June 5: Grilled Beer-Butt Chicken with Baked Potatoes and Chioggia Beet Salad

Beer Butt Chicken. Such a lovely concept. We have heard that it is some of the most flavorful and most chicken there is. Since the weather was so great last Sunday, we decided to make a 2 lbs. bird. We followed this recipe that we found online.

We heated up the grill, and made the spice mixture -- both to baste the chicken with and to put inside the can of beer. Half the mixture went inside the can of beer, and the other half was left for us to baste the chicken periodically.


Melted butter, paprika, garlic salt, salt and pepper mix for basting.



"Discard half the beer." What are they, bananas? We're talking BANQUET BEER here. Paul took care of the "discarding."

We had some issues getting the chicken to fit standing up inside our grill. Not to get too graphic, but essentially the entire beer can had to be crammed inside the chicken in order for it to fit upright in the grill. Sorry, chicken. I didn't want it to be this way either.

Photo documentation:

He looks kind of sad. We put the baked potatoes in front of him in case he tipped over.

Alongside the chicken, we decided to make baked potatoes (cooked on the grill in front of the chicken), and a raw beet salad. We had received these cool looking Chioggia beets in our produce basket the week before.

WHOA.

We sliced the beets thinly using the mandolin.

A very careful action shot. The mandolin has wronged me before.

To the dressing, we added basil, rosemary, and some Italian parsley. We substituted low-sugar maple syrup in place of the agave nectar. 

Clipped fresh from the front porch plants!

Back to the Beer Butt. We cooked the chicken on the grill for about 1 1/2 hours. We basted it with the remaining sauce at about 45 minutes in. Here's how it came out.

Paul, master butcher.

The seasoning on the chicken was really good. It's a nice blend of spices without being overpowering. I'm usually not a chicken-skin eater, but I indulged this time because it was quite tasty.

We thought the chicken came out a little overcooked -- based on the recipe, we were thinking it would be 3 hours to cook through, but it was actually a lot less. I thought the grill had to be at 180 degrees -- not that 180 should be the chicken's internal temperature. A problem that pretty much could have been solved had I read the recipe again. Oops. Regardless, we thought the recipe called for cooking the chicken a lot longer than it needed. We probably could have gotten away with pulling it off at 1 hour 15 minutes or so (assuming the temperature was right -- it was definitely over 180 when we pulled it off at 1 hour 30 minutes).

(Quickly) Finishing up the salad, we plated the beets underneath, and then added a small handful of greens, some chopped walnuts and the dressing on top.

So colorful!

The salad was very earthy and crunchy. It was definitely unlike anything I had eaten before. Were we to make something like this again, I think I would slice the beets more thinly. I would also probably add more orange juice and a little less walnut oil. Paul did not mind the walnut oil, but agreed with adding more citrus. We also went a little overboard with the fresh herbs -- I would not use as many, and I would eliminate the rosemary. I felt like it dominated the dressing a little.

Grilled chicken and a baked potato. I am a happy camper.

Can we discuss how amazingly good baked potatoes are? Add some shredded cheddar, sour cream and chives, and I could eat one every day. Paul was not so pleased with the outside of the potato -- he thought the texture was a little weird.

The meal was relatively simple to make, especially after a Sunday morning/afternoon spent busy with work. You do need to keep an eye on the chicken, but it's not a time-consuming meal to prepare. We will definitely be making this again.