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.

Kung Pao Chicken and Chinese Fried Rice

This is my riff on this classic. My biggest let-down with most stir-fries is the taste and texture of the chicken. How does it matter that the sauce is yummy and the peanuts are crunchy if the chicken is rubbery and flavourless...


This time around I fixed the problem of rubbery chicken. First and foremost, avoid chicken breast like the plague. All that muscle in the thighs and drums gives them much more flavour. I used boneless-skinless chicken thighs. Second, use the Chinese technique called 'velvetting' the meat. Essentially, marinate it in a cornstarch slurry for about half an hour. This is aimed at keeping the meat moist and thickening the sauce at the same time.


Indians believe in marinating their meat. Though this technique probably originated in preservation or injecting life into less palatable cuts of meat, I believe that it really enhances any dish. Lots of recipes require you to 'brine' your poultry before you roast/fry it, to make it more moist and juicy. Logically, the same is true for all other cooking methods.


So, in all my stir-fires and in this recipe, I combine the velvetting and brining technique by marinating the chicken thigh pieces in a mixture of soy, pepper and cornstarch. Marination brings up images of preparing menus beforehand and being a planning fiend. This is something I only manage rarely, but I have found that even half an hour, while I get everything else ready, makes a huge difference. If you eat dinner late like we do ( and most other Indians do), you can squeeze in a good hour.


I also upped the crunch factor and the vitamin factor by adding snap peas and sprouts.

As an added touch I used was Sichuan Peppercorns instead of the traditional dried red chillies. They transform the dish from mundane to why-does-this-kung-pao-chicken-taste-so-spectacular. These little red berries have a great flavour, quite different from regular black peppercorns, more smoky. They leave a numbing/tingling taste on your tongue. They are called tirphal or timmur in India and are a key ingredient in momos.

(Digression : I had no idea that they were the same thing until I came across a recipe for momos that used them. Momos are Tibet's gift to mankind and are very similar to Chinese dumplings/potstickers. India's culinary diversity is just something else. The very fact that we manage to stay together with a fairly strong national identity, inspite of all the differences, is just unbelievable. Ramachnadra Guha's masterpiece "India after Gandhi" gives fascinating insights into how my country was brought together after independence and how it was kept together in the following turbulent decades. It will also fill the glaring holes left by our history textbooks.)

This is my entry to the "Spice is Right" event hosted by Tigers and Strawberries. Do try Sichuan peppercorns sometime-they rock!

Ingredients


pound and a half of boneless skinless chicken thighs
teaspoon of cornstarch (or flour)
soy sauce
black pepper/chilli powder
sichuan peppercorns or dried red chillies
ginger
garlic
roasted peanuts
snap peas, sprouts
oil


Method


As soon as you can or think of it, get started on the chicken, it will only take a few minutes. Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces. Remember that chicken expands as it cooks and the smaller the chicken pieces, the faster they absorb the marinade and cook. Stir a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, some ground black pepper or chilli powder and the cornstarch/flour together. Put the chicken in a bowl and pour the mixture over it. Get your fingers in there and mix things around so that the sauce coats all the chicken pieces. Cover with plastic wrap, chuck in the fridge, wash your chickeny hands and exit the kitchen, dreaming of the yummy stir-fry that awaits you.

When you are ready to cook, heat some oil on high heat in a wok or kadai(the indian word for wok, just use the dish that always seems to burn your food when you arent looking). Mince the ginger and garlic. If you are using the Sichuan peppercorns, crush them to a coarse powder in a mortar pestle. Wait till the oil looks like it will begin to smoke any moment. Add the ginger, garlic, peppercorns/dried red chillies, peanuts and swirl. Once the ginger and garlic are toasted, add the chicken. Toss.

The next step calls for a bit of judgement. If you have a great wok that gets really hot and your chicken is in small pieces, stir-frying it for a few minutes should cook the chicken. If not, sprinkle some water in and shut the pan for a minute. Once you feel the chicken is fairly cooked, uncover and let any remaining water evaporate.

Add a little more soy sauce or hoisin sauce if you feel the need. Toss in the snap peas and sprouts. Couple of swirls of the wok and you are done. Enjoy.


Chinese Fried Rice

The key to good fried rice is the rice - it should be cool if not cold and fairly dry with separate grains. I end up making fried rice mostly to use up left over rice.

Ingredients

Cooked rice
ginger
garlic
soy sauce
ground black pepper

optional:
egg
green onions/spring onions
veggies- carrots,beans
green chillies

Method

Mince ginger, garlic,green chillies and the white parts of the green onions. Chop the veggies into tiny pieces or strips. Cut the green parts of the green onions diagonally into half an inch pieces.

Heat oil in a wok on high heat. Wait till it is nearly smoking. Break the egg into the oil and stir it around. Hot oil and egg leads to yummy fluffy scrambled egg. Once it sets, take it out, leaving the oil behind. Reserve at arms reach.

Add the ginger, garlic, white parts of green onions and green chillies to the oil. Toss till softened. Add the veggies and toss till cooked. Add the egg and the rice. Add soy sauce, salt if needed and a generous quantity of ground black pepper. Stir the rice around, breaking up any lumps and making sure all the rice is coated with soy sauce. In a minute or so, taste, adjust seasoning and serve piping hot.