Gloriously garlicky chicken drumsticks

This past weekend was a crazy one, lots of baking, washing and cooking. I made two different types of brownies, mango cakes, gluten-free egg-free wacky cupcakes for my friend K's birthday tea, a gluten-free shortbread that did not turn out, another gluten-free egg-free cookie that was meh, and I also made the most gloriously garlicky oven-roasted chicken drumsticks.

Now I only have one photo for this recipe, but not because it looked ugly or anything. I just was pressed for time. I have also always wanted to take some adorable pictures of garlic to go with this post, but the mango cakes got in the way. However, please do not let the fact that only a single photo accompanies this post to deter you from trying this recipe. I highly recommend it, as it is make-ahead, and the garlicky gooey sauce you get after roasting the drumsticks is literally gold. You will scrap it up and use it for another recipe, your only regret being there weren't more of it.

So, to cut to the chase, this is a recipe that I adapted off of Melissa Clark's In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite. It is from a recipe called "Not-my-grandma's Chicken with Lemon, Garlic, and Oregano." Now, Clark is a consummate chef and food writer, and she has a really great story that comes with this recipe. She makes you laugh and she makes you want to cook and eat. In fact, she makes you want to invite yourself over to her kitchen and stuff yourself silly. I doubled her recipe (her original serves two), ramped up the garlic, and executed a make-over on the preparation so it can be more hands-off for crazy busy days.

Now, before we get to the recipe, a few things about garlic. As we all know, it gives you stinky breath but is so good for you. You can find a ton of recipes online where garlic is used to cure almost everything. I like this page best, especially with the long list of those bad, bad things that garlic can kill or inhibit. And don't miss the author's recipe for a connoisseur’s garlic cocktail, it sounds absolutely alluring. Now, I feel I also need to point out two very important things about garlic. First, always remove the green shoots. I have come across discussion threads wherein this was heavily debated: to remove or not to remove? Some claims it makes no difference at all and a waste of time, while others beg to differ. I am in the "remove" camp.I have not really made any bad experiences with it, but my instinct tells me they ought to be removed. In fact, when I have time (who am I kidding here?) I always remove the shoots, even if they are not green. Something just tells me they are not to be included. And apparently, folks over at Cook's Illustrated had made a test cooking with the green shoots included and reported a bitter metallic taste aftertaste. 

On to some other things about garlic. Garlic contains many valuable phytochemicals with therapeutic effects. However it has been found that the anticancer phytochemicals do not stand up to heat: one minute in the microwave or 45 minutes in the oven (temperature not specified) resulted in complete loss of anti-cancer activities (summary to this research is here). But what is interesting is, when crushed garlic is allowed to stand for 10 minutes prior to heat treatment, some of the anti-cancer activity was retained. I remember being told some years ago by a foodie friend that is is best to mince the garlic and let them stand for about 10 minutes before using to allow crucial compounds to develop, and I guess this was what she meant. And there is a whole body of (mind-boggling) literature out there about how best to attain all the valuable components of garlic, since some of these compounds are oil-soluble, and some water-soluble. In other words, bake it, steam it, use in stir-fry, use it in soup, use it raw, let it air out some, variety is the key.

And now, without further ado, the stinkin' good recipe. I have adapted it such that the garlic paste can be made in a small (5-cup) food processor. You can of course use your good ol' mortar and pestle. It may seem to be a lot of paste but like I mentioned before, you will feel you did not have enough of the cooked garlicky mess after the oven roasting. And if you sometimes buy the ready-peeled garlic cloves (as I do!), the approximately 20 cloves of garlic in this recipe weighs in at about 3 ounces (once I felt I just had to weigh them!).

Oven-roasted garlicky drumsticks

Gloriously garlicky chicken drumsticks

 with thanks to Melissa Clark for recipe inspiration

• 10 chicken drumsticks 
•  3 tsp sea-salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• rice bran oil
• 20 large cloves of garlic, about 3 oz
• freshly squeezed juice of 2 lemons
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• a handful of fresh thyme

1. Rinse chicken drumsticks and pat dry. Place drumsticks in large ziploc bag or a large bowl.
3. Transfer garlic paste to a small bowl, and stir in the dried oregano.
4. Scrap garlic mixture into ziploc bag (or bowl), throw in the sticks of fresh thyme (I do not bother to remove the leaves from the stems) and squeeze the juice of the two lemons right into ziploc bag (or bowl). Close the bag well and then massage the heavenly paste into the drumsticks, distributing the paste and wiping your drool. (If you prefer the bowl, just get in there with your clean hands and smear the paste all over the drumsticks, then cover bowl well and refrigerate.) Refrigerate the bag until ready to use. (If you do this in the morning, like I do, try to massage the drumsticks, or turn them around every time you open the fridge.)
5. Pre-heat oven to 450F. Remove drumsticks and place on a baking pan. Remember to scrap out all the garlic paste into the pan. Sprinkle with more black pepper if desired. Drizzle with a little rice bran oil (or if you have to use olive oil, I suggest mixing it with rice bran oil to raise the smoking point).
6. Roast for 15 minutes. Remove pan and with tongs flip the drumsticks over. I like to tilt up one end of the pan so the garlicky juice flows to one corner so I can dip the drumsticks in that golden goodness. Lower oven heat to 400F and continue to roast about another 15 minutes more, until browned and golden.
7. Enjoy, and after dinner scoop up that garlicky goodness at the bottom of the pan and keep it in a sealed glass container. You can use it for many things. You can toss it with rice noodles and serve with a crunchy salad. Once I stir-fried pea shoots with it and it was totally scrumptious. I am thinking you can steam spinach and then toss it with this garlicky oil. Oh, and once we even dipped our toasted sourdough bread in this garlicky mess, and boy, that was good too!

