Recipe(tried): Chicken Braised with 40 Cloves of Garlic - Open That Bottle Night - Reply

This is something that you can set up as early as the night before your party. I have made it many, many times and it's a hit with our family. I have done it for large groups, using rock cornish hens (one for each person). For the hens, I used my large turkey roaster. When it's just the family, I do one large chicken in my dutch oven. You can just put it in the oven and forget about it! I am posting the recipe for the proportions as they appear in Time-Life's The Good Cook, with a few additions of my own. You could just increase it for your group of 8.

CHICKEN BRAISED WITH 40 CLOVES OF GARLIC

1 (4 to 5-lb) chicken
salt and pepper
1 small bouquet garni
a few celery tops
1/2 onion, not chopped
1 small sprig rosemary
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
40 cloves of garlic, unpeeled (papery covering must remain intact)
flour-and-water paste containing a little oil

Rinse and season the inside of the chicken with salt and pepper. Place the celery tops and half onion inside the bird. Put the olive oil into the dutch oven or roaster and roll the bird around in it, leaving it breast side up. Add the chicken broth. Place the rosemary, bouquet garni and the garlic cloves scattered around the chicken. Seal the lid of the dutch oven with the flour and water paste.* (Here is where you can refrigerate this, uncooked, until about 2 hours before your party.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and place the dutch oven in it. Roast for about 1 1/2 hours.

The French bring the dutch oven to the table to remove the lid, releasing the delicious aroma of garlic. The chicken will be tender and fragrant. In a casual setting (such as family only), diners dip toasted bread into the broth remaining in the dutch oven and extrude the garlic onto the bread. (Jean-Noel Escudier and Peta J. Fuller, The Wonderful World of Provence, point out that cooked garlic disagrees with no one.)

Now, if you opt to serve individual game hens, simply place one hen on each plate along with a small ramekin containing some of the broth and a few of the cooked garlic cloves. I did this for Christmas one year and it went very well.

Lastly, my two stepdaughters always complained that there was never enough garlic. I once put 60 cloves into the pot and it still came out tasting exactly the same. The garlic flavor was not intensified by this experiment.

*Sealing with the paste creates a sort of pressure-cooker. None of the steam escapes during cooking and the result is a very, very tender bird.

I hope you have a lovely party!

Marilyn, Central California