Classic French chicken dish embraces garlic — 40 cloves of it

Meredith Deeds | Star Tribune (TNS)

It’s easy to see why a recipe that starts with 40 cloves of garlic might appear suspect. Most recipes that include garlic call for somewhere between two and six cloves, so 40 would seem like an insane amount. Trust me, it’s not.

Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic is actually a classic Provençal dish, first made popular on our shores by famed food writer James Beard, who insisted that you count out the cloves to ensure you were using the correct number.

Once you try it, you’ll immediately understand why Beard didn’t want anyone to skimp on the star ingredient.

Cooking the whole cloves slowly, alongside the chicken, takes all the bite out of them and turns them soft and sweet. They’re perfect for spreading, like butter, onto good-quality bread.

This recipe starts by boiling the garlic cloves briefly in water, which accomplishes two things: It helps to easily peel the cloves and it starts the cooking ...