I Have No Barbecue. What Shall I Do?

I live in a small apartment with no balcony. There is no communal patio, backyard, or grill-friendly park nearby. And I like meat. Due to a desperate experiment, though, my easy-as-pie chicken needs are still being met by this lovely invention: the Beer Can Chicken roaster.

I bought mine for under $10 at my local Canadian Tire. Many stores carry the basic model, which consists of a small ¾" deep stainless steel dish with a wide lip, and a three-legged tripod that hooks into the lip. Under the tripod, you put a half-full can of beer. Onto the tripod, you cram a chicken. You can also find fancier versions, if you'd like to roast vegetables in your chicken juices at the same time.

This marvellous creation makes barbecuing a chicken quick (relatively), extremely easy, and very simple to clean up afterwards. It also works wonderfully in the oven. And no, use a lot of tinfoil or do other desperate things to prevent having to scrape boozy chicken grease off the walls and bottom of the oven later. You don't even have to pin the neck of the chicken closed, but I usually do just to pacify my inner pessimist until the remaining half-can of beer kicks in.

You can use any kind of beer you like, or non-alcoholic versions, cans of juice, etc. It's really the CAN that's the key to the perfectly-roasted, flavourful, juicy chicken you end up with (although I tried an alcoholic cider, but I didn't like the results). You can butter the chicken beforehand, or rub it with any mix of seasonings, but I don't find it necessary. The skin comes out tasty and crispy without any extra work.

Cook your Beer Can Chicken in your oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes per pound.

I don't know if this is purely a Canadian thing, but if you're interested in perfect roasted chicken that you literally DO NOT HAVE TO TOUCH until the timer goes off, I'd check out the Beer Can Chicken roaster. Canadian Living magazine and Food Network Canada have both done specials recently on this style of cooking. Roasters can be purchased online at a large number of locations.