It’s a sunny, warm spring day and all the birds are singing sweet and low. Well, actually it’s not, but that’s the way you feel when you take a bite out of these chicken drumsticks. They are heavenly! And they’re really fun to make too. You’ll have them ready for the pan in no more than 10 minutes, but if you want all the flavors to mix up I recommend you leave them to marinate for a couple of hours.
I remember when I first made this dish. It was with a roommate and we just moved into a new apartment. Our stuff was all over the place, nothing was in order, but we didn’t care, because we were hungry and we wanted to eat. So, without further ado, we marinated the chicken for only 15 minutes, we turned on the gas, got the chicken in the pan and on the fire. Everything was going smoothly until we poured the beer.
All of a sudden hell broke loose. A beeping sound like I have never heard before invaded our flat. What the? And then I saw it. A little device up on the wall, next to the gas pipes, with a red attention light, beeping like there was no tomorrow.
I turn around and my roommate looks strait at me and says: “That thing detects gas in the air and it warns you if there is any”. I look back at the thing and I see it has three different lights. A green one, an orange one and the red one, so I figured out that red plus beeping must mean great danger.
I turn off the gas, he calls the flat’s owner, starts to stare at the device and after a few “ahas” and “okays” hangs the phone and says: “It’s the beer!”. What? The alcohol in the beer, to be exact. It seems this little rascal has a better nose than we thought. Now that was a relief! I actually thought something bad was going to happen. Phew!
So, without any worries, we carried on with the cooking and it was just as described at the beginning of the post!
Now, I hope you won’t have so much drama with your cooking as I did and after you try this dish out leave me a message with your thoughts. Happy cooking guys!
- 6 chicken drumsticks
- 5 garlic cloves
- ½ litre of black beer
- 5 tablespoons of olive oil
- ¼ teaspoons of salt
- ¼ teaspoons of freshly ground black pepper
- Get a knife and make a couple of cuts in the chicken drumsticks on both sides until you hit the bone. By doing this you will get the meat tender and evenly cooked.
- Season your chicken with the salt and pepper. Take a plastic food bag and put the chicken in it. Smash the garlic cloves in the bag and pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil in with the rest. Mix everything up inside the bag and leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours so that the flavors can combine.
- Get the meat out of the fridge and let it at room temperature for about 10 minutes. After that, heat the remaining olive oil in a non-stick pan and put in the drumsticks. Pour that beautiful juice that's in the bag on the chicken and fry the pieces on both sides until they get a crust.
- Pour the beer slowly in the pan and let it all boil down on a small fire. If the drumsticks aren't completely covered with beer turn them once in a while so they cook evenly. When the sauce gets thick your chicken is ready to be served.
- Serve with something simple, like mashed potatoes or a salad. To spice things up a little, finely slice some hot chili peppers and garnish the dish. Bon appetit!
