20 Cloves Chicken

Garlic is a very potent natural healer (antibiotic, anti-fungal, anti-parasitic, and anti-viral), but it's not the easiest thing to eat raw - which is the best way to get the medicinal benefits. We want our children to eat a lot of garlic, especially during the cold and flu season, and, fortunately, there are lots of good recipes out there for cooked garlic. Here's another good one. With 20 cloves in the recipe, there's some for everyone!

---

If you're going to cook your garlic but you still want the health benefits that it offers, you need to let it sit out for 10-15 minutes after you have crushed, sliced, or diced it. This allows the healing compound, allicin, to get strong enough to withstand the heat of cooking. Cooking it too soon removes the allicin. So before you start with the rest of the recipe, I suggest that you prepare the garlic first.

This is the easiest way that I've found to peel garlic. Place your garlic on a cutting board and lay the blade of your butcher knife (or other wide-bladed knife) flat over the garlic.

Holding the knife handle with one hand, make a fist with the other hand and give two quick, hard taps on the side of the knife blade. Be sure not to keep your fingers under the handle. Not a good idea. .

This usually causes the peel to loosen and come off very easily. It also crushes the garlic well, which is what you want for this recipe.

Repeat this process with all of your garlic and set it aside to get stronger. This may look like a lot of garlic, but I doubled the recipe for my family. I had to peel 40 cloves of garlic!

---

Now preheat the oven to 400 degrees (Fahrenheit). Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. I know the recipe says to use bones skinless breasts, but you can use any pieces you like. I really like cooking with bone-in thighs. Don't ask me why :) 

Once seasoned, arrange the pieces in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil. For this, I pour the olive oil into a condiment bottle that has a narrow top. The bottles that the olive oil come in seem to pour out too much at once.  

The next step in the recipe says to scatter the garlic cloves over the chicken. Now if there's one lesson I learned with this dish, it's that it's better to put the garlic cloves in the bottom of the pan. The next time, I might even put them in the pan first and put the chicken on top. Garlic on top of the chicken just gets too dry. The garlic in the pan with the juices? Mmmmmmmm!!!! So this picture - forget it. Trust me. Put the garlic where it will be in the juices when the baking is done.

---

Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and bake uncovered for 10 minutes longer.

With my second pan of chicken, I sprinkled paprika over the top along with the parsley. This gives it a pretty red tone. (The flavor's not too bad, either.)

Now just in case you're wondering about this nice little side dish, that's Stuffed Zucchini Boats. They're also in the Pieces of the Past Cookbook. I'll be posting a blog about them next!

---

20 Cloves Chicken

Ingredients:
6-8 bones, skinless chicken breasts
20 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. ground pepper
1 tsp. coarse sea salt
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
paprika for garnish (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit. Season chicken with sea salt and pepper. Arrange pieces in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Drizzle with oil. Scatter garlic cloves over chicken. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley (and paprika if using) and bake uncovered for 10 minutes longer. Serve pan drippings over rice.