I tried a recipe called 101 Clove Garlic Chicken I got from the internet a while ago and it had an award of being a recipe using the most garlic. I tried it once with the original amount of garlic cloves the way the recipe called for them to be cooked, unpeeled and let the diner suck out the sweet baked garlic but I have never been a fan of having to get my fingers greasy while dining unless tacos or fried chicken are being served so after making the recipe the way it was written (something I very seldom do as I can taste recipes in my head as I am reading them and I usually make some changes before cooking them) but this recipe was so simple I figured I would give the original recipe a try. It is tasty the way it is written but it is a little bit of work (and not that cheap) to prepare 101 cloves of garlic to place around the chicken breasts for cooking so I changed it the next time I cooked it. My preference is to peel the garlic cloves so I don’t have to pick the juice soaked cloves up with my fingers to eat them and 101 cloves of garlic is unnecessary to achieve a very garlicky dish. I also like to serve a dish like this with some kind of starch to soak up the garlic chicken juice so I added rice to absorb the wonderful flavors of chicken and garlic and so I could eat this as a one dish meal I added carrots and broccoli to the mix. The original dish called for champagne but it doesn’t have as much flavor a good chardonnay so I changed the wine as well. You can add or subtract garlic cloves, the amounts and kinds of vegetables as more is the merrier, the kind of liquid as you could also use beer or wine instead of the original champagne in the recipe and you could use couscous or any other starch you would like soaked in garlicky chicken broth and accompanied by colorful vegetable pieces. And yes Garlicky should be a word!
10 whole chicken breasts, halved, boned and skinned
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon pepper
30 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered
1 cup rice
1 cup onions, diced
1 1/2 cup carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 1/2 cups broccoli, trimmed and cut into pieces
2 cups white wine
Place chicken in a large casserole dish, I like to cut 5 of the half breast pieces into quarters so that someone can have a second helping of a quarter breast if they can’t eat another half of a breast. Sprinkle with salt, paprika and pepper and add the rice, onions, carrots, broccoli and garlic spread all around the chicken pieces. Pour wine over everything and cover the pan with a lid or aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. When the rice is tender the chicken will be done. Will serve about 15 people.
micheleraedejean 