"Well, Ali Baba had them 40 thieves" (cloves). . .
Soooooo, the gardening is coming to a close.
It's been a fun project from start to finish:
Covid with the kiddos and starting seed in the greenhouse, learning from last year's mistakes, trellising this year's mistakes, chalking up lessons learned for next year. . .
But as I plan the fall garden, it's garlic, strawberries, garlic, mulching over peppers, garlic, peonies, and... did I mention GARLIC?
Perhaps it's power of suggestion, but as I plant four varieties and nearly 180 cloves of garlic which will grow to 180 BULBS, I thought of this recipe.
I first heard of 40 clove chicken at Derski's Memorial Day Weekend Lacrosse Tournament bash.
Every year, he'd invite ten coaches to his man cave and make 40 clove chicken.
It sounded disgusting. 40 cloves? Really?
BUT . . . BUT when garlic slow roasts with the chicken, it mellows, sweetens,. . . casts a spell on the chicken.
I set out this weekend by looking up every recipe I could find: Alton Brown, Ina Garten, Pinterest, foodie blogs, etc. And then decided to do the following - only to be smacked in the face with an email from Epicurious the NEXT morning with the best of the bunch. . . AFTER I MADE MINE.
Perhaps I wouldn't have known it was the best of the bunch if I hadn't done the following:
1 whole chicken cut into 8 pieces
40 cloves of garlic, peeled*
3 strips of bacon
Five sprigs of thyme (FROM MY GARDEN!)
1 whole onion, sliced in thick strips
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
~ Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
~ Cut bacon into lardons (large chunks)
~ Render fat in Dutch oven slowly.
~ Remove bacon and brown chicken in the bacon fat.
~ Brown in batches so the chicken doesn't steam.
~ Remove chicken and set aside.
~ Add onions, garlic, and thyme to bacon fat till onions become translucent.
~ Deglaze Dutch oven with the 1/2 cup of white wine.
~ Add 1/2 cup of chicken broth.
~ Return chicken to Dutch oven
~ Cover and place in oven for 1 hour to an hour and a half.
~ Remove chicken from Dutch oven and cover with
foil.
~ Remove stems of thyme and discard.
~ Mash all garlic and onions which will thicken the sauce.
~ Pour sauce over chicken and serve with bacon.
*OK - So I didn't peel the garlic. I thought it would be fun to extract all the cloves from the paper all Jamie Oliver style. . . .
It was NOT fun, it was tedious to pull out all the paper.
Soooooooooo. . . . . . either use peeled garlic. . . .
OR!
Just follow THIS recipe that came into my inbox only AFTER I had done all this!
Love that they salted the chicken before hand, smart that they only used legs and thighs and just halved bulbs. GENIUS. Just genius.
