Did you know that garlic is characteristic for France? Widely used in French cuisine, can buy smoked, fresh, green, violet, pink, giant and all sorts of garlic at most markets throughout France. They even have garlic mayonnaise! That must be delicious! Personally I’m a big fan of garlic especially the way it’s prepared in this dish. Slowly roasted unpeeled garlic cloves gets caramelized, and they loose most of its sharp, and for some people unpleasant, taste. They get rich, deep, mellow flavour and almost velvety texture. If you have never tried to prepare garlic this way, I urge you to do it. Juicy chicken with golden skin in this case is like a side dish, because garlic is a star 😉

There’s no need to talk a lot about helth benefits that comes from garlic. It’s well known natural antibiotic, it imroves cholesterol levels, lowers blood pressure. According to study published in “Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy” garlic is 100 times more effective than two popular antibiotics in fighting the Campylobacter bacterium, which is one of the most common causes of intestinal infections.

So if you feel so-so, instead of going to the pharmacy, buy a chicken and bunch of garlic to prepare this recipe.

 

juicy chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

INGREDIENTS

• whole chicken (my was about 2 kg)
• 40 cloves of garlic (it’s about 3 bulbs)
• 2 tsp natural rock salt
• 1 tsp coarse pepper
• 60 g clarified butter or coconut oil

DIRECTIONS

Dry chicken with paper towel. Remove the rump and neck (or leave if you like).

Divide garlic bulbs, but leave the cloves unpeeled – garlic will beautifully bake in peels. Melt the butter in a small pot and add salt and pepper, mix to dissolve the salt. Put some cloves of garlic on the bottom of heat-resistant dish, then place the chicken. Grease it with butter inside and outside. Then stuff the chicken with the rest of garlic cloves and tie the legs. Pour 1 glass of water (about 250 ml) and cover dish with lid.

Preheated the oven (180ºC with fan and about 200ºC without fan) and roast chicken first with the lid, and then take off the lid and roast until chicken will be golden-brown. From time to time check if there’s enough water, add some if needed. Roast for about 1 hour for every kilogram of chicken. It took me about 2 hours and 20 minutes, but first 100 minutes I’ve left the lid on, and next 40 minutes uncovered, but I’ve reduced temperature to 160ºC with fan (170-180ºC without fan). Everything depends of the oven.

Chicken should be juicy and tender, it’s always better to a little bit overcook than wrestle with hard meat. You can bake chicken in the oven in high temperatures, but always remember to bake under cover, not to dry the meat. Remove the lid just to make the skin crispy and brown.

Serve with green leaves salad, coleslaw will be great as well. Leftovers of garlic you can use on the next day and spread it on toast (if you eat bread) or on keto alternatives. Enjoy!