Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

I know. 40 cloves of garlic sounds quite alarming. But its not quite that bad really. Long slow cooking makes (or is supposed to make) the garlic "soft and fragrant". And I DO like garlic, so I thought this might be a good recipe to try :D There are actually many different versions of this dish, the one I picked was one of the easier ones. Even so, it took quite a bit of time, so this might be a better weekend dish rather than a weeknight ^^

What you need:
3 garlic heads (about 40 cloves)
25g butter, plus a knob more
1 tsp caster sugar
3 boneless chicken thighs, with skin on
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 shallots, finely chopped
150 mL chicken stock
A pinch of dried thyme
1 tbsp plain flour
Parsley, to garnish

What you do:

1. BAKE THE GARLIC
   Turn the oven to fan 150 C, or 170 C for a conventional oven. Cook the garlic in boiling water for 3 minutes. Peel the cloves, reserve one and bake the rest in an ovenproof dish with the knob of butter and sugar for an hour, shaking occasionally
2. COOK THE CHICKEN
   Meanwhile, fry the chicken, skin-side down in the butter and oil for 7 minutes, turning until browned. Remove chicken to an oven-proof dish, fry the onion and shallots for 5 minutes, add the the stock, thyme and reserved garlic clove, chopped. Bring to a simmer, pour over the chicken, then cook in the oven for 35 minutes.
3. MAKE THE GARLIC SAUCE
   Take the chicken from the pan and keep warm. Boil the pan juices for 5 minutes. Remove the whole garlic cloves from the oven, add the flour into their juices to make a pasre, then add to the chicken juices, stirring until smooth and thickened. Add the garlic cloves, coat the chicken with the sauce and sprinkle with the parsley.

The garlic was actually supposed to be cooked for about an hour in the oven, but when I tried this, they got too burnt instead. So I would suggest putting them in there for about 30 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on how soft you want them. They get quite cooked in the initial boiling anyway (which is why this is supposed to be a "quick" recipe, other recipes require the garlic to be there for 2 hours!) so all you need is some time to give it a nice brown colour, I think.

I'm not exactly sure how much a "knob" of butter is supposed to be, so I put in about a teaspoon... but there was barely any sauce - scratch that, nothing at all! - in the garlic pan, so I think I would put in a tablespoon next time. Also, I didn't fry the chicken long enough :P So they were quite pasty in colour, but the sauce disguised it beautifully! I was a bit worried when I first poured the sauce over the chicken, because it looked kind of... strange, but it seems like this is a very photogenic dish! ;)

The garlic sauce is the highlight of the dish. What you do is you pour the prepared pan juices over the chicken, together with the garlic cloves. Then, you mash the garlic cloves into the chicken, creating quite a strong garlic flavour :D Or that was how it was supposed to be anyway... what happened was that we decided to wait for Hadi before eating, and I popped the dish in (together with the sauce and garlic cloves) a 100 C oven. The chicken kept beautifully! It was still tender and moist, and the sauce was still perfect. But the garlic was burnt to a crisp. Literally. They were crunchy. So much for mashing... Justin and Hadi both liked the garlic well enough though, Justin more than Hadi. So this dish keeps nicely in the oven, I kept it in there for about an hour. But the next time I do this, I won't assemble it with the sauce and the garlic, particularly the garlic. :P

But the sauce on its own was really good! Soooooo intense! Its basically a concentrated soup of onions and chicken stock, and was really really good! I really liked it, even without the garlic. And the parsely garnish makes it look so appealing! So this recipe is definitely a keeper :D

On a side note, I got 36 cloves of garlic from the three bulbs, so its quite ok. :D hehehe

Quote of the day: Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian, wine and tarragon make it French, sour cream makes it Russian, lemon and cinnamon make it Greek, soy sauce makes it Chinese and garlic makes it good!