A new look at cooking and home decorating...with an attempt to add more greens to the plate, more vegetarian options & hopefully lots of new ideas to explore

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic



Sounds like a lot of garlic right? This old French dish is delicious because the garlic simmers away and becomes almost sweet and tender. Each medium sized head/bulb of garlic has about 14 cloves so you will need around 3-4 heads of garlic. Break up the heads and place the cloves into a large Tupperware. Shake, shake, shake and a lot of the skins will come off. The rest are easily peeled. This recipe is a bit different because the garlic and chicken are placed under the broiler after cooking to give them a lovely golden color and crispy skin.

1 chicken quartered (if you can’t figure out how to do this I am sure your butcher will help. Here I remove the breasts from the bone for easy serving but if you prefer to leave it on for more flavor that is fine)
Large pinch of salt and pepper to season the meat
40 cloves (aprox) of peeled garlic
3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 cup white wine
2-3 tablespoons melted butter

Sauce
1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons water
¼ cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons cognac
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400
Place the chicken on a plate and season them with salt and pepper. Into a Dutch oven or stockpot (about 5 quart is fine) add the chicken, garlic, thyme, and white wine. Cover the pot and place into the preheated oven for 30 minutes. After thirty minutes you will check your chicken, if the breasts are cooked through and the juices run clear not pink, then you can carefully remove them. Recover the pot and place it back in the oven for another 10 minutes or until the leg meat is also cooked through. Remove pot from oven. Place all of the chicken parts on a baking sheet. Scoop out the garlic and add that to the baking sheet as well. Brush the chicken parts and the garlic with the melted butter. (And re-season with more salt and pepper if you like)

Position a rack about 5-6” away from broiler unit. Place chicken/garlic under the broiler for about 4-6 minutes or until the garlic is golden in color and the chicken skin is crispy.

Meanwhile, remove the thyme sprigs from the pot of cooking liquid. Whisk together the cornstarch and water- add it to the pot of liquid along with cream and cognac. Place pot over high heat and bring liquid to a boil. Reduce heat and season sauce with salt and pepper. To serve, add the golden garlic into the sauce and serve over the chicken.

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