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My take on the classic French recipe Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic makes use of plump thighs cooked to fall-off-the-bone perfection, steeped in a mellow garlic and white wine jus, gently scented with fresh thyme. It’s an elegant and low maintenance dish that could usurp the Sunday roast.
No? The Sunday roast must be carved? Rosemary and thyme whole roast chicken is lemony fresh and comes on a potato bed. Or try my Indian-inspired tangy whole roast chicken with mango chutney glaze.
Growing up in the Eighties in Eastern Europe, garlic was used as a household remedy for all sorts of ailments: inhaling a garlicky vapour would be prescribed for a blocked nose, and chewing raw garlic cloves would soothe a toothache.
It may sound provincial but it is confirmed that the common garlic bulb contains antiseptic and antibiotic properties and is still used as a non-pharmaceutical treatment today.
Did you know it is also used to repel insects? And rather paradoxically, as an aphrodisiac!
On the other end of the believability spectrum howvwe, Roman soldiers each carried a bulb to war to as it’s said to inspire courage and endurance. While in Greece, midwives would hang garlic in birthing rooms to keep evil spirits away. Also, an old wives’ tale suggests putting cloves in a shoe to prevent whooping cough.
Finally, and most famously, garlic is purported to ward off vampires.
So, there are plenty of scientific and far-fetched reasons to be consuming garlic in large quantities! What’s yours?
French chicken recipes
The French are known for their love of garlic, herbs and wine. Chicken also plays a significant part in their cuisine. However, the French view chicken very differently to the UK and North America. There is more reverence and choice when selecting breed, cuts and colour of skin and feet!
Like me, they favour a thigh, bone-in thighs are best. Besides being more flavoursome and the darker meat more tender than a breast for example, when cooked gently over time the marrow and collagen from the bones will naturally release into the sauce, making it deliciously slick and unctuous.
Some of my favourite French recipes call for slowly cooked chicken thighs. These are my (current) top 3:
- Chicken fricassee– soft thighs in a luscious signature French sauce of double cream, tarragon, garlic and shallots, mushrooms and white wine.
- Coq au Vin – chicken legs; the thigh and drum, in a deep, dark sauce of brandy, carrots, mushroom and thyme. Check out Coq au Vin Blanc, if you prefer a white sauce.
- Chicken a la Normande – sweet with apple and rich with cream, thighs braised in dry cider.
With plenty more garlic and chicken thigh recipes on the blog, you’ll never fail to impress with a French recipe.
Recipe Tips and Notes
- Traditionally this recipe calls for a whole chicken. Imagine a roast chicken cooked coffin-style in a lidded casserole, interned with 40 fuming garlic cloves. So very French. So very fancy.
- Not very Vikalinka. I’ve simplified the classic recipe so it’s more manageable; a quicker cook than a whole bird, and even too, and no carving required. Plus, no fighting over breasts, thighs or drums.
- Although there is sauce of a sort, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic is not filed under ‘saucy chicken recipes’. These are golden roasted thighs with garlicky splash.
- The original recipe is low on ingredients: chicken, garlic, thyme and a glug of white wine. I’ve included some shallots for moisture and balance- shallots go wonderfully sweet and soft when slow roasted, a compliment to the garlic.
- 40 cloves of garlic might sound intimidatingly fiery, but I assure you they are not. The trick is to leave them whole. It’s true! Chopping, slicing, crushing or mincing garlic releases potent sulphur compounds making them more fearsome.
- Some chefs will even keep the skins on, but I can foresee an uproar at my dinner table if my family were faced with de-casing their own garlic cloves! Will you risk it?
- I am a cook who cooks with wine. We all know this! If you are not, substitute the same liquid quantity with apple juice and a tablespoon of white wine vinegar instead.
Serving suggestions
One of the most decadent aspects of this refined French chicken recipe is the unrefined action of dipping crusty bread into the drippy garlic sauce, thus creating your own individualised garlic bread. It’s a side dish you didn’t even need to prepare! Unless, of course, you made your own bread.
Garlic chicken is equally good with mashed potato; brown butter mash or celeriac mash would be my first and second choices.
And vegetables. French beans, or green beans, obviously! Although I can’t get enough of seasonal cabbage right now, braised savoy with bacon and mushrooms is extra special. Or, while the oven is hot and ready; maple glazed carrots.
Storage and leftovers
Leftover chicken will continue to steep in its garlic and wine pool when stored in the fridge. You can expect an even more fragrant flesh the next time around. Keep it covered though, to avoid garlic notes permeating any other unsuspecting food, in the fridge for up to 5 days.
To reheat, cover tightly with foil to prevent drying and put in the oven for around 15 minutes. Alternatively, strip the garlic-infused chicken from the bone and use in a peri peri wrap or chicken sandwich. Or top a meat-free soup like Tuscan chickpea or Harvest minestrone for an extra protein boost.
More chicken recipes to try
- Chicken with Garlic Mushroom Sauce
- Chicken and Green Peas in Cream Sauce
- Tuscan Chicken with Saffron Cream Sauce
- Creamy Chicken Stroganoff with Mushrooms
Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic
Ingredients
- 6 chicken thighs
- Salt to taste
- 1 tbsp This is an affiliate link.olive oil
- 40 cloves garlic, approximately 3 large or 4 small heads of garlic
- 3-4 sprigs thyme, or 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 2 shallots, cut into quarters
- 125ml / 1/2 cup dry white wine
Instructions
- Start by peeling the garlic (even better if you can buy already peeled cloves). Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Season the chicken thighs with salt and brown them in hot olive oil until the skin is golden but not cooked all the way through. Ideally you should should a pan for frying that could later go in the oven and has a lid. Alternatively you can choose a roasting dish and cover it with tin foil. Once the chicken thighs are browned, remove them to a separate plate.
- Lay the shallot quarters and half of the cloves of garlic together with the thyme sprigs on the bottom of the baking dish. Top them with the chicken thighs, then add scatter the rest of the garlic cloves all over and pour the white wine over everything.
- Cover with a lid and cook in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, then uncover and cook for for 20 minutes longer or until the chicken skin is golden and the chicken juices run clear once pierced with a knife.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
