepper, random couscousesque spices slathered all over washed and dried chicken.
  2. 12oz can of beer opened, and taste tested. Important, that… More spices added to remaining beer in can (~10 fl oz). Chicken delicately placed onto beer can (as photo shows).
  3. Grill prepared. Ashy charcoal pushed to sides of pit, medium sized foil baking tray placed in middle. Cup of water poured into tray. Chicken with beer can up its bum placed on tray.
  4. Chicken grilled in closed pit for ~80 to 90 min. (A few more chunks of charcoal added at 45 min, lid left open until charcoal flames died down again.)
  5. Chicken and can taken out of pit (taking care not to spill hot beer) and allowed to rest for 10-15 min.
  6. Chicken devoured by wolves.
  7. Carcass devoured by wolves.
  8. Humans devoured by wolves.
  9. Photographer obviously survived.

and breathe…

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It’s been manic. My summer disappeared in a haze of work (good) and people throwing hissy-fits at work (not good). Early autumn was devoted to preparing for, attending, talking at, and then recovering from a large science conference in Chicago. Some fortuitous foresight on my part in summer meant that I also had a few days to enjoy Chicago after (more on that later). Post-Chicago, I hit the ground running again on the work front, and also dived into the craziest social season my mega-lab has seen since my first summer in LA. It was great but hectic. All in, this left barely any time to just sit, relax and breathe.

Today is (was, by the time I type this) the great American holiday of Thanksgiving. So, as an honorary resident alien, I give thanks today for the chance to have a wee breather.

And grill a chicken with a beer can up its bum (recipe).

The Chicken - Back

And drink some leftover mango cocktail.

The Cocktail

The dog was happy that we were home all day, despite how she looks in the photo. (She’s just shy…)

The Dog

I even started and finished a new knitting project (’twas a swick… it was only a wee owl…).

And I remembered what it was like to be able to breathe. For that, and a whole bunch of other onions, I am thankful.

2nd bbq in a week

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i see...

It’s Turkey Day in America. I’m no fan of turkey. It’s a pointless meat unless you go the whole hog and prepare stuffing, roast veggies, roast potatoes, brussel sprouts with bacon and chestnut, chipolatas and all the other turkey trimmings you’d normally have for a British Christmas lunch. Over here, they do creative things with sweet potatoes and make weird concoctions with marshmallows.

We were lazy. And I like my BBQ grill (see last post). So we had a repeat of last Sunday’s BBQ. This time, we were even lazier and bought marinated beef kebabs and marinated chicken kebabs. To make up for that laziness, I made some tzatziki. OK, I cheated even on that. Normally, the yoghurt has to be strained for several hours to thicken it. I strained whole fat yoghurt for 1 hour, grated a peeled cucumber and squeezed all the liquid out of it (again, you’re supposed to let it strain for hours). Mixed the two together, and finely grated two cloves of garlic into the pseudo-tzatziki (sans dill cos I don’t like dill… hey, that means it wasn’t tzatziki at all, but merely cucumber and garlic in yoghurt). To pretend we care about being healthy, we stuck some peppers and sweet corn on the grill. And we finished off with some chestnuts leftover from the Halloween BBQ.

kebabs and flat bread

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kebabs

The Kosher Market near us on Santa Monica Blvd (intersection with Butler, I think…) has a very tempting grill outside the shop. And you can buy the marinated meat from the meat counter, although you’ll get strange looks from the guys when you say you wanna cook it yourself. The beef kebabs were very gently spiced, and I have absolutely no idea what was in it, other than tender beef. As for the chicken kebabs, they were home-marinated bog-standard D-style teriyaki. Flat bread also from the market, slathered in butter and garlic. I like my BBQ grill.