Chicken with 20 Cloves of Garlic

Lee and I are always on the lookout for a meal that we can transform into different dishes throughout the week. Tonight, we made one of the tastiest, easiest dishes I can remember--Chicken with 20 Cloves of Garlic, adapted from a recipe we saw on the Cooking Light web site.

Start by combining a bit of butter with a bit of olive oil (perhaps a teaspoon of each) into a large covered saute pan. Take a whole cut-up chicken and brown it in the pan; you may need to do this in two batches. The chicken needn't be cooked through at this point; you just need three or four minutes per side.

Once the chicken is browned, set it aside for a moment and saute 20 whole cloves of garlic until they're just starting to tan. Then arrange the chicken evenly over the garlic cloves. Add in 1/2 cup of white wine and 3/4 cup of chicken broth, cover and simmer for about 25 minutes. When the chicken is cooked through, remove it (along with the garlic cloves) and reduce the sauce for five or ten minutes.

This simple meal is perfect with a little bread (the garlic will spread like butter) and a salad or green vegetable. Though Lee and I were dining as a pair, it would be a perfectly appropriate entree to serve to a small dinner party, provided you were looking for something a little rustic.

One note--the braise this chicken gets does no favors to the skin, leaving it pale and flubbery. The skin adds a ton of flavor during the cooking process, but I'd recommend skinning the chicken before serving. With the moisture and flavor imparted by the wine and stock, I assure you, you won't miss the skin a bit.



The next day, we made lovely little chicken salad sandwich bites with the leftovers.