Ingredients:

1 box Zatarain’s Crab/Shrimp Boil spice
1 package sliced pepperoni
1 2.5-3lb whole chicken
1 whole sweet yellow onion
Olive oil
6-pack of sweet beer canned. (PBR, Molsons, etc…the sweeter, the better.)
Non-latex exam gloves (remember, you’re doing poultry, here…)
Aluminum foil
Optional: beer can chicken stainless steel holder from Home Depot or other retailer.

Rub:

1/4 cup garlic salt
1/4 cup onion salt
1/4 cup celery salt
1/4 cup seasoned salt
1/4 cup sweet Hungarian paprika
2 tbls freshly ground allspice
1 tbls chili powder

Prep:

Glove-up.

Drink one beer.

Remove chicken from wrapper and pat dry inside and out with paper towels. Be sure it’s dry inside and out. If it isn’t dry, your rub won’t stick. Remove any giblet bag you find inside.

Drink one beer.

Combine all rub ingredients and mix well.

With your gloved fingers, loosen the skin from around the chicken breast on both sides. Insert 8-10 pepperoni slices between the breast skin and breast meat on each side. Sprinkle the rub mixture all over the outside and the inside of the chicken.

Drink one beer.

Drink 1/2 of one beer. Pour 1/2 of the package of Zatarain’s crab/shrimp boil into what’s left of the half-beer. Set the beer-Zatarain’s mixture into the can holder, then lower the prepped chicken down on top of the beer can. (Although the stand is optional, it has a wide base and your beer-can-chicken assembly won’t tip over as easily. Plus, the stand goes into the dishwasher when you’re done….)

Cut the onion into quarters. Insert one quarter into the cavity where the chicken’s crop used to be (base of where the neck used to be) and put another quarter on top of that.

Optional: you can use the aluminum foil to make a swim suit for the chicken. Make a top and bottom and hold the foil in place with toothpicks. When the chicken is done, the “foiled” places will not be browned, but all the rest will be. Tan-lines, you know.

Drink one beer.

Place the chicken-beercan-stand in:

350 degree oven (in an oven-proof baking dish or 2 half-size aluminum pans) for 2 1/2 hours or until the thickest part of the thigh registers 165 degrees with an instant read thermometer.

225 degree smoker with apple wood smoke for 5 hrs or until the thickest part of the thigh registers 165 degrees with an instant read thermometer.

This is the best chicken I’ve ever eaten. Be sure that if you compete in a contest with this recipe, the pepperoni will be considered illegal garnish and you will be disqualified if you don’t remove every last bit before you turn in the entry. Personal experience, here.

Disassemble the chicken as you see fit and devour accordingly.

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[...] Rhonda Farrell wrote a fantastic post today on “Comment on Frugal Recipe: Cooking a Whole Chicken by Rhonda Farrell”Here’s ONLY a quick extractWhen i cook a chicken i always save enough meat and all the bones for the next day and make a soup for dinner.I find when i roast the chicken it really makes the soup a nicer flavour. I serve it with homemade garlic bread also! Yum. [...]

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When I cook a chicken, I fill my oven with other stuff (ex. lasagna, oven potatoes, muffins … and such.

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[...] Frugal Recipe: Cooking a Whole Chicken [...]

Use the chicken for a main dish, enchiladas, tacos, chicken salad, pretty much anything.

We usually roast a chicken once a week or at least every two weeks. For the two of us, that can typically mean more than enough for one good dinner, possibly lunch the next day, and the chicken carcass is great for making homemade chicken stock that can be used in soup or a number of other great recipes.

Way better than spending 8 dollars for a package of boneless chicken breasts for just one meal.

Takes some planning (have to start thawing stuff on monday for a wednesday meal), but the nasty bacteria in chicken starts growing at around 10C. Of course, cooking it properly should eliminate problems, but why increase the possibility?

Sorry to be the resident killjoy today :( but I’d thought it important to pass this on.

Andy.

I’m going to try both and slow cooker recipe a la Tim and the beer one a la Mike. Beer one sounds more fun. :)

Recipes: One recipe I’ve done in the past is “beer can chicken”.

Get a whole chicken and a 24 of your favourite beer.

Put a bunch of herbs on the outside and inside of the chicken.

Stand up the chicken on an open beer can which is mostly full. This can be done on the bbq or in the oven. Getting the chicken to stay up is the hard part.

Cook at 375? for I think 2 hours or so.

Eat the chicken and do what you can to the rest of the 24. :)

Mike