Beer-can chicken on a braai

Tony Park, a reader of my other blog Salmagundi, sent this recipe. I haven't tried it, but I will, as soon as it warms up outside.

'Can't cook to save my life (except for barbies - braais to you - a skill which australian males learn from birth). Here's my only variation on sticking stuff on the fire - and I learned it from a South African psychology professor, in Kruger.'

Beer Can Chicken on a Braai
1 can of Castle
1 cardboard box lined with aluminium foil, and with four pen-diameter holes punched in the top.
1 braai with hot coals
1 chicken

Drink two sips from can of Castle, insert it up chicken's bum. Stand the chicken on the braai, using its two drumstick bones and the can as a kind of tripod, to hold it upright. Braai grid should be about 20cm over the coals.

Place cardboard box lined with foil (held in place with strategic use of duct tape) over the chicken. Make sure the foil overlaps the sides of the box so it doesn't catch fire.

Wait one hour.

Eat perfectly roasted, tender chicken.

Do not drink contents of can.

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This recipe reminds me irresistibly of that wonderful scene in Withnail and I when the boys try to kill a chicken.

Withnail: What are we supposed to do with that?
I: Eat it
Withnail: Eat it!? Fucker's alive
I: Yeah, you've got to kill it.
Withnail: Me!? I'm the firelighter and fuel collecter.
I: Yeah I know but I got the logs in. It takes away your appetite just looking at it.
Withnail: No it doesn't, I'm starving. How can we make it die?
I: You've got to throttle them. Withnail, I think you ought to kill it instantly in case it starts trying to make friends with us.
Withnail: All right, you get hold of it. I'll strangle it.

They try stuffing it into a kettle, and then give up and sit it upright on a brick, with a wet boot on either side to keep it upright. Wonderful movie (I saw it again a few weeks ago, and it hasn't dated a bit).

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