Recipe of the week: Beer-can chicken: ‘Modernist’ cuisine for tailgaters

A chicken with an empty Bud can shoved up its rump may not seem worthy of being called a “modernist” dish, said Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet in the new, six-volume Modernist Cuisine. But the tailgaters who made this roasting method popular share with today’s culinary avant-garde an indifference to rules and tradition when the ultimate goal is to “perfectly execute” a classic dish.

Modernist cuisine deliberately makes the most of the latest discoveries of science. That’s why it’s also known as “molecular gastronomy” and a prime reason that the movement represents “the most radical revolution in cuisine that the world has ever seen.” If you study the science of beer-can chicken, you’ll see why the technique offers a solution to the age-old dilemma that “the skin needs to cook at a surprisingly high temperature to dry and brown, whereas the flesh is at its best when cooked at much lower temperatures.”

The beer can’s principal contribution is that it holds the chicken in an optimal roasting position. It also lets the juices “drain away, so they don’t accumulate and make the skin soggy.” But the real key to the technique is that the skin is pulled away from the meat before slow cooking begins, then crisped quickly with high heat. When the chicken’s ready, you get “both tender, juicy meat and golden, crispy skin.”

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Recipe of the week

Roast chicken on a beer can

Preheat oven to 175 degrees or the lowest setting your oven allows. Separate skin from meat. Starting from the cavity opening, work your fingers under the skin and pull it away from flesh. Move your fingers down the thighs and legs and around the back, taking care not to tear skin. When finished, skin should hang loosely on bird, attached only at wings and the very tips of drumsticks.

Use the tip of a knife to make a hole in the skin at the bottom of the legs and along the chicken butt so juices can drain. Empty a beer can (“the fun part”), and insert can into cavity of bird. Adjust can so chicken sits upright.

Bake chicken to an internal temperature of 140–150 degrees, about 3–4 hours for an average-size bird. (Use the lower temperature for juicy white meat, the higher for succulent dark meat.) Monitor the temperature by using a digital thermometer pushed in about 3/8 of an inch beneath the skin. Increase oven temperature slightly if desired final temperature has not been reached after 30 minutes of baking. If temperature rises more than a couple degrees above your target, open the oven door briefly.

Remove bird from oven and set aside uncovered. Turn oven to highest setting and preheat for 20 minutes. Return chicken to oven and bake until skin is golden and crispy. (Use forced convection if your oven has the feature.) This step goes fast, so watch the bird closely. A moment’s inattention is all it takes to burn the bird.

Remove the crispy chicken, carve, and serve.