40 Clove Garlic Chicken

This is the first French dish I learnt to make. My best friend from college took me home for a holiday out in beautiful but smoggy Pomona, CA. His mother made this for dinner one night and I finally ate the dish my friend talked so much about. Since then I have had this in many homes, in North America as well as in France. An ideal dish for company, minimum fuss. I have seen a lot of gourmet up recipes on the web, adding wine, cream and what not, but why mess with a classic home cook recipe. As the name suggest, 40 cloves of garlic, separated but with the skin still on, are put into a heated heavy pot with a little salt, pepper and olive oil and then a salt and peppered chicken is put into the pot. Sprinklewith a couple hand fulls of green herbs and bake at 425℉ for an hour. The result is a perfectly roasted chicken infused with mild but deep garlic and herb flavour. Sauce come naturally in the bottom of the pot and you have 40 cloves of nicely roasted garlic to boot. Alain Senderen has a similarly basic recipe in his book so who am I to argue with the master. He seals the pot with dough but I don't bother. I take part of the sauce and some of the garlic and mix them into couscous. French as can be.