Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

This is a classic Provencal dish and one we make often. On this particular evening, I had some time on my hands and the recipe below is more involved. In the past, I have made pared down versions and it is really a big pay-off for no effort.


The forty-cloves seems excessive, but is heaven for anyone that loves the sweet taste of stewed garlic. It also removes the need for any side dish. The dish is served with bread and the garlic is used as a spread on the bread.


I try to buy only "free-range, organic, naturally raised, antibiotic-free" chicken, in the hopes that it will have flavour and wont introduce anti-biotics into my body.


The link on "free-range" will take you to the page of an eminent food-writer, Micheal Pollan. Pollan actually investigated the growing conditions for "free-range" chickens for the common brands in Whole Foods and Trader Joes. What he found was depressing to say the least. Two thousand birds had a small door to an outside lot that they never used. Apparently this is "free-range" in legalese. Now, though I love animals and would kill for my dog, I am also realist. These chickens are raised to be food. They will be killed to become my dinner. Yet the practices of the poultry industry seem to be self-defeating on all fronts except profit. The animals have a terrible quality of life while they are alive and they make terrible cardboard-rubber chicken when they are dead.


I find it appalling that even in this day and age, where even Walmart touts organic, I am unable to find a really good tasting, bred as nature meant it, chicken, even though I am willing to pay and I live in LA. My only option seems to be getting it shipped, which defeats the purpose as the chicken will have been frozen.


In any case, the natural chicken does taste better than the drugged birds, however marginally.


The vegetables were from my local farmers market, lovely carrots
and cippoline onions. These really take on a lovely flavour when they are roasted as they are naturally sweet.

The sauce is a simple pan sauce with milk.

Ingredients

chicken thighs and drumsticks - about 2.5 pounds
three heads of garlic
onions
root vegetables - carrots, potatoes, parsnips
thyme
milk
white wine

Method

As I said, I had a bit of time on my hands on this evening, so I marinated the chicken with garlic and thyme for a bit. Obviously, feel free to skip this step. Put a three peeled cloves of garlic and some thyme leaves into the mortar and pestle and make a paste with a bit of salt. Being careful not to tear the skin, smear this paste under the skin of the chicken. Put aside until you are ready to cook. This results in really yummy skin.

Pre-heat oven to 300F.

I like to cook the entire dish in a large non-stick pan which can go in the oven. Heat some oil and butter in the pan on medium heat. Grind black pepper over the chicken pieces and season with more salt. When the oil is good and hot, put the pieces in skin side down. At this point you will be "selling the sizzle" to the lazy members of your family sitting on the couch and waiting for dinner. Dont touch for 3 minutes or so. Only turn the chicken when the skin on the underside looks like golden brown- like you want to tear it off and gobble it right now. Same treatment on the other side. When the chicken is as nice and brown as you can get it, switch off the heat and take the chicken out of the pan onto a plate.

Separate the heads of garlic into cloves but leave them unpeeled. Dont crush them either. Crushing garlic releases their pungency. What we are aiming for is a sweet flavour. This is really why this dish can get away with so much garlic. If you like, you may peel and crush a few to add some garlic flavour. Peel the onions and the other veggies. Cut the veggies into chunks.

Spread the garlic, veggies and onions in the pan. Season with salt, and pepper. Lay the chicken over the veggies, skin side up. Throw in some more thyme. Pour in white wine till it comes half-way up the chicken. Cover the whole with foil and put in the oven.

Forget about it for an hour. An hour at low heat in a closed environment with all those yummy flavours will result in moist chicken.

Uncover the pan and drain as much liquid as you can out of it into another saucepan. Also take out a few cloves of garlic.

Jack the heat of the oven up to 425F and put the dry chicken and veggies back in. The chicken is naturally skin-side-up as the aim of this step is crispy skin. The chicken is likely to get there before the vegs, remove it and cover it with foil to keep warm. Toss the veggies at regular intervals. Remove them also when they have a fair bit of brown spots on them.

Now for the sauce. Set the saucepan with the liquid from the chicken on to low heat. Squish the inside of a reserved garlic cloves into the sauce. I use milk to make it creamy and flour to thicken. Add as much milk as looks appropriate. If the sauce looks runny, take a bit of it out, create a slurry with a couple of teaspoons of flour and add it back in. Let it simmer for half a minute. Taste and season. I like to add a dash of paprika to my sauce - just salt and pepper work fine too. Let it simmer till it reaches the right consistency.

Serve the chicken and veggies with the sauce and some warm bread. Squeeze the garlic onto the bread and dig in.