Slow-braised garlic chicken

Name: Slow-braised garlic chicken
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 2 h
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 2 tbsp. olive oil; 125 g (4oz) chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped; 1 tbsp. freshly chopped thyme; 6 whole chicken legs; 18 slices thinly sliced pancetta; 2 tbsp. plain flour; 25 g (1oz) butter; 18 small shallots, peeled; 12 garlic cloves, unpeeled but split; 750 mL bottle medium white wine, such as chardonnay; 2 bay leaves

This delicious dish, with white wine, shallots and pancetta, can be made up to a month in advance.

By The Good Housekeeping Cookery TeamPublished: 03 November 2007

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Yields:

Prep Time:

30 mins

Cook Time:

2 hrs

Total Time:

2 hrs 30 mins

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. olive oil
125 g (4oz) chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. freshly chopped thyme
6 whole chicken legs
18 slices thinly sliced pancetta
2 Tbsp. plain flour
25 g (1oz) butter
18 small shallots, peeled
12 garlic cloves, unpeeled but split
750 ml bottle medium white wine, such as chardonnay
2 bay leaves

Directions

1. Step 1
  Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan) mark 4. Heat 1tbsp oil in a frying pan and fry the mushrooms and the thyme until all the excess moisture has evaporated and the mixture is quite dry. Season and leave to cool.
2. Step 2
  Loosen the skin away from one chicken leg and spoon a little of the mushroom paste underneath. Season the leg all over, then wrap three pancetta slices around the thigh end. Repeat with remaining chicken legs, then dust using 1tbsp flour.
3. Step 3
  Melt the butter with the remaining 1tbsp olive oil in a frying pan. Keeping the heat high, fry the chicken legs, in batches of two, seam side down, until golden. Turn the legs, brown the other side, then transfer to a deep, ovenproof, lidded pot. The browning process should take a good 8-10min per batch.
4. Step 4
  Next, brown the shallots and garlic in the same frying pan. Sprinkle over the remaining flour and cook for 1min. Pour in the wine. Bring to the boil, stirring, and add to the chicken with the bay leaves. Cover and cook in the oven for 1½hr.
5. Step 5
  Get ahead: make the recipe to the end of step 4. Cool quickly, then freeze in an airtight container for up to a month. To serve, thaw overnight at cool room temperature. Preheat the oven to 220ºC (200ºC fan) mark 7. Return chicken to the ovenproof pot and reheat in the oven for 15min. Reduce oven temperature to 180ºC (160ºC fan) mark 4 and cook for a further 25min.

Per Serving:

Calories: 824
Total carbs: 13 g
Sugars: 7 g
Total fat: 50 g
Saturated fat: 13 g

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The Good Housekeeping Cookery Team

An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).

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