French Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

By

Flavours From the French Provence

A masterpiece on its own, and a perfect base for other dishes.

This is a classic French Provençal dish. It is very simple to prepare and serves a delicious dinner. Don’t let the amount of garlic turn you off, it works out really well here and because the garlic is being roasted with the chicken, it becomes very sweet in flavour and very complimentary for the chicken flavour.

The roasted garlic can also be used in making  Roasted Garlic Aioli, which could be used in sandwiches among other preparations. The juices produced in the cooking can be a base for an excellent soup (used as broth) and the leftover chicken can make many varieties of other dishes. This is a good dish to master! Perfect on it’s own & creates excellent delicious ingredients for other dishes.

I have also included for you a wine pairing video that I found to be very useful in laying out the basics of pairing wine with foods. I do love informative pieces that give you basic how to’s and leave it up to you to apply into varieties of options. So go ahead, make this beautiful chicken dish and pair it with your favourite wine, and enjoy a relaxed evening and a good movie.

Ingredients

Serves: 4
  • 1.5Kg whole chicken
  • 40 cloves garlic, separated from bulb with skin intact
  • 2 tbsp butter, at room temperature
  • DS Himalayan Pink Salt
  • Freshly cracked black pepper
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cup water

 

 

Preheat your oven to 450F-220C.

Clean the insides & rinse your chicken. Pat dry with a paper towel.

Rub the insides and outsides of chicken with the butter. Sprinkle all sides & insides with the salt & freshly cracked black pepper. Place some garlic cloves & bay leaf inside the chicken cavity. Tie the legs together with a kitchen string.

Place the rest of your garlic at the bottom of your baking dish. Place the chicken on top of the Garlic. Add water to the dish (do not add on chicken as it will wash out the seasoning.

Place the baking dish in your preheated oven and roast the chicken uncovered for 1 1/2 hrs until browned & cooked through.

Note that you need to occasionally baste the chicken with the pan juices to avoid it from drying out and keep it moist & tender.

Let the chicken sit for 5 minutes on a separate plate before serving.

Does the sound of 40 cloves of garlic scare you?

It scared me the first time I made this dish! But it turned out Fabulous! Is there a food type that had some surprising element  – such as 40 cloves of garlic – that you have tried and were pleasantly surprised with how good it turned out?

Let us know about your surprising dish, we most probably would like it too!

You may also like…