Chicken and 40 Cloves – my way

If you have never tried this recipe, you are missing out, unless you are a hard-core vegetarian. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe, and gave it a twist, well, pretty much every time I made it. Chances are, I would never really duplicate any of the times I made it, but, surprisingly, every twist I threw in, made the dish tasted equally amazing.  Hint, that’s my way of saying, you really can’t mess it up!

Ingredients:

40 cloves of garlic, peeled. Honestly, I never really counted, but a good 4, 5 handful of garlic. If you don’t feel like sitting at dinner table peeling garlic for an hour (which is quite therapeutic by the way), most grocery stores sell these already peeled in a bag, this cuts your prep time drastically.

1 whole chicken, cut into pieces. Or, you do what I do, buy a package of drum sticks, or skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs. You can ask your butcher to cut these into smaller chunks, like 1-inch pieces, or use them whole. Either way it works beautifully. If you use whole thigh, or drum sticks, you can always score the skin and meat a bit, using a sharp pairing knife. This allows the flavor to penetrate into the meat and also speeds up the cooking process. If you are using drum sticks or thighs, I’d estimate 3 drum sticks per person, or 2 thighs per person. It may sound like a lot, but you will be surprised how delicious this dish is, and wish you made more.

1 cup low sodium soy sauce, for flavor. You can use dark soy sauce, but your chicken will come out much darker, and be sure to lower your heat for cooking. Dark soy tends to burn a bit quicker.

1 cup fresh basil leaves. I used sweet Italian basil, Thai basil, a mixture of both, all works. Depends on what you have on hand – this is one of my twist, and I LOVE the aroma basil leaves add to the dish.

1 inch of ginger root, no need to peel, you won’t eat it anyway. Just slice the root, don’t even need to be paper-thin, the cooking process will release all the goodness of ginger.

1 cup chicken stock. Or, do what I do, use a cup of water and a chicken bouillon cube and call it a day. Seriously, what am I going to do with the rest of the stock? And nowadays, who has the time and patience to freeze stock in ice-cube trays?

You will need a heavy bottom pan with lid, the best is a dutch oven. They are my favorite in my kitchen. I swear I have like 5 of these, different sizes and colors, and I use them all. I think they help me feel better on the days I don’t do any exercise just by taking these out, washing them and putting them away. That, my friend, is intensive upper body workout!

2 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish, optional. Highly depends on if I have them on hand, and if I totally forget about it at the end. Yes, I do that all the time.

Method:

Prepare chicken pieces. Either cut them into smaller chunks, or score the skin and meat with a sharp knife. Put chicken pieces into a large bowl. I use about 1/4 cup of the soy sauce and a couple turns of freshly ground pepper to marinate the chicken. Mix and set aside.

While the chicken is marinating, set aside garlic cloves, slice ginger root, pick and rinse basil leaves, slice green onions. Once you have everything good to go, the rest of the cooking will be a breeze. Heavy bottom pan on medium high heat, go in with a couple of table spoons of mild flavored cooking oil. Let the oil heat up and add ginger. Give it a few seconds and let the ginger smell infuse the oil, go in with chicken pieces. Don’t over crowd the pan. If you really have the patience, put chicken in skin side down to let the chicken get some color and let the skin crisp up. Or, you can go with the lazy way, like I always do, dump the chicken into the pot, spread it out a bit with a spatula and leave it alone for a few minutes. Once the chicken / skin is ready, the chicken will be very easy to be flipped. If you have to really scrape the pan, or pull the skin off the bottom, it’s not ready yet. Be patient.

Turn the chicken to let it cook evenly. Once the chicken is browned on all sides, go in with all the garlic. It may seem awful lot of garlic, but just bear with it. Stir the chicken and garlic around, lower heat to medium. Add remaining soy sauce, chicken stock and basil leaves. Lid on, lower heat to medium low once the liquid is boiling. Let it go for about 10 minutes. Lid off, stir around the chicken a bit. At this point, garlic cloves are soft, but still hold their shape. Some smaller pieces may have melted, that is what makes this dish incredible. If you like the sauce a bit thicker, leave the lid off and cook for a couple more minutes, the sauce will thicken up.

This dish goes beautifully with some roasted vegetables, or a nice crisp mixed green salad. Or, you can add potatoes into this dish, it would be amazing. Serve over steamed white rice, or pasta, or pull the chicken off the bone, serve in a warm tortilla, or eat it as is, mop the sauces with naan bread…

I have not read the recipe since the first time I made it, which was about 2 years ago. That’s why every time I made it, something was different. But I have never messed it up. If you got a bunch garlic cloves and chicken, soy sauce you are good to go.

Give it a try, and let me know what’s your twist.