Menu Close

Sunday Roast – Beer Butt Chicken

So this doesn’t look like the most attractive cooking method, but honestly its AMAZING! The chicken was so tender and moist with such a crispy skin and the juices made the most incredible gravy. So, on the whole it was probably the most epic Sunday roast I have ever made. Not to mention Joel giving me the best compliment ever, as he went on to mention that the house smelt like his Grandmas used to!!!!

img_1657

Beer Butt Chicken

Ingredients

  1. Whole chicken (1.5kg)
  2. sprigs of thyme
  3. 1 tbs maple syrup
  4. 2 tbs honey
  5. 4 tsp paprika
  6. 1 tsp salt and pepper
  7. 1 tsp chilli flakes
  8. 1 tbs lime juice
  9. Vegetable oil
  10. Can of beer
  11. 3 carrots
  12. 2 onions
  13. 2 sticks of celery

Method

  1. Create the marinade by combining the thyme, maple syrup, honey, paprika,salt, pepper and chill flakes in a bowl, mix together whilst adding in the oil, add enough oil so that it becomes a loose paste.
  2. cover the chicken in the marinade and either leave it over night(which is what i did) or place in the fridge for a few hours.
  3. Once the chicken has marinaded, take a can of beer, in my case it was ‘Old Speckled Hen’ (but I think cider would be amazing) and place it within the cavity.
  4. Roughly chop up the celery, carrots and onion, and chuck into the roasting pan, this is the key to an awesome gravy!
  5. Place the whole thing in the oven at 200 degrees celsius for 1 hour 30 minutes (timings may depend on the size of your bird).
img_1651

Sumptuous Sides

Maple syrup potatoes

  1. Peel and chop 4 carrots and 4 parsnips and chop roughly into batons.
  2. Place in a tray and coat with some oil, maple syrup, salt, pepper and thyme.
  3. Toss the vegetables and marinade together and roast in the oven until soft in the middle but crispy on the outside.

Dauphinoise potatoes

  1. Peel 5 maris piper potatoes and chop into slices.
  2. Bring 300ml cream and 300ml of milk to the boil and season with salt and pepper. Add the potato slices into the boiling creamy mixture and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook the potatoes for around 10 minutes.
  3. Whilst the potatoes are cooking slice an onion and some garlic and fry in a little oil with some salt and pepper until soft.
  4. Next, decant the creamy potato mix into an oven proof dish and layer in the onions.
  5. Cover the dish in cheese and bake in the oven until golden brown and bubbling.

Roast Potatoes

  1. Peel and chop around 225g of potatoes per person and par boil in lightly salted water.
  2. Toss the par cooked potatoes in some salt, pepper and thyme. Heat up some vegetable oil in a tray and once bubbling add the potatoes. Be careful not to burn yourself on the hot oil!
  3. Roast in the oven for about an hour, depending on the size of your potatoes or until golden brown on the outside and fluffy in the middle.

Creamed leeks, spinach and cabbage with bacon

  1. Chop three rashes of bacon and fry in a pan with a little oil.
  2. Thinly chop 2 leeks and 1 cabbage and add to the frying pan.
  3. Once the rawness has been taken out of the vegetables, add 20oml of cream and 200ml milk. Cover and cook on a low heat for 10 mins.
  4. Just before serving, add three handfuls of spinach and stir it in until softened.
img_1655
img_1654

Veggie Option

Now everyone knows about the stuffed pepper, and its always a go to for feeding a vegetarian, but if you do the simple things right they can be awesome too. To make the dish more bespoke to your guest, simply ask them these three questions and you have something they actually like with unlimited combinations.

  1. Filler – Cous Cous, Rice or quinoa.
  2. Vegetables -Spinach, Tomatoes, courgette or any other veg.
  3. Cheese – Feta, Mosorella, Blue etc.
  4. you will also need a carrier, either a tomato pasata base or a cheesy ricotta base.

In this instance we went for quinoa, spinach, tomatoes, feta, mozzarella and tomato pasata.

Ingridients

  1. 1/2 cup of quinoa.
  2. 1stp vegetable stock
  3. 1 Red pepper.
  4. 1 Tomato.
  5. Handful of chopped spinach.
  6. 1/4 cup tomato pasata.
  7. 100g Feta cheese.
  8. 1/2 a Mozzarella ball.

Methord

  1. Boil water and stir in the stock until fully dissolved. Wash the quinoa in cold water then place in the boiling water. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for around 20 mins.
  2. While the quinoa is cooking, prep the vegetables. Chop one red pepper in half, length ways and try and keep the stalk intact, remove the seeds and place on a baking tray. Take a handful of spinach and chop into long strips and dice the tomato.
  3. Combine all the vegetables in a bowl and add the tomato pasata. Once the quinoa is fully cooked, add this to the bowl and combine with the feta cheese which should just crumble in.
  4. Place the filling inside the pepper cavities and top with two slices of mozzarella on each half.
  5. Cook in the over for 20 mins at 170 degrees celsius, or what ever the temperature the oven is on for the rest of the roast! Just keep an eye on it and you will be fine!
img_1656