Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

Do you know what instantly brightens a grey day,  a work day, a Wednesday, a Tuesday or practically any day?

Food.

Food that comes hot from the oven; so mouth-wateringly full of flavour that it sedates all of the world’s troubles, leaving the diner left in a comatose state of food induced euphoria.

A few weeks ago a plate of Chiles en Nogada managed to achieve this effect. I was slightly disheartened about leaving Mexico, but on my last day at the Spanish school we were given a cookery class. The teacher whisked her way around the kitchen, ordering people to chop almonds, stir sauces and fry peppers until suddenly, the cooking was complete. I was presented with a plate of peppers stuffed with a delicious fruity mince, fried and covered with a cheesy yet sweet sauce. It sounds unusual, but trust me, it was the defining meal of my trip. Heaven. Food euphoria really is a wonderful thing, is it not?

Now I’ll take you across the Atlantic to Yorkshire. Fresh out of Mexico I headed up to the North of England for a week’s holiday with the family. From tacos and tomales to Fish and Chips and fry-ups, the change of cuisine was dramatic yet welcomed. There is not an experience that shouts more loudly, ‘Welcome Home!’ than eating fish and chips in a warm restaurant, the grey seafront looming outside. So the delicious fish supper we enjoyed at the famous ‘Magpie Cafe’ was another example of how good food can welcome, satisfy and define what home means to us.

Then of course, there was this evening. After excitedly deciding last night that I would take part in The Random Recipe Challenge, hosted by Dom at the wonderful http://belleaukitchen.blogspot.com/, I set my mind on narrowing down my favourite cookbook (the rules of the challenge are that each blogger picks a favourite cookbook and cooks a recipe from it, chosen at random). Which book defines home for me? Which cook is capable of creating recipes that consistently bring on a case of food euphoria? Well, it could be no one else than Nigella Lawson, with her absolutely mouth-watering book, ‘Kitchen’. I got my Mum to randomly choose a recipe.  Her fingers’ decisively stopped the flying pages at ‘Chicken With Forty Cloves of Garlic’. We breathed a sigh of relief. Luckily for both my Mum and I, we love garlic and we love chicken – fabulous. Unfortunately however, my sister doesn’t like garlic, which is quite unfortunate when a dish contains enough of the stuff to ensure Dracula, Robert Pattinson and any other pesky vampires steer well clear of the house for a good few weeks. As it turns out though, she loved this meal.

In fact, we all loved this meal. The garlic almost melted into the chicken juices, taking on a sweet, mellow, mouth watering taste. The smell while the chicken was in the oven was in fact almost as good as the eating. Mmm, sublime. I served it with a green salad and roasted new potatoes but Nigella suggests crusty bread and green beans.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons regular olive oil
• 8 chicken thighs (with skin on and bone in), preferably organic
• 1 bunch or 6 spring onions
• 8 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme
• 40 cloves garlic (approximately 3 to 4 heads), unpeeled
• 2 tablespoons dry white vermouth or white wine
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt flakes salt or 3/4 teaspoons table salt
• Good grinding pepper

Unfortunately however, I feel that I won’t be able to forget this dish for a long time, what with the eau de garlic emanating from everybody in the house. However, you know what makes it all worth it? The memory of sinking into the comforting embrace of happiness, of food euphoria…