Cooking With Beer : Beer-marinated Chicken with Baked Vegetables

Saturday, August 8th, 2010
Yesterday I was in the kitchen to prepare the weekend dinner. I had bought two chickens and thought I would experiment a bit by using beer in my recipe. 

The beer I used in my recipe was Harboe Argangsbryg. It is not a beer that will satisfy a beer connoisseur for sure, but I went for something with sweet malts and low bitterness.
It turned out pretty good, so here's the recipe I ended up with

Ingredients

2 whole chicken 
1 Strong lager 
3 leeks
12 carrots
2 onions
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon butter
1 chicken bouillon cube
potatoes
8 whole white pepper seeds
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp rosemary
1-2 tsp salt  
2 cups water
2-3 cups of milk

Rinse all vegetables well. 
Prepare the marinade in the morning, or the day before. To make the marinade do the following. Cut off approx 10 cm of the green leek tops and put them in a blender together with the onions and 4 peeled carrots, pepper, oregano, thyme, rosemary, salt and a cup of water. Blend until everything is mixed well. Don't make it into a puree, but the vegetable pieces must be quite small.
Add the beer to the marinade and pour over chickens (remove guts and keep for later). Put them in the fridge. If the chickens are not covered, turn them occasionally.


Preheat oven to 100 C.
3 hours before serving, prepare carrots and leeks by cutting them in 2cm pieces and put in a roasting pan. Rub the chickens dry and stuff them with as much vegetable stuffing from the marinade as possible and season with salt and pepper. Put them on top of the vegetables and put them in the oven.
After 2½ hours turn up the heat to 220C. Use the last ½ hour to allow the skin to darken and get crispy. Use grill if necessary. Rotate chickens so all sides are grilled.
For the gravy reduce the marinade to a third. Melt some butter in a sauce pan and roast the chicken guts. Throw in a couple of leek tops as well. Allow everything to get a good crust. Add milk and as much of the reduced marinade needed (taste continuously - it must not get bitter). When you begin to taste bitterness, stop. Add bouillon cube.
Boil for 30 minutes. Sieve and season. Thicken the sauce with a slurry of flour and milk. Cook for another couple of minutes.

Cook potatoes. Arrange and serve.


..and just a final note. Yes I know that bouillon cubes are not "gourmet". If you have Chicken-fund then use it instead. I would then replace the milk with a mixture of stock and cream.