Let me dissect the title to give you better appreciation of the flavors of this chicken dish. A quarter cup of Sriracha goes into the marinade and, for most, that might sound like the chicken will be excessively spicy. But it isn’t.
If you haven’t discovered it yet, if you eat too much chili and find your mouth on fire, the cure is not to gulp down water but to drink milk. The coconut cream in the marinade does the same thing. It balances the heat of the Sriracha leaving you with a spicy roast chicken that is not overwhelmingly hot.
Why do I label it a retro-style dish? Because soda can roast chicken (also known as beer can roast chicken or cola chicken depending on the original content of the can you use) is a retro dish.
When it was in fad, there was two popular beliefs about the cooking method.
1. The flavor of the liquid in the can permeates the chicken meat during roasting to give the bird added flavor; and
2. As the liquid in the can steams during cooking, the chicken becomes more moist than it would without the can and the liquid inside it.
Both beliefs are false.
It is the marinade and sufficient marinating time that flavor the chicken meat. The importance of half-filling the can with liquid is merely to ensure that it will not topple over due to the sheer weight of the bird.
The natural water content of the chicken meat is more than enough to make it moist so long as the cooking time and temperature are both correct. Any meagre steam spewing from the small opening of the can does not significantly contribute to make the chicken meat more moist.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken we used free-range, about 1.3 kg.
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- ½ cup coconut cream
- ¼ cup Sriracha
- 2 tablespoons rock salt
- ½ teaspoon cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Rinse the chicken and wipe inside and out with a kitchen towel.
- Mix together the garlic, coconut cream, Sriracha, salt and pepper.
- Spread the paste all over the chicken, including the cavity.
- Place the chicken in a bowl. If any marinade remains, pour over the chicken.
- Cover with cling film and let sit in the fridge overnight. For best results, turn the chicken over after about six hours.
- Preheat the oven to 410F.
- Take an empty soda can and half fill with water.
- Stand the soda can upright and lower the chicken into it so that half of the soda is inserted into the chicken’s cavity.
- Roast the chicken at 410F for 15 minutes.
- Lower the heat to 375F and continue roasting for another 45 minutes.
- Allow the chicken to rest for about ten minutes before cutting.
