Saturday, December 19, 2009

Master Recipe: Roast Chicken and Garlic Puree

So the last 2 weeks I did another Master Recipe like I had done a few weeks ago. This time it was with chicken. 2 big chickens. I thought we would get sick of chicken but the recipes were varied enough that we didn't. Pretty good ones, too. This is from the Working Mother Cookbook. Like before, I will post the master recipe first, then the meals you make from the chicken.

Master Recipe: Roast Chicken and Garlic Puree
2 whole chickens (about 6 lb each)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
8 large heads garlic
1 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 450. Rinse chickens; pat dry. Trim off excess fat at tail and neck ends (much easier said than done--those chickens didn't want to give up any fat). Season cavity and outside of chicken with salt and pepper; place breast side down on racks in 2 roasting pans or 1 extra-large roasting pan (I managed to squeeze mine into one turkey-sized roasting pan. They were a bit crowded but didn't complain at all). Rub garlic heads with oil and place in pan alongside chickens. Roast chickens and garlic 1 hour and 10 minutes, until juices run clear when thigh is pierced with a fork (mine took almost 2 hours, and I judged doneness by a meat thermometer, not by the ambiguous "juices clear" method). Remove from oven and let cool. When cool enough to handle, separate garlic into cloves; squeeze pulp out of each clove into a small bowl. Mash with fork. Remove meat from chickens and shred; discard skin and bones (or try to make your own stock from it--more on that later). You should have 1 cup of garlic puree and 13 cups of chicken meat.

Obviously the chicken is fairly straightforward and even I can't find much to comment on about that. As for the garlic puree, I am never making my own again. It took very long to squeeze the pulp out of the roasted garlic, and my kitchen smelled of garlic for longer than I was comfortable with. Garlic in a jar, or garlic via my garlic press, or even artificial garlic spread from a store, is much more preferable to me than doing that ever again.

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