Poulet Aux Quarante Gousses D'ail (Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic)

Poulet Aux Quarante Gousses D'ail (Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic)

This beautiful dish is served with fresh baguette slices which are spread with the soft flesh of roasted garlic that just melt in your mouth!  It might sound a little overpowering, but as anyone who has roasted garlic would know, the cloves mellow and sweeten in the oven until the creamy flesh can be squeezed from the skins.

Ingredients

    •    2 celery stalks, including leaves
    •    2 sprigs of rosemary
    •    4 sprigs of thyme
    •    4 sprigs of flat-leaf (Italian) parsley
    •    One 1.6 kg chicken
    •    40 garlic cloves, unpeeled
    •    2 tablespoons olive oil
    •    1 carrot roughly chopped
    •    1 small onion, cut into 4 wedges
    •    250 ml white wine
    •    1 baguette, cut into slice and small sprigs of herbs to garnish (optional)

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius. Put a chopped celery stalk, the rosemary, half the thyme and half the parsley into the chicken cavity. Add 6 cloves of garlic. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under.
2. Brush the chicken liberally with some of the olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Scatter 10 more garlic cloves over the base of a large casserole dish. Add the rest of the sprigs of herbs, chopped celery, carrot and onion in the casserole. Note: Use a casserole dish into which the chicken and vegetables fit quite snugly so that the flavours mingle well.
3. Put the chicken in the casserole dish on top of the herbs and vegetables. Scatter the remaining garlic cloves around the chicken and pour in the rest of the olive oil and the white wine. Cover and bake for 1 hour 20 minutes, until the chicken is slightly browned, or until the meat is tender and the juices runs clear when the thigh is pierced with a skewer.
4. Carefully lift the chicken out of the casserole dish. Strain the juices into a small saucepan and use a pair of tongs to pick out the garlic cloves from the strained mixture. Spoon off some fat from the juices and boil for 2 - 3 minutes to reduce ad thicken.
5. Cut the chicken into serving portions, pour over a little of the juices and scatter the garlic cloves. Toast the baguette slices, then garnish the chicken with some herbs (optional) and serve with the bread to be spread with the mouth watering soft flesh squeezed from the garlic. Bon appétit!