Roast Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic + Oven Roasted Potatoes

This moreish Provençal favourite will surprise you with how mild and creamy the garlic becomes after its long roasting. It does sound frighteningly overpowering but, as anyone who has ever roasted garlic knows, the cloves mellow and sweeten in the oven until, when you come to serve, the creamy flesh that is squeezed from the skins is quite different from the raw clove.

Feel free to use as many cloves as you want because any leftover roasted garlic cloves can be peeled and used to make a simple garlic mayonnaise known as aïoli.

Roasted Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic + Oven Roasted Potatoes Recipe

Ingredients

3 bulbs garlic
60 g butter, soften
1.5 kg whole chicken
2 tsp salt
2 tsp cracked black pepper
1 cup (250 ml) white wine or water

Oven Roasted Potatoes:
1 kg baby new potatoes
Cooking-oil spray

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Separate cloves from garlic bulb, leaving peel intact.
3. Rub butter over outside of chicken and inside cavity; press combined salt and pepper onto skin and inside cavity.
4. Place half of the garlic inside cavity; tie legs together with kitchen string.
5. Place remaining garlic cloves, in single layer, in medium baking dish; place chicken on garlic.
6. Pour the water carefully into dish; roast, uncovered, brushing occasionally with pan juices, about 1 hour 20 minutes or until browned and cooked through.
7. Meanwhile, make oven roasted potatoes: Boil, steam or microwave potatoes 5 minute; drain. Pat dry with absorbent paper; cool 10 minutes. Place potatoes, in single layer, in large oiled baking dish; spray with cooking-oil spray. Roast alongside chicken for the last 30 minutes of its cooking time or until potatoes are tender.
8. Stand chicken on platter, covered with foil, 15 minutes before serving with roasted garlic and potatoes.