Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic

I’ll admit from the off that I was slightly scared. Not by the quantity of garlic you understand – of course it mellows considerably with roasting – but by the oil; 250ml of olive oil settled into a deep golden pool in the bottom of my battle scarred roasting dish. I did consider slashing the amount but then as someone pointed out in the comments on my tofu post recently – I don’t do things by halves.

This dish comes from Provence, land of olive oil and garlic. A full forty cloves stew gently in the fruity elixir, and by the time the chicken is cooked, they are transformed to a soft savoury paste which can be squidged from its papery home and smeared onto the chicken, or good bread, or into mashed potato. A sprig or two of thyme and a couple of bay leaves add their own perfume and the whole heady medley gets right into that chicken – and your soft furnishings – beautifully.

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- Source : http://helengraves.co.uk