The spirit of giving really consumed me over the holiday vacation, and my budget has taken a bit of a hit as I begin 2013. Thankfully, it’s a time for new beginnings, and I’ve taken it upon myself to make the weekly supermarket circulars my reading material of choice. I sometimes need a little push to kick in my habit of planning weekly menus based on sale items, and there’s no better inspiration than starting the New Year with a clean slate.
For the next few weeks, my beloved pastime of dining out will have to take a backseat to eating meals at home. This isn’t totally out of the ordinary for most weeknights; however, there’s nothing I find more romantic on a Friday or Saturday night than bundling up and walking the neighborhood to any of the wonderful restaurants, seeking comfort in a hot meal. To kick-start the first of the next few weekends at home, I needed a restaurant-quality dinner that could make “staying in” more appetizing.
Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic
Adapted from Ina Garten
3 whole heads of garlic, about 40 cloves
8 chicken thighs
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons Cognac, divided
1½ cups dry white wine
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Separate the cloves of garlic and drop them into a pot of boiling water for 60 seconds. Drain the garlic and peel. Set aside. Dry the chicken with paper towels and season liberally with salt and pepper on both sides. Heat the butter and oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. In batches, sauté the chicken in the pot, skin side down first, until nicely browned, about 3 to 5 minutes on each side. Turn with tongs or a spatula. When a batch is done, transfer it to a plate and continue to sauté all the chicken in batches. After the last batch of chicken is removed from the pot, add all of the garlic to the pot. Lower the heat and sauté for 5 to 10 minutes, turning often, until evenly browned. Add 2 tablespoons of the Cognac and the wine, return to a boil, and scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Return the chicken and its juices on the plate to the pot and sprinkle with the thyme leaves. Cover and simmer over the lowest heat for about 30 minutes, until all the chicken is done. Remove the chicken to a platter and cover with aluminum foil to keep warm. Remove about ½ cup of the liquids in the pot to a small bowl and whisk with the flour, then add back to the pot. Raise the heat, whisk in the remaining tablespoon of Cognac and the cream, and boil for 3 minutes. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Pour the sauce and the garlic over the chicken and serve hot.
This is a quick and easy, no-fuss dish that produces a rich, four-star result. There isn’t a long list of obscure ingredients, and the steps aren’t particularly difficult. The tip regarding the removal of skins from each clove of garlic was a new one for me, and it actually is more effective than manually peeling each one. Be sure to allow each clove a minute to cool down before you get to work, though. The Cognac adds a gentle sweetness to the liquids with toasty, caramel-like notes and is only slightly more prevalent a taste thanks to the extra splash at the finish of the sauce. The addition of flour and cream richen the liquids, which in the cooking process have been infused with a milder side of garlic than we’re normally used to. If a full clove happens to fall upon your fork, don’t be intimidated; the garlic practically disintegrates and becomes one with the chicken. I used 6 chicken thighs but recommend cooking with 8 – I had so much delicious extra sauce and was heartbroken to have to throw it away. On that note, thighs were my preference because they happened to be on sale but you could certainly use a ratio of bone-in breasts, drumsticks, and wings.
Leave it to Ina Garten to make it less painful for me to avoid my favorite hobby of restaurant-hopping on the weekends. I luckily stumbled upon an episode of her show, Barefoot Contessa, last week featuring this recipe; the episode was titled “Dinner and a Movie,” which became the theme of my first Saturday night in of the New Year. It’s safe to say my next few weekends are jam packed with a lot of “staying in.”
