40 Clove Chicken

There are many versions of this recipe around. The thing that makes this dish different and so yummy is the amount of garlic used... 40++ cloves of garlic!! The garlic turns out amazingly sweet. But still have some breath mints handy. :)

I'm not sure where I first saw this recipe anymore. But after seeing the pictures from Alice Q. Foodie made me want to cook it again. Here is my take on it...

40 Clove Garlic Chicken

• 3 x Maryland chicken (Thighs and legs chopped - skin on)
• 2-3 Heads of Garlic. (I'm lazy... and just leave it smashed and unpeeled)
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 Cups Dry white wine
• 3 tablespoon Cognac (optional)
• Handful of fresh herbs (I used Sage & Thyme)
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1/4 Cup of Thickening Cream
• 2 tablespoons butter & 2 tablespoons plain flour
• Salt & Pepper

Pre-heat Oven to 180C. Pat the chicken pieces dry with a paper towel, and season with salt and pepper. Heat the butter with 1/2 of the olive oil in a Dutch Oven and brown the chicken, skin side down first.

Remove the chicken to a plate, and add garlic cloves to the pot. Saute on low heat until it turns golden brown. Add 1 Tbl sp of the Cognac, then add all the wine. Bring to boil and continue to stir, scraping any brown bits from the bottom of the pot.

Return chicken to the pot. Add herbs and tuck the Bay leaves in between the chicken pieces.

Cover and braise in the oven for about 45 minutes - until chicken is tender.

Remove chicken to a baking dish and put under the grill. Just long enough so that the skin on the chicken starts to go golden brown.

Squeeze out the garlic from the skins. Add remaining Cognac to the sauce. Bring to boil and add cream. Melt the butter in a separate saucepan then add flour. Once it has combined and starts to bubble, add this mixture to the sauce.

Spoon garlic sauce over the chicken and serve.

Green Peppercorn Sauce

I stumbled across this recipe on green peppercorn sauce (with meatballs) while researching for a sauce to try with our steaks tonight. Green peppercorn sauce with steak is a classic combo. But somehow I had never actually tried it at home... We've always seemed to have gone with either the chimichurri, bernaise or mushroom sauce.

The recipe below does look like it calls for a lot of different ingredients. But I found that except for the sherry wine vinegar, I had pretty much everything already. A quick google search returned some suggestions for sherry wine vinegar substitutions. These were sweeten rice wine or red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar, with the preferred being the rice wine. I had some mirin (japanese sweet rice wine) available in my pantry, so I went for the rice wine option.

The sauce turned out great... the spice and tanginess of the peppercorn and mustard help balance what would have been a quite rich and creamy sauce. I definitely would be making this one again.. :)

Green Peppercorn Sauce
adapted from this recipe from Simply Recipes

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium shallots
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons sherry wine vinegar (I substituted with Mirin - sweet rice wine)
• ½ cup Cognac
• ½ cup red wine
• 1 cup of beef stock (I used a beef stock cube dissolved in 1 cup of hot water)
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons green peppercorns
• Salt to taste
  

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the shallots and cook until golden brown, about 4 minutes.
2. Add the mustard and sherry vinegar (in my case.. the mirin) and reduce to half, about 1 minute. Add the cognac and cook to burn off the alcohol, about 3 minutes.
3. Add the red wine and reduce by half, about 10 minutes.
4. Add the stock and reduce the mixture by half again, about 10 minutes.
5. Remove from the heat and whisk in the cream, butter and crushed green peppercorns.
6. Add salt to taste.

We had the sauce with steak and mash potatoes. :)