Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic

Next up, Recipe # 32 in Saveur Magazine's 101 Classic Recipes, Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic.  I've seen variations of this recipe in several cookbooks (like these versions from the Gourmet Cookbook and Allrecipes.com) but have stayed away because I thought that the garlic would have been so overpowering that it would render the meal inedible.  In a small way, this recipe exemplifies one of the main reasons that I undertook this challenge, to expand my horizons and put me outside of my culinary comfort zone.

The ingredients for the recipe are olive oil; a whole chicken cut up into 8 pieces; salt and pepper to taste, dry vermouth, tarragon and of course - 40 cloves of garlic.  I first used my semi-fabulous butchering skills to split up the chicken into its various parts.

One of my college roommates that was a butcher's assistant taught me how to split a chicken and it is a skill that has served me well (you can find online instructions here).  In most cases, I prefer to buy whole chickens and cut them up for recipes.  If nothing else - it saves me a little on my grocery bill (usually whole chickens cost a bit less than prepared chickens; a whole lot less than boneless, skinless chicken breasts) and I usually toss the remaining carcass into the freezer to use in making chicken stock when I have the opportunity.  Nothing is better than chicken soup in the middle of December made from scratch.  After splitting the chicken, I applied an ample dose of kosher salt and ground black pepper on both sides.

I warmed up the olive oil in my dutch oven over medium high heat and once it was up to temperature I  added the chicken and browned for approximately 15 minutes, turning once.  As well I began pre-heating the oven at 350 degrees.

 

While the chicken cooked, I took the opportunity to peel the forty cloves of garlic.  The recipe notes that you can use as many one hundred cloves when cooking, but I barely got forty peeled in the time it took the chicken to brown.  In retrospect, pre-peeled garlic would have been key and much more time efficient.

And of course, much easier to clean up after cooking!

After the chicken had finished, I placed it in a casserole dish and set aside and tossed the garlic into the dutch oven to cook for 6 minutes, stirring often, until they too began to brown.

Once the garlic was browned and I had successfully tested the vermouth (martini anyone?), I added a half cup to the garlic and reduced it, scraping the bottom of the pan well as it reduced.  After two minutes I added the chicken stock and brought it to a boil.

 

 After the fragrant brew came to a boil, I transferred a quarter of the cloves to the casserole dish and used my potato masher to mash the remaining cloves into a pulpy mix, which I then poured over the chicken and placed in the oven for 20 minutes.

After the chicken was fully cooked, I followed a "bonus" step in the recipe and cooked the garlic a bit longer, then took a whisk to it to make a pan sauce.  The whisk didn't break the garlic down as much as I would have liked (maybe if I had cooked the garlic longer, it would have had the desired effect) so I used an immersion blender on the sauce until it was an outstanding emulsion of garlic and chicken juices. Below is a picture of one of my standard sauce tests - a roll or slice of bread dipped in the sauce to test it for seasoning and flavor.  I could simply use a spoon, but what fun is that.

As I noted, going into the recipe, I had a concern that the garlic would be too much and overpower the dish.  I did not need to worry.  I'm not sure if it was cooking the garlic in vermouth that mellowed out the flavor a bit or if any dish can only attain a certain level of "garlicky", no matter how much garlic you put into it.  The chicken was moist and had a great flavor, especially when additional sauce was spooned over it and sprinkled with tarragon.

Credit: Penny De Los Santos

My dining companion loved the chicken (breast) and thought that the flavor was intense, but enjoyable.  I had a wing and thigh and agreed that though it was intense (I think that we cleared the vampires from our neighborhood for good), the chicken had a great texture and earthy, almost root vegetable (parsnip, carrot) undertones in its flavor.  When I make this recipe again, in addition to using peeled garlic, I will also brown both the chicken and the garlic for quite a bit longer.  The wing I had, while cooked, was missing the slight crunch that it should have had and I believe that if I cooked the garlic longer in the first stage, it would have brought a deeper flavor to the dish and broken down more readily in the sauce when it was whisked.

Another one in the win column and and easy recipe that could be made on any given Sunday afternoon when I'm in the mood for some garlicky goodness.

Next on the list - Ful Medames (Stewed Fava Beans).

6 down, 95 to go.