40 Garlic Chicken––or more fancy-like…Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic––is a classic French dish that yes, does involve adding a mind boggling amount of garlic to one chicken dish. The first time I tried it, however, I was surprised at how…not all that garlicky it was. After braising with the chicken, the garlic had a super mellow, sweet flavor that wasn’t at all like the spicy, pungent taste you might get from it when it’s raw (which I happen to also love. Exhibit A: 15-Minute Hot Oil Noodles).
I decided to take a traditional 40 garlic chicken, which may conjure images of pastoral landscapes, ceramic milk jugs, and all other manner of rustic French provencal mise en scène, and Asianify it a little, which I happen to enjoy doing immensely. Truth be told, I didn’t have enough vermouth to make the real thing and decided to substitute some of it with Shaoxing wine. I thought, “eh, why not get crazy and throw a little soy sauce in there while I’m at it?” Which I promptly did. And because I didn’t have any parsley or thyme, I ended up using cilantro to garnish the dish at the very end. And so it was.
You’ll want to try this one.
If, by any chance, you don’t much look forward to the prospect of peeling 40 cloves of garlic, I’ll have you know that I did it. I stood there with my knife and my increasingly garlicky fingers, smashing and peeling all 40 cloves (well, 38. I happen to not like the number 4. Which is a dislike instilled in me from a young age by Chinese grandparents. Don’t ask.). After the fact, however, I discovered this video, which shows you how to peel it all in less than 10 seconds. And then I was mad.
But not too mad, because I had a lovely dinner to look forward to.
40 Garlic Chicken Recipe Instructions
Heat oil in a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Rinse the chicken, pat dry, and season with salt and pepper. Brown the chicken on each side until crisp. Preheat your oven to 350° F.
Transfer the chicken to a deep roasting pan or baking dish and set aside. Add the garlic cloves and ginger to the pan where you cooked the chicken; cook until caramelized, about 8 minutes.
Add the soy sauce, shaoxing wine, and vermouth, and cook for another 2 minutes, deglazing the pan as you go.
Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Pour over the chicken and transfer to the oven.
Roast for 25-30 minutes, and garnish with cilantro if desired.
Serve this Asian style 40 garlic chicken with a green vegetable and white rice on the side!
The garlic in this 40 clove garlic chicken taste caramelized, mellow and very flavorful!
If you prefer using boneless chicken thighs, see our post on How to debone skin-on chicken thighs and adjust/reduce cooking times accordingly.
40 Garlic Chicken with an Asian Twist
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 4 lbs chicken pieces (bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, thighs, or legs)
- salt and pepper (to taste)
- 40 cloves garlic (peeled)
- 3 slices ginger
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1/4 cup shaoxing wine (60 ml)
- 1/4 cup dry vermouth (60 ml)
- 2/3 cup chicken stock (160 ml)
- small handful of cilantro
Instructions
- Heat oil in a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Rinse the chicken, pat dry, and season with salt and pepper. Brown the chicken on each side until crisp. Preheat your oven to 350° F.
- Transfer the chicken to a deep roasting pan or baking dish and set aside. Add the garlic cloves and ginger to the pan where you cooked the chicken; cook until caramelized, about 8 minutes.
- Add the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, and vermouth, and cook for another 2 minutes, deglazing the pan as you go. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Pour over the chicken and transfer to the oven. Roast for 25-30 minutes, and garnish with cilantro.
I made this dish for dinner last night and it was great. I really like the cilantro topping. A little burst of flavor on a traditional French dish.
I made this for just my wife and I, so I cut down the recipe (1 1/2# chicken) to 21 Garlic Chicken. I had fun with the peeling tip on your link to the SAVEUR website.
So glad you enjoyed it Craig!
Thank you for this awesome blog. Congratulations on the well-deserved Saveur award!! One question regarding this recipe: bake chicken covered or uncovered? Thank you in advance.
Thanks Marianne! We couldn’t have won the award without the votes (and high tolerance for Saveur’s strange registration process) from our readers. : )
The chicken is baked uncovered.
My family said this was the best chicken that I have ever made. Thanks for the recipe!
WHOA. High praise! Thanks for sharing Jeanette!
This sounds so yummy! A twist on chicken sofrito, where the garlic cloves are deep fried, unpeeled. Question: is the oven roasting done covered or uncovered?
PS Love the website!
Hey Mick, roast the chicken uncovered. :)
I just logged onto Saveur and saw you guys won the blog award!! Well deserved, time to celebrate!!!!!!
Thank you so much Ming!
I love the idea of giving this traditional French dish an Asian twist…..genius !
Thanks Gerlinde!
I’m sooo intrigued. I <3 garlic but 40 cloves?! Wait… I'm pretty sure that's at least how much garlic goes into my favourite curry from the Indian restaurant down the road. The only other 40-garlic-clove thing I've seen on the interweb is Smitten Kitchen's soup… I can imagine the garlic flavour would be a lot stronger in that compared to being all caramelised and delicious in this dish!
I was skeptical the first time I tried it too, Hannah, but it’s really good!
I love throwing in whole bulbs of garlic to cook with chicken, people think it’s revolting but they don’t know the joy of peeling off sweet roasted garlic cloves to eat with the chicken. It’s never too garlicky for me
I’m with ya, Selina!
You could invite lots of people and make 80 (or 88?) garlic chicken!
Genius.
mm- i love 40 clove chicken! agree that it’s not the most garlicky thing out there (i love dipping crusty bread into olive oil/balsamic/raw garlic), but there’s something about how sweet and tender the garlic gets that’s really tasty. ditto on the aversion to #4; my mom refused to let me pick any jersey number involving it when i played basketball.
Thanks Heather! Yeah, my anti-#4 tendencies were instilled in me early on as well. haha