ACCIDENTALLY DELICIOUS

G as in Girls Night,  G as in Garlic

Girls’ night, I LOVE this tradition. What could be more fun than to get together with a bunch of girlfriends at one of our homes – maybe introduce some new fun ladies to each other – eat and drink ourselves silly, listen to the Beach Boys, the best of Buffalo Springfield and maybe talk trash….


Recipe: Chicken with White Wine, Vermouth & 40 Cloves of Garlic
Adapted from The Treasury of Creative Cooking (1992)

On this particular night, I made my life a little easier by actually ALLOWING some of my guests to brings some stuff to eat, all made from scratch, of course…like Val’s amazing salad with citrus and a taste-bud-tingling vinaigrette made from the freshest ingredients and olive oil…and Deborah-the-jam-lady’s take-your-breath-away dessert, compliments of the Silver Palate cookbook, a banana and figs cake with cream cheese frosting, topped with pine nuts and itty-bitty piloncillos (Mexican brown sugar, sort of).

Now, I have many shortcomings in Life, but I have been spared a craving for sweets…so when I ask somebody for a dessert recipe, trust me, it really is something special. And BTW, I’ll share it with you, if I can score a copy for myself. Just email me, andreajupina@gmail.com

Anyway, as usual with my dinner parties, I was aching to try out some new recipes. Somebody somewhere once said that you should never do this, that you should always try out a new recipe beforehand. Yeah, right. Well, I figure that having some friends over is my best shot at trying out a new recipe. Otherwise I’ll probably never get around to it. I simply WARN my guests that they are guinea pigs. Most of them admit to being a member of the same club anyway.

They do the same thing! Rule breakers, rebels, all…bird of a feather flock together.

For a first course, I decided to test drive a recipe for asparagus pesto, which Mark Bittman wrote about in the New York Times. It was a very clever if not downright inspired idea.

He simply used a pound of asparagus – cooked for about 7-8 minutes – instead of basil and herbs. Everything else was the same as for “normal” pesto – olive oil, garlic, good parmesan cheese, pine nuts.
I cooked up some pasta al dente – one made in Italy, which is always the best pasta – and voila – first course a hit.

Our main course was something I’ve been aching to try for ages, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Over the years, I’d heard two things: one, that it’s delicious! And two, that it’s not as garlicky as you’d think.

This is because you use WHOLE cloves of garlic. When you chop or press garlic, its very pungent oil is released. I scoped out a couple of recipes. The one on www.epicurious.com was rated 4 forks and go rave reviews. But in the end I tried another recipe.

This one – founds in a friend’s old cookbook – had booze in it! What can I tell you; there was no photocopy machine in my friend’s house. It was a long recipe BUT it looked good, I painstakingly wrote down every word by hand.

I’m glad I did. It’s quite easy to make, you can make it ahead of time, it reheats beautifully the next day, and it freezes well. As for peeling all that garlic, if you don’t buy a big jug of the whole cloves already peeled – I’ll tell you a simple secret.

I mean, if you can’t coax your honey into doing it for you. And NO, you do NOT flatten the garlic with the blade of a knife. That releases too much oil. Read on…

 Andrea loves good food, at home and out. Contact her at andreajupina@gmail.com about her next cooking class – a fun, social, delicious gathering.