Sweeter than you think: chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

Well, ragazzi, to say this has been a week is to understate things.  Let us have a show of hands:  how many of you, when you saw that you were going to be able to sleep for an extra hour today (as daylight savings time ended), thought it wasn't nearly enough?    This political campaign has pushed us all to our limits and then beyond them.  Annalena has been called names on her beloved facebook that she hasn't been called since a schoolchild.  And she learned, last week, that physicians are prescribing medicines for "pre election stress syndrome."  It seems perfectly justified.  Annalena was stood up on a "date" (not really, but a meeting she should not have planned).  And the finale, at least for Annalena, was to see that cheese now bears the warning  :"caution.  Contains dairy products."

We are now at the point where we have to label cheese to warn the lactose intolerant.  Where have we come to, carini?  Annalena is more than flummoxed.

Fortunately, she has a place to hide:  her kitchen. And food blogs, and recipes.  Recenty, she started reading the blog of David Leite  ("Leitesculinaria.com") from which this recipe comes.  He is a marvelous racconteur my lovelies (that does NOT mean he is a raccoon), and his recipes are nice and solid.

Annalena made this one, and she will tell you in all seriousness:  you can make this in a littlemore than an hour, and your work time, is really, really  short.   You should make this.  You really should.

First, as Annalena is doing lately, your ingredients:

What you see there are three pounds of chicken thighs - 13 of them.  You see a bit of wine, a bit of stock, some butter, thyme - and 40 (that's right, 40 ) cloves of garlic.  

Some comments on these ingredients:  why all thighs, and not chicken parts?  Annalena's regular readers can answer this, but to review: think about what a free range chicken does all day:  she walks.   In that respect, she and Annalena have something in common.  The leg muscles get stronger,  and tougher, and more blood vessels form. And that is why we have "dark meat."

Now think of that same chicken's breast, standing out in front of her proudly:  and doing nothing.  The breasts are tender, and white, and if you try to cook them the same way as you cook legs or thighs, you will overcook them. And if you try to cook the thighs and legs the way you cook the breasts, you will undercook them.  So, for uniformity, stick with one style.  Also, that way no one can complain  "No, my favorite part is gone so I'll go hungry."  (In this age of privilege, we have all heard it).

Now, about those 40 cloves of garlic.  In a bulb of garlic, Annalena gets 5-6 cloves.  Hence, she needed 7-8 bulbs.  It is NOT that hard to peel them.  If you use a garlic cannoli;

It is even easier.  If you do not, press on the cloves of garlic gently, with the blade of a large knife, and you will succeed in breaking skin.  Then pop them out (Of course, you COULD also follow the French model  and not peel them.  Annalena will not recommend that. 

You will have salted and peppered your chicken thighs at least an hour before you cook.  And when you do, set your oven  to 350, and get out a non stick pan if you have one.  If you don't, you'll be fine, but don't go too big.  Why?  Because you are cooking with butter, and butter will burn if you give it a surface. 

You are going to add only ONE tablespoon of butter to your pan.  When it melts, fill the pan with the chicken thighs, but do not crowd them.  Probably, you should be doing no more than 5-6 at a time (less, if they are larger). 

Why so little butter?  Well, under that chicken skin is a fair amount of fat.  And as you cook this chicken, you will get more and more fat in the pan, as we will see.  

Sear those thighs for about five minutes on a side, until the skin gets nice and dark:

Before you put them in this pan, turn them and cook for about two minutes. 

Remember Annalena told you about the fat?  Well:

She hopes you can see the half cup of fat that she recovered at the end of cooking the chicken.  That's all the stuff, drained.  

So now, put a fresh tablespoon of butter in that pan, and add your garlic cloves, stirring and tossing, for 2-3 minutes, so as to put some brown on them.  Then, spread them haphazardly, but evenly, on the chicken:

What you will do now, is add 1/3 cup of white wine to your searing pan, to loosen up the brown bits.  Keep stirring.  The wine will evaporate almost immediately.  Then add half a cup of chicken stock, and yet one more tablespoon of butter.  Let this come to a boil, and reduce by about a third.  Pour it over the chicken, and then add a few sprigs of fresh thyme (you could use another herb if you had it). 

At this point, Annalena's recipe caled for slicing up potatoes and cooking them with the chicken.  You could do that, but Annalena preferred not too. Rather, she had a tomato sort of like herself: large, overripe, and giving dirty looks to anyone who passed.  She simply cut that up, and put it over the chicken and garlic, before putting it all in the oven for 45 minutes

You are supposed to eat this garlic, which is very soft and sweet.  Usually, people serve toasted bread and smear the cloves on it.  And if you want to do that, go ahead.  Annalena just picked them up and ate them as they were, but as the adorable deplorables have been telling her all week, she is perverse. 

So, ragazzi, there is our first recipe of the week. There will be more.  Enjoy this one.