As I’ve mentioned before, and on my other blog Scandals and Sweets, we have a long line of excellent cooks in our family. And by far, Garlic is our favorite herb/seasoning. We use it in everything!!! My sister even tried a garlic ice cream recipe, not so good!
This chicken recipe has 40 CLOVES OF GARLIC! Yes it will keep the vampires away! But really it’s not as pungent as you would think! The best part is that if you serve it with some kind of yummy bread, you can fish the cloves out of the sauce and smush it on your bread! Talk about a little slice of heaven! Always serve it with bread! 🙂
But, Cindy, how on earth do we peel 40 cloves of garlic??? Here is the beauty of this dish! You can use them peeled or unpeeled. I prefer them peeled, so here’s how I do it! Bring a pot of water to a boil and using a large slotted spoon, blanch the cloves for 30-60 seconds. Pull them out and roll them around in paper towels and Voila! No skins. Works with tomatoes too, but you have to be a little more gentle!
Nobody knows where this recipe comes from. My grandmother thinks it sort of appeared after WWII , possibly from a ladies magazine. I’m a little iffy on that explanation because the other recipes that we have, not that we use, but we have from ladies magazines in the 50s are for things congealed in gelatin.
It calls for dry vermouth or white wine, my parents were Martini drinkers so I think the vermouth was an addition from my mother. Vermouth is a wine, and they say never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink, so there you go!
I love this dish, I really don’t make it enough but since I was writing about garlic, I decided to make it and share it with you! I hope you love it too!
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Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic
- Total Time: 110 minutes
- Yield: 6–8 servings 1x
Description
A delicious dish that even though it has 40 cloves of garlic cooks long enough that the garlic becomes sweet and delicious, and the chicken juicy and tender.
Ingredients
3 Whole Heads of Garlic – 40 cloves
2-3 pound chicken cut into pieces
3 Tablespoons Olive oil or Butter or a combination of both
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 stalks of celery sliced very thin
1 1/2 Cups Dry Vermouth or Dry White Wine
1 Tablespoon dried Tarragon
2 Tablespoons Flour
2 Tablespoons Heavy Cream
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375.
Melt butter and/or add Olive Oil to an oven safe Dutch Oven.
Working in batches over medium-high heat brown the chicken starting with the skin side down 4-5 minutes and remove from pan.
Add the garlic and sauté 6-8 minutes.
Deglaze the pan with the Vermouth or Wine. (pour the wine in the pan and scrape off all the brown stuff off the bottom of the pan.)
Add in the celery, nutmeg, salt, pepper and tarragon and bring to a boil.
Add the chicken back to the pan and cover.
Bake for 1 1/2 hours at 375.
When it has finished baking, remove the chicken to a serving platter.
Add the flour and the cream to some of the sauce in the pan.
Stir it into the pan and bring to a boil. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.
Pour the sauce over the chicken before serving. Be sure to get plenty of the delicious roasted garlic cloves!
Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 90 minutes
There it is! I hope that you enjoy it as much as we do!
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