Garlic chicken casserole recipe

Image courtesy of goodtoknow.com

Garlic lovers unite. This recipe is warming and filling, making it perfect for cold winter nights. The best bit is that it is affordable to make. Serves 2. Not advised for a first date.

Ingredients: Vegetable or sunflower oil 4 Chicken thighs 1 Bunch of spring onions, thinly sliced 2 Tbsp of dried thyme 2 Bulbs of garlic Small glass of white wine (If you don’t want to use wine, you can use chicken stock) Salt and pepper New potatoes to serve (amount dependent on person)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180˚C. Then heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a wide, shallow pan over high heat. If you have a pan that can go in the oven, use it! It will save you some washing up. 2. Fry the chicken, skin side down, for a few minutes until it starts to brown, then turn it over and brown the underside. When the thighs are browned take them out of the pan and put them in a bowl. 3. Fry the spring onions and thyme in the same pan for about a minute then turn off the heat. 4. If you have used an ovenproof pan, keep the spring onions and thyme in it. If you did not, transfer everything from your pan into a deep roasting tin. 5. Take your two bulbs of garlic and separate the cloves. Make sure to remove all the outer skin, but make sure you do not peel the inner skin of the garlic. Scatter half of the unpeeled cloves of garlic around the roasting tin or pan. Put the chicken in, with the skin side facing up and top with the rest of the garlic. 6. Pour the wine or chicken stock into the bowl you used to hold the browned chicken and then pour it over the casserole. Season with salt and pepper, cover with tin foil (or if your pan has a lid, use this) and cook in the oven for 1 ½ hour.

7. Whilst the chicken cooks, you can start on the potatoes (the amount you use will depend on how hungry you are). Take your new potatoes and chop them to roughly even sizes. You do not need to chop them all, only the larger ones. Boil them in salted water until they are soft – this should take around 15 minutes. Once they are soft, drain them and spread them out on a baking tray. 8. Cover them in oil and season with salt and pepper, making sure they are all evenly coated in the oil. Once they are seasoned and oiled, crush the potatoes. There are two ways you can do this. The first way is to gently crush each potato with a potato masher (this is how my mum tells me to do it). The second way, which I prefer, is to take a second baking tray and lay it over the top of the potatoes and press down, crushing all the potatoes at once. They are now ready to go in the oven but do not put them in until 25 minutes before the chicken is done as they only take this long to cook.

Once the chicken and potatoes are cooked, serve and enjoy with some French bread. If you feel like this dish needs some vegetables, broccoli and/or green beans are ideal.