James Beard's Chicken With 40 Cloves of Garlic
Published October 25, 1997
- Total Time
- 1 hour 40 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
4 ribs of celery, cut into long strips
2 medium-size onions, coarsely chopped
6 sprigs parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
⅔ cup vegetable oil
16 chicken legs, any mix of drumsticks and thighs
½ cup dry vermouth
2 ½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
40 cloves garlic, unpeeled
French bread for serving
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)
18 grams carbs; 378 milligrams cholesterol; 1123 calories; 40 grams monosaturated fat; 17 grams polyunsaturated fat; 20 grams saturated fat; 85 grams fat; 2 grams fiber; 1126 milligrams sodium; 67 grams protein; 2 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cover the bottom of a heavy 6-quart casserole with the celery and onions and add the parsley and tarragon. Place the oil in a shallow dish. Dip the chicken pieces into the oil, coat all sides evenly and place in the casserole. Pour the vermouth over the chicken and sprinkle with the salt, pepper and a few gratings of nutmeg. Tuck the garlic around and between the chicken pieces.
- Step 2
Cover the top of the casserole tightly with aluminum foil and fit the lid over the foil to create an airtight seal. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes without removing the cover. Check for doneness; return casserole to the oven if the chicken seems underdone. Serve the chicken along with the pan juices, the garlic and thin slices of heated French bread spread with garlic squeezed from the root end of the clove.
Private Notes
Comments
My son just texted me: "Is this your garlic chicken?" Yes, I've been making it for 40 years – since my kids were little and I had no money. I use skinless chicken and skip the oil. I seal up the pot with both a lid and foil, cut the temperature to 300 and cook for 3 hours. When I was feeding an army, I used 6 pounds of cheap chicken and adjusted the other ingredients accordingly. The leftover meat makes fabulous chicken tetrazini and everything that remains goes into soup.
It's better if the chicken be skinless; other you get soggy skin that no one particularly wants to eat.
Not a fan of parsley and the friend I was cooking for doesn't like tarragon, so I used fresh thyme and a couple of strips of lemon peel instead.
This was amazing. Even better than Ina Garten's Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic, which has been my favorite for a long time. I didn't leave the garlic unpeeled, because I was serving it with rice, not bread, and decided I'd rather have the garlic melting into the sauce rather than squeezing it out onto bread that wasn't part of the meal. Other than that, I don't think I made any changes. We absolutely loved this.
An elegant comfort food. The chicken was tender and juicy, the garlic was perfect and the flavors melded together to create a wonderful one-pot dinner. Next time I'd like to try to brown the chicken before cooking it on the pot. I did remove the skin from the chicken which made for a lighter meal. Will definitely make again.
I halved everything but the garlic; possibly the best chicken I’ve ever made, and I’ve made a lot of roast chickens.