Drunken chicken

Drunken chicken is the name given to several different ways of preparing chicken using alcoholic beverages.

In Chinese cuisine, drunken chicken is a unique cold meat dish. The whole chicken is first steamed and then chopped up into pieces appropriately sized for picking up by chopsticks. It is usually cooked with scallions, ginger and salt. The resulting meat juices are kept with the meat. The chicken pieces are allowed to cool. Then some liquor is poured over the cooked pieces. The liquor might be Chinese liquor, sherry or hard liquor like whiskey. The meat marinades in the liquor overnight in the refrigerator. The dish is served chilled, often as an appetizer. Besides the liquor-flavored meat, another feature of the dish is the liquor-flavored gelatin that results from the chilled mixture of the alcohol and the cooking juices.

A western version (also known as beer can chicken or chicken on a throne) is made by standing a prepared chicken upright on a partially filled can of beer and cooking it slowly in a barbecue or oven. The can goes into the opening of the chicken so that the beer evaporates and permeates the cooking chicken. It received its name due to way the chicken wobbles once the beer has evaporated and due to the fact the chicken is flavored with evaporated beer. The wobbling and falling usually indicates the chicken is done.

The Argentine and Mexican versions of this dish are called pollo borracho, and usually include green and black olives and cinnamon.