A Modified 40-Clove Garlic Chicken Recipe

Baked stuff make regular dishes seem special. You get to present it in a nice dish and when you place it on the dinner table for the family meal time, everybody gets excited. And that is exactly what we had when I made this modified 40-clove garlic chicken recipe.

I saw a friend of mine post a photo of a 40-clove garlic chicken that she did before. So I looked up the recipe online. But what I found included cream. My father-in-law is forbidden to eat dairy products for health reasons, so I did not include it in this dsh.

So here is what I did. It was pretty easy, tasty, and didn’t tire me out in the kitchen. I used the new electric oven that I bought during the SM Store Sale event. The garlic here is the most delicious garlic I have ever had and even my husband agrees.

40-Clove Garlic Chicken Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 whole dressed chicken (1 kg), sliced in half lengthwise
• Rock salt (about 1 Tbsp.) and black pepper
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1/2 cup cooking rice wine
• 1 Tbsp. McCormick dried thyme
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 35 cloves whole garlic, peeled
• 1 Tbsp. honey + 1 Tbsp. maple syrup (you may substitute the maple syrup with honey)
• 2 Tbsps. brown sugar

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Wash the chicken and pat dry. Rub the rock salt and black pepper all over. Let it sit for about 15 minutes.

   

3. Melt butter in a non-stick pan. Fry the chicken on each side for about 5 minutes. This will make the chicken juices come out. Remove from pan and arrange them on a lightly greased baking tin. I used a tin so that the bottom part will be easily cooked.

   

   

4. Pour in the cooking rice wine and add the dried thyme leaves. Add the chopped garlic first and the whole garlic cloves. Stir-fry for about a minute then mix in the honey, maple syrup, and brown sugar. Cook, stirring, for another minute.
5. Drizzle the garlic sauce all over the chicken. Place some garlic on top and on the side.

   

6. Bake for 20 minutes then increase temperature to 205°C, leaving the chicken in the oven for another 20 minutes.

   

7. Open the oven and baste the chicken with the sauces in the pan. Return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.

Chopped or Whole Garlic?

This recipe called for 40 cloves of garlic. But our cook went ahead and chopped some for me without clarifying, hence, we had some chopped garlic. But it was a fluke.

The chopped garlic provided a different texture on the chicken skin. It’s like, it crusted the chicken and it became kind of toasted. Meanwhile, the garlic cloves became sweet, tender, and so flavorful that if your eyes were closed, you wouldn’t think you were eating garlic. We finished all the garlic because it tasted so good and there was no garlic breath afterwards. The whole family loved this chicken dish, even the kids. They ate so much for lunch!

Enjoy this Dish

I wanted to serve this on a bed of buttered corn and mushrooms but didn’t know how the sauce will react with the corn. So I served the side dishes separately. And oh, use the sauces at the bottom of the pan to flavor your rice. Super flavorful!

Anyway, I would like to cook this chicken dish again using choice cuts, like the thigh part for an even cooking time. Feel free to copy this 40-clove garlic chicken recipe and try this at home! Please share this post, too.

Enjoy homecooking! 😀