Trick-or-eat Treats

Here’s my favourite halloweenie excerpt from my very-own just-released Kitchen Scraps: A humorous illustrated cookbook

Vampire Slayer’s Garlic-Laced Chicken

When it comes to handling vampire chickens, it isn’t enough to just chop off their heads . . . they’ll just keep running around. Well, a headless vampire chicken isn’t much of a threat considering the fangs are in the beak, but they can still make a big mess with the feathers and blood squirting all over.

The only way to deal with it is to pump it full of garlic, which happens to be a very delicious way of preparing any kind of night fowl creature. Variations on the popular recipe “Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic” is actually an excellent way to deal with any kind of poultry, and any cut of poultry, and will help keep all varieties of vampires away.

6 heads of garlic, a glug of olive oil, and salt for roasting

2 free-range chicken breasts, skin-on

salt and pepper to season chicken

1 tsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp butter

1 shallot, minced

1 glass of white wine

1/2 cup heavy cream

salt and pepper for sauce

small handful of parsley, finely chopped

1 sprig of tarragon, leaves only, finely chopped

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

First roast your garlic. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Trim off the pointy top to expose the cloves. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, wrap it in foil, and blap it in the oven for 45-55 minutes. Set aside to cool while you prepare the chicken. When cool, squeeze out the cloves. 

Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper.

Get a large ovenproof frying pan (all metal, no plastic) over medium heat. When the pan is hot, dribble in the oil, place the chicken breasts skin side down, and just leave it to let the skin get golden and crispy, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Flip the chicken and immediately transfer the pan to the oven to roast for 10 to 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

Prep the rest of the ingredients, which are for the sauce, including squeezing out all the cloves of roasted garlic into a bowl and picking out the stray bits of papery garlic skin.

When the chicken is done, remove the pan from the oven and transfer the chicken to a plate to rest. Using an oven mitt, get the pan back on the stove over high heat to start making the sauce. (Be careful as the handle will stay hot for a long time.) Add the butter to the residual chicken fat and quickly sweat the shallots until translucent.

Add the white wine and cook until the boozy smell evaporates. Add the roasted garlic and roughly mush with a fork to incorporate it with the sauce. Pour in the heavy cream, along with juices from the plate where the chicken is resting, and reduce to thicken the sauce. Remove it from the heat, adjust the flavour with salt and pepper to taste, and finish by mixing in the herbs right before you spoon it generously over the plated chicken.

Serve with big chunks of baguette to sop up the sloppy sauce or simple boiled potatoes.

Will slay the hunger of 2 hungry slayers.