Chicken With 40 Cloves of Garlic!

   It's a Rainy Sunday night, the month is December, the fire's on-what's the first thing that comes to mind for dinner?  Well, that's easy, roast chicken. There are many ways to make it but far and above my favorite is Chicken With 40 cloves of Garlic. Poulet Aux Quarante Gousses D'Ail. This is a classic bistro style French dish that I promise will make garlic lover's mouth water until NEXT Sunday!  Chicken, over everything else , is the most common dish cooked in France, arguably the gastronomy capital of the world, so perhaps the humble chicken should be given a bit more, if not respect, then appreciation.  And then there's garlic. 

   In Provence, where this recipe originated, garlic, Gousses D'Ail, is considered the Poor man's truffle. And so it is!  If it is roasted en chemise (in its shirt-unpeeled), the clove inside becomes soft, creamy, butter like, who's essence seeps into the bird imparting a savory wonderland, and also can be squeezed onto slices of crusty baguette like butter. Garlic butter.  Paired with a crisp Chablis or Sancerre, who's tartness and minerality cuts through the fats and juices of the chicken and the creamy butter of the garlic, and you have a match made in heaven!

   I would like to say something about cast iron.  In my opinion, there is no better cooking pot, pan, skillet, or griddle, then cast iron.  It heats up better and hotter than anything else.  If taken care of and seasoned properly, they last forever.  I have one that I inherited from my mother that has been in use for 60 years!  Le Creuset makes fine cast iron covered in enamel which I love as well.  To cook this dish properly, you must use cast iron.

 

   This is a meal ment to satisfy. Not haute cuisine or nouveau French, this is something mom's made.  Something you'd find on the table of a country cottage or warm little bistro in Paris. The chicken roasting in its juices along with olive oil, fresh herbs and the ever present garlic, emitting aromas almost Holy in its essential goodness, and then finally emerging from its cast iron crucible, is almost art if not alchemy. Here's how to do it!

1 large chicken

About 40 cloves of garlic

3 shallots

4 sprigs each, thyme, sage, rosemary, flat leaf parsley. 

Olive oil

Salt/ fresh ground pepper

1/4 stick of butter

  Rinse chicken inside and out. Dry. Set at room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take 3 large bulges of garlic and remove the cloves, knocking off the excess paper, making aprox. 40 cloves.  Remove the skin from the shallots and leave whole.  Place the chicken into a cast iron pot or cast iron skillet with lid. Salt the chicken with sea salt inside and out. Drizzle with olive oil on both sides, rubbing on to coat. Crush 2 sprigs of each of the herbs and insert into the bird.  Take about 5 of the cloves and put into the chicken. Arrange the rest of the garlic, herbs and shallots around and on top of chicken. Cut butter into pats and place on chicken. Last, crush coarse ground pepper over bird. 

   Transfer the chicken into the oven with the lid on. Cook for approximately 1 3/4 hours. I leave the top on for the first hour and remove it the last 45 minutes, but that is optional. If you do remove the lid, you must baste the bird a couple times. Chicken is done when internal temp is 170 degrees. 

   

   Remove chicken to serving bowl, arrange the garlic, shallots and burnt herbs around it. Serve with crusty or toasted slices of baguette or French bread and a dry wine. 

   Just writing about this savory dish is making me wish I had one in the oven right now!  It's so good and so simple to prepare, I promise you, you will make this dish again and again!  Bon Appetit!