40 Clove Garlic Chicken

What do you do when you have a roasting chicken in the freezer that you got BOGO free and 5 bulbs of garlic from your father? Stink for days, that's what! I was intrigued by the idea of 40 clove chicken when I saw it on an episode of Good Eats a few years ago, but never had that much garlic to potentially waste. So with this garlic and chicken windfall, this was the time. I looked up a few recipes, including AB's, and merged them into what sounded good to me. And it was so good, and so easy, I may only make roast chicken this way from now on. If you decide to make this chicken, be sure to have a fresh loaf of french bread and a few days to sit around and stink of garlic without anyone noticing. It will be worth it!

1 chicken ( a broiler/fryer or roaster. Mine was a 7 lb roaster)
1/2 cup olive oil, plus a splash
poulty seasoning, or salt, pepper, and thyme
About 40 cloves of garlic, peeled. I used 3 bulbs.

Preheat oven to 400F. Wash chicken and pat dry. Place in roaster and rub with a splash (about 1 to 2 TBS) olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning. Roast for 15 minutes, while you peel the garlic. This will brown the skin a bit. Remove from oven. Turn oven down to 375F. Pour 1/2 cup olive oil over chicken. Place garlic cloves in bottom of roaster all around the chicken.

Cover with aluminum foil. If you have a fancy Le Creuset chicken roaster with a lid, that would be even better. Roast until chicken reaches 165F in thigh. This will be about 20 to 25 minutes per pound. I roasted my 7 pound chicken for 2 hours and it was fully cooked and the meat was releasing from the bones.

My favorite way to eat this was to take a clove of garlic and smear it over my piece of chicken breast and serve with french bread to smear with more garlic, with a steamed vegetable on the side.