I am thinking this could work with a baked tofu recipe as well, but probably not with as much garlic! It may even work with potatoes, but I have a skillet-roasted potato recipes that is also pretty hands-off and involves garlic, but that would be another post for another day!

feeding the sick

A tall, three-storied dark chocolate cake, slathered on the outside with 2-inch thick dark chocolate ganache frosting. Inside, the cake layers are first covered with a thin layer of chocolate frosting before being topped with a delicious sour-cherry filling, with squashed juicy cherries embedded. I ate that cake all by myself, with a large bowl of whipped cream as side. With a dainty silver fork. That cake was all mine. And I was not in rags, looking like I just dragged my sorrowful feet through a three-month trek across the desert. I was dressed like royalty, like someone who knows how to enjoy a three-storied chocolate cake with a dainty silver fork.

When you are sick, and when there is not much that you can eat, your mind goes crazy. Above was the feverish fantasy I had one day when my limbs were wrapped around my belly button, fighting off aches and chills, determined to starve off the fever (and those nasty bugs causing my misery). But even as my body fatigued itself to fend off the attack of the mysterious but ferocious bug, my mind was alert and awake. It hungered for images of food. I know, I know. More noble minds crave for wise words, beautiful sounds and maybe even complicated mathematical problems to solve. Mine was the twisted hungry mind. I do not apologize.

::

So we've been sick for more than a week around here. Today is the first day we are all feeling human around here, with energy to hop around the house, and it's because we found out what we had was not the flu but the strep throat. Everyone else is on antibiotics except for me. I am the only soul without a temperature, and truly feeling on the good mend. I attribute that to my yoga practice and the bar of dark chocolate I secretly took bites of, an experiment to see if there truly are valuable anti-oxidants in dark chocolate. Apparently, there are. (And of course, all those garlic must have helped!!)

Today was a difference from the last days, when all of us were sick, coughing and sprawled around the house.

But, as S said it beautifully to me one day, "Though we are all sick [to a different degree], we help each other out."-- fetching straws, paper to blow our noses into, making tea, bringing food.

Food. It's tricky when you are sick: how to "starve the fever" but still keep the body nourished, and help it on its way to rejuvenation.

Food is even trickier when you are sick and your throat hurts from all that coughing.

First option we gravitated to was chicken soup. Something that will just slip silkily pass our tormented throats and soothe it. Of course every family has THE must-have ingredient and special recipes but I tend to use what we have or what we feel like. But first I marched off to Whole Foods to get chicken legs, chicken drumsticks, ginger, carrots, and literally took off with all the organic garlic they had in the store. (Also bought some ripe organic pears on sale. These delicious fruits with soft, sweet, and juicy flesh did not last long.)

Back in the kitchen, I browned the chicken legs lightly in some coconut oil (for its antiviral, antibacterial and anti-fungal properties), then threw in a million cloves of smashed garlic, some quartered onions, some carrots, a stick of cinnamon. Added water, brought to a soft boil, skimmed the froth, and then let simmer. It was well-received, sighs of relief heard around the table as we noisily slurped the warm soup. And I whole-heartedly believe we all slept better that night because of the soup.

I repeated same recipe a couple of times, using chicken drumsticks, and about the same ingredients, and probably more garlic every time,  thinking sinisterly that I was going to get to all those awful germs this time with the potent garlic. I think I even secretly whispered to those adorable little cloves of garlic to go get 'em.

But soon V began to complain: "We are having chicken soup again?"

This from the sickest person in the household.

I responded with, "What do you mean again? We are still sick. Moreover, when aunt M's family was sick, all her kids wanted to drink and eat for days was chicken soup."

"Yeah," V replied. "But can't we have something different? How about chicken porridge?"

I thought to myself, "Isn't that about the same thing? It's essentially chicken soup with rice added! I can handle that... ..."

So I made chicken porridge, adding a knob of smashed ginger, rice and some sweet peas to the chicken soup "recipe." V declared it "yummy!" I just wanted her to be able to eat something, and I also desperately wanted everyone to be healthy again.

Then we went back to another meal of chicken soup. But after that I made something slightly different. I think when children are sick and offered the same things over and over again, they begin to feel there is no end in sight, it is the same again and again and likewise they will never feel better. When served something different they are delighted and I absolutely believe that little perk in their moods contribute to recovery.

So I made noodle soup in chicken broth, with meatballs. It is the same recipe as the asian-style meatballs, except I made them smaller, and they were dropped in a diluted chicken broth to cook. It takes a bit more time and effort, having to cook the meatballs, noodles and spinach separately. But it was worth the effort, as the girls were pleased the flavor (and the departure from chicken soup). And, when the children have been feeling unwell, nothing is worth more than seeing their little faces brighten up with a smile. I took a quick picture of Sophia's bowl before she dug in (she loves this Japanese soup bowl, always eager to get to the bottom so the cute kitty cat can be revealed):

Noodles in light chicken broth, with tiny meatballs and Chinese spinach

And because I myself needed to find some cheer amidst the gloom of our ailments, I played with my food:

Fishies want their noodles too!

Eventually, even I tired