When I decided to write this week’s feature about garlic, I remember the first time I made chicken with 40 cloves of garlic, an old French classic. I needed some convincing because I was a 20-something Italian who had minced and chopped garlic, but had never cooked it whole. Whole garlic, with some of the skin intact, caramelizes when it hits even heat. The center becomes soft and creamy, not pungent or spicy hot.
Today everyone knows. A decade ago, roasted garlic became a go-to appetizer for anyone with a loaf of sourdough and not enough time to cook.
I went through my 85 cookbooks, looking for a smudged index card where I had jotted notes from those very early days. I make chicken with 40 cloves every fall when I get my hands on homegrown garlic. I no longer need a recipe, and that’s the worst kind to put in the Herald, where measurements need to be exact.
I turned to the internet where, frustrated, I found dozens of variations.
Here’s why: Sometime during the last century, chicken stopped tasting like the pleasantly gamey bird free-range tastes like today. The only close substitution is chicken thighs, unquestionably my favorite part of the bird.
I buy whole chickens for the stock potential. The breasts often go to Asian stir fry because I find them dry and tasteless, unless they’re slathered in garlic, ginger or curry. Or swimming in gumbo. I do like a chicken breast sandwich with mayo, but I suspect it has more to do with the mayo.
Chicken with 40 cloves was from the days when the whole chicken had the full-bodied taste we now only find in the thighs. The original version called for the bird to be cut into pieces, popped into a Dutch oven after browning and cooked on the stove top. Between the white wine deglazed tidbits and the thyme with garlic, well, it was almost heaven, sopped up with French bread, of course.
Back to putting the recipe in the Herald. I decided it would be too difficult to create accurately, so I almost skipped it. My editor convinced me it was a good idea.
What you’ll see on Wednesday’s food page is an adaptation that takes the best of both worlds, courtesy of Food Network’s Ina Garten and Nigella Lawson. Nigella leaves out the tablespoon of butter and two tablespoons of cream, but like me, she goes for thighs.
Ina uses all parts of the chicken, and then adds cognac. Nothing wrong with that.
I’m making chicken with 40 cloves of garlic the next time I have friends together for football.
