Garlic Chicken In A Pot

Another keeper from The New York Times! We liked this Garlic Chicken Recipe on a cold night.

Garlic Chicken In A Pot

New York Times

WHEN I was just starting out in the kitchen -- a young woman with expensive pots, no experience and an ambition to cook in the grand manner -- a friend of mine, an older, wiser man who had notched decades behind a stove, gave me this advice: ''Before you attempt soufflés and flambés,'' he said, ''master one no-matter-what recipe.''

My friend's definition of a no-matter-what recipe was simple: it was a dish that would be good no matter what the occasion (and with whom you were sharing it); no matter what you added or subtracted (No potatoes? Skip them or use turnips) and no matter what little mistakes you made (like forgetting it in the oven for an extra half hour).

The foolproof recipe I chose, which I have been playing theme-and-variation with ever since, is chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. It is a version of the time-honored chicken in a pot, in which the entire meal -- chicken, vegetables and resulting sauce -- is cooked in a pot and, if you like, served in the pot, the better to keep all those dunkable cooking juices hot. It is a dish made for crusty bread and a lot of wine, and one for which the term comfort food might have been invented.

The first chicken in a pot I made came from Richard Olney's cookbook ''Simple French Food'' (Atheneum, 1974). Mr. Olney, an American painter who moved to Provence and became an almost cult culinary figure, gives a recipe for garlic chicken, instructing the cook to put a cut-up chicken in a casserole with 40 cloves of unpeeled garlic, two-thirds of a cup of olive oil, salt, pepper, dried herbs and a bouquet garni.

The casserole is sealed with a flour-and-water paste and slid into a 350 degree oven to cook for one hour and 45 minutes. When the seal is broken at the table, that first puff of fragrant steam is intoxicating.

I loved that dish. I could put it together blindfolded in 10 minutes and it was always delicious. But it became even more delicious when I started tweaking it. One day I added potatoes, the next carrots. When I had leeks, they went into the pot, as did green beans, red peppers, shallots, celery root, parsnips or fresh herbs. Sometimes I would add one vegetable, sometimes lots more.

I was certain I had savored garlic chicken in every guise imaginable when I came across a version by Antoine Westermann, the Michelin three-star chef from Alsace, France. In his incarnation, the chicken is whole, and it and the vegetables are browned before they are nestled in the pot. The liquid for the dish is white wine, chicken broth and olive oil, the herbs are fresh, and everything is enlivened by small squares of zest from a salt-preserved lemon, a genius addition to the recipe. This dish looked better than the original when the lid was lifted, and the lid was lifted in less time: Mr. Westermann's chicken cooks at 450 degrees for just 55 minutes. I dabbled with the new recipe as well, and I realized again how flexible this dish is. There are five variables -- the pot, the chicken, the vegetables, the liquid and the temperature -- and if you stay close to the spirit of the original with each, the recipe will be a success.

For the pot, look for heft and a lid. My favorite chicken-in-a-pot pot is Le Creuset's casserole made of enameled cast iron, but any lidded Dutch oven or large heavy pot, even an earthenware casserole, will do.

Your choices for the chicken are basic: whole or cut up. I think a whole bird looks a little dressier than pieces, but a whole chicken needs to be quartered before serving, while pieces go from oven to table nonstop. Pieces have another advantage: You can fit more than one chicken in a pot. Whichever you choose, you can brown the chicken before you cook it -- or not.

The vegetables are the most variable of variables, both in terms of kind and quantity. In general, root and hearty vegetables are best for this dish; think carrots, potatoes (white or sweet), some kind of onions (shallots or cippoline or quartered yellow onions), turnips, parsnips, celery root, winter squash or artichoke hearts (peeled Jerusalem artichokes work well, too).

I tend to go overboard on the vegetables because I like the way they cook to a sweet, caramely softness and am happy to have double-size portions to spoon out.

Of course, you can also follow Richard Olney's recipe, which has no vegetables (although artichokes are an option).

As for the liquid, you can keep it simple and use just olive oil, or go with my new favorite, Mr. Westermann's oil, broth and wine mélange. Similarly, I've decided I like Mr. Westermann's high-temperature cooking method. In fact, I liked everything about Mr. Westermann's rendition of my beloved chicken in the pot so much that the instant I read the recipe, I ditched my plans for dinner that night and made his dish.

As I passed a plate to a friend, he said, ''Doesn't this remind you of Richard Olney's garlic chicken? I think you should call it garlic chicken, the next generation.''

He was right, but if it is the next generation of anything, for me it is the next generation of a great no-matter-what recipe.

INGREDIENTS

½ salt-preserved lemon, rinsed well (see note)

¼ cup sugar

⅓ cup olive oil

16 small peeled potatoes (white or sweet) or 2 large peeled potatoes, each cut into 8 pieces

16 small onions or shallots, peeled and trimmed

8 carrots, peeled and quartered

4 stalks celery, trimmed and quartered

4 heads garlic, cloves separated but not peeled

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3 sprigs fresh thyme

3 sprigs Italian parsley

2 sprigs rosemary

1 chicken, whole or cut up

1 cup chicken broth

½ cup white wine

About 1 1/2 cups flour

PREPARATION

1.   Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Remove zest from preserved lemon and cut zest into small squares; save pulp for another use. Bring 1 cup water and the sugar to a boil, drop in zest and cook 1 minute; drain and set aside.

2.   Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add vegetables and garlic, season with salt and pepper and sauté until brown on all sides. (If necessary, do this in 2 batches.) Spoon vegetables into a 4 1/2- to 5-quart lidded Dutch oven and stir in herbs and lemon zest.

3.   Return skillet to heat, add another tablespoon of oil and brown chicken on all sides, seasoning it with salt and pepper as it cooks. Tuck chicken into casserole, surrounding it with vegetables. Mix together the broth, wine and remaining olive oil and pour it over chicken and vegetables.

4.   Mix flour with enough hot water (about 3/4 cup) to make a malleable dough. On a floured surface, work dough into a sausage; place dough on rim of casserole. Press lid onto dough to seal casserole. Bake 55 minutes. To break seal, work the point of a screwdriver between pot and lid. If chicken is whole, quarter it. Chicken may be served in the pot or arranged with vegetables on a serving platter.