Chicken with 100 garlic cloves (2014)

After the peverada presented by Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani of Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia, we take another trip in time with Voghiera Garlic POD. The gentle and hardly pungent flavour of the bulb from Ferrara in this case becomes the keystone of the Chicken with 100 garlic cloves, a historic recipe taken from a famous author of great French tradition.

«I read about it», author Misha Sukyas, chef at L’Alchimista in Milan explains «in Antonello Tagliabue’s archives, when he was the chef at Bice in London. The recipe had been drafted by the great Georges Auguste Escoffier. I fell in love with it right away, for two reasons: it uses chicken as a whole and the Voghiera garlic, after the maceration, bestows an intense flavour, and an unprecedented sweetness. It’s blast». A blast prepared with 21st century techniques for an early 20th century recipe, also using spices from faraway: «Coconut milk, curry. Oriental ingredients with which, in my opinion, every chef should already start to come to terms with». Let’s see how, in this case.

Chicken with garlic and subcutaneous herbs, with a coconut and Madras curry gelatine, yogurt hung up aromatised with smoked paprika and a cream made with the same garlic used for the cooking, sauce and beetroot acrylic and meat sauce base

Recipe for 2 people

INGREDIENTS
for the chicken
1 free range chicken
50 Voghiera garlic cloves
10 g thyme
10 g rosemary
salt to taste

for the coconut milk gelatine
0,5 l coconut milk
2 g Madras curry
2 g agar-agar

for the balsamic beetroot drops
100 g beetroot
2 g Modena Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 g potato starch (better if extracted directly from the potato)
Salt

for the cooking base
30 g celery
20 g carrot
15 g leek
0,5 l pinot noir
2 dried bay leaves

Yogurt hung up
0,5 l white yogurt
6 g smoked paprika

METHOD
Carefully lift the skin of the chicken, paying attention not to break it or make holes. Insert the Voghiera garlic cloves – previously cut into halves and removed of their heart. Repeat the same procedure for the herbs: after plucking, insert the branches in the abdominal cavity of the chicken. Put the chicken into the oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes (or until the skin is golden). Meanwhile, bring the coconut milk to the boil, together with the curry and the agar-agar, pour the mixture into a baking tin, so as to reach a thickness of about 1 mm and leave to cool at room temperature for about 10 minutes then cut it into 10x15 cm rectangle.

Blend the beetroot, previously boiled and peeled, strain it so as to obtain its water and mix it with the Balsamic Vinegar. Insert the mixture into a saucepan, adding the potato starch and let it coagulate while constantly whisking it to avoid any lumps. Remove the chicken from the oven, separate the breast from the legs, removing the herbs and Voghiera garlic from the space created between skin and meat.

Use the legs to create a sauce and add the wine and vegetables previously brought to the boil and reduced to a creamy texture. Dice the breast and leave to rest next to a source of heat for about 6-7 minutes. Meanwhile, blend the garlic used to cook the chicken and strain it so it becomes a rather thick purée. Strain the yogurt, seasoned with the smoked paprika, in a kitchen cloth, so as to separated it from its whey – the texture should be then similar to that of a ricotta. Serve as in the photo.