Chicken Thighs Stuffed with Garlic and Parsley

This recipe is modified slightly from one I had gotten from the Internet recently. Our garlic was getting a bit old, heh. Garlic and parsley is always a good combination, and I hardly ever do a roast dish (although Hadi and Justin do it all the time) so I thought it might be something new - and easy - to try, hehe. So, here we go!

What you need:
3 chicken thighs
9 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon dried parsley (or 3 tablespoons fresh)
3 teaspoons butter
Salt, for seasoning
White pepper, for seasoning
Chicken stock, for seasoning

What you do:

1. (Optional) Marinate the chicken in some salt and pepper for as long as you can.
2. Blanch the garlic in boiling water for about 1 minute, or until soft.
3. Finely slice the garlic cloves, and toss with the parsley, salt and pepper.
4. Stuff a little of the garlic mixture and one teaspoon of butter under the skin of each chicken (careful not to tear), then smooth the skin back over the chicken.
5. Brush some melted butter over the tops of each piece, and sprinkle some more parsley, chicken stock and pepper.
6. Bake at 180 C for 40 minutes, or until juices run clear.

Like I thought, roasting chicken really is very easy. Marinate chicken, add seasonings and stuff it into the oven. I should try cooking this way some more, heh. This took slightly more work than a typical Hadi-Justin roast, but still took less than 15 minutes to prepare, leaving some time to do other stuff, hehe. So easy. Seriously, haha. But... the thing that I wasn't *quite* so happy about was how...plain this dish was. The chicken tasted mostly of chicken, with some salt. The garlic and herb mixture was really good and the boys enjoyed it, but other than that, it was plain fare. Not bland, oh no. Just plain. (The garlic taste was toned down by the initial boiling, just so you know :P)

When I re-read the recipe again, I saw that you were actually supposed to make a sort of broth with more garlic and extra butter, which you can then pour over the chicken. Whoopsie, a mistake in my part. I just skimmed through the last bit, haha. They were asking for the same ingredients, so I thought it was just some kind of repetition. Then again, I wouldn't have had enough garlic to make the sauce. We haven't used our garlic in a *very* long time, and some of the cloves were sprouting ... things. They weren't too soft yet though, and still smelled okay, so I went ahead and used some. (And threw away the rest :P) They didn't taste funny either, so I suppose they were still okay to eat. Just a bit old, haha. (This is why we always use garlic powder - or maybe this is BECAUSE we always use garlic powder :P)

In saying that, I actually thought the chicken was quite good, *even if* it was a bit plain. If I ever do this again - and I'm sure I will - I would try mashing up the garlic before putting it in the chicken. Making the garlic-butter sauce would probably be a good idea as well. :P It sounds quite similar to the one in the 40 cloves of garlic recipe, although the ingredients have nothing in common but garlic. It just makes the dish look similar, is all. (I don't know what my point is here. :P) If I manage to forward-plan correctly, I might even try marinating it in mashed up garlic! That sounds really nice, but wonder how it would turn out, hehe.

Quote of the day: Fight Mouthwash ... eat garlic.