Mr. Shuffler was visiting last week so that meant I got to flex my cooking muscles. We decided to visit a past triumph: chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. We found the original recipe in an LCBO Food & Drink magazine a few years back but for some reason, that recipe is one of the few that is not archived online.
We started by stuffing about 20 unpeeled garlic cloves into the cavity of a whole chicken (we splurged on a “traditionally raised” one). We then rubbed the bird down with olive oil and sprinkled it with dried thyme. We then covered the bottom of an ovenproof pot with unpeeled garlic cloves and rested the chicken, breast-side up on the garlic. Some recipes suggest that you brown the chicken first with olive oil before putting it in the oven but I think that’s a largely aesthetic choice. We baked the chicken for about 1.5 hours at 350F. The Internet informed me that it is safe to eat once a meat thermometer inserted in the thigh reaches 170F. When it’s done, let it rest about 10 minutes before carving.
The wonderful thing about this recipe is that after 1.5 hours in the oven, the garlic cloves become very soft and much, much less pungent. You can spread them on bread and have instant garlic bread.
For the sweet potatoes, I cut and peeled two large ones, cut them into chunks and then tossed them with olive oil, thyme, rosemary and just a little bit of salt. They were then baked for one hour at 350.
The spinach salad is a recipe that we tried at Play restaurant several years ago. Start by toasting 2-3 tbsp of pine nuts in a frying pan; this should take about 5 minutes or so if the pan is hot when you start. Set aside. Wilt about 250g of spinach (half of a large container). Mr. Shuffler is an expert spinach-wilter but I’m learning. The trick is to take the spinach off the heat as soon as just a little bit wilts. The pan will stay hot and so the rest of the spinach will wilt shortly thereafter. Sprinkle the wilted spinach with the toasted pine nuts and 2-3 tbsp of raisins.
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