Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic (Nigella)

I'm sharing this post with two events, firstly at I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC), where the theme for this week is "Potluck" and we can select any recipes from any of our previous featured chefs, and I have chosen to cook from Nigella's recipe.
The second event is Cook-Like-A Star, and the featured star for this month is Nigella Lawson, co-hosted by me, Kitchen Flavours together with Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids and Anjua from Simple Baking.

To submit to these two events, I've cooked "Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic". Ever since I've got the book "Nigella Kitchen", I've been meaning to make this dish. We love garlic in my house, my kids love eating chopped raw garlic with some soy sauce, a condiment that we never fail to request when we eat out at Chinese restaurants.

There are other versions of Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic, if you google for it, dozens of recipes would appear on the screen. I have not tried other versions, but this recipe of Nigella is a total winner.

The chicken pieces are first pan-fried until the skin are brown. Since I do not have a dutch oven, I have used a roasting pan to place the pan-fried chicken pieces and cover it tightly with a large piece of foil when it goes into the oven. The scallions, thyme and garlic are quickly stir-fried in the frying pan that I used to fry the chicken pieces. I actually counted the number of garlic cloves and when I reached 40, I can't help adding more! In the end I probably used about 50! What can I say, we are one garlic-loving family!

I then placed half the garlic in the roasting pan, top with the chicken pieces and the balance of the garlic on top. Add the white wine to the frying pan (I have used more white wine than the recipe calls for), swish it around to mix in the flavours and oil left in the frying pan, and pour over the chicken pieces. Season with a generous amount of black pepper and salt, with some sprigs of fresh thymes. Cover with foil tightly and bake for 1-1/2 hours.

It smells really good while the chicken is baking in the oven, so garlicky delicious. The chicken is so, so tender and moist. Very delicious. There's a fair amount of gravy collected in the roasting pan, and all the flavours from the chicken, the scallions, thymes, garlic and the white wine comes together in one delicious gravy. And the garlic, wow! So velvety soft and creamy, both the hubby and kids, keep digging for the garlic! Me too! :)

Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

(adapted from "Nigella Kitchen", Nigella Lawson)
Serves 4-6
2 tablespoons regular olive oil
8 chicken thighs (with skin on and bone in), preferably organic
1 bunch or 6 scallions
8-10 sprigs fresh thyme
40 cloves garlic (approx 3-4 heads), unpeeled
2 tablespoons dry white vermouth or white wine (I use 1/3 cup)
1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt or 3/4 teaspoon table salt
good grinding pepper

Preheat the oven to 350F. Heat the oil on the stove top in a wide, shallow ovenproof and flameproof Dutch oven (that will ultimately fit all the chicken in one layer, and that has a lid), and sear the chicken over a high heat, skin-side down. This may take 2 batches, so transfer the browned pieces to a bowl as you go.
Once the chicken pieces are seared, transfer them all to the bowl. Finely slice the scallions, put them into the Dutch oven, and quickly stir-fry them with the leaves torn from a few sprigs of thyme.
Put 20 of the unpeeled cloves of garlic (papery excess removed) into the pan, top with the chicken pieces skin-side up, then cover with the remaining 20 cloves of garlic.
Add the vermouth (or white wine) to any oily, chickeny juices left in the bowl. Swish it around and pour this into the pan too.
Sprinkle with the salt, grind over the pepper, and add a few more sprigs of thyme. Put on the lid and cook in the oven for 1-1/2 hours.

#79/100

Please stop by I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC) to view what my friends have made for this week's theme, "Potluck", and if you are interested to join us, please find out more details from IHCC.

I'm linking this post to Cook Like A Star, where the featured chef for this month is NIGELLA LAWSON. Cook Like A Star is an event organized by Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids, and the co-hosts for this month are Anuja from Simple Baking and me, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. Cook or bake any of Nigella Lawson's recipes and link your posts to any of the hosts' linky which will stay open for the whole month of August. All submissions to this event must be current posts, published within the current month of this event, any older posts will be deleted. Please mention and link Cook Like A Star somewhere in your post. Do join us, everyone is welcome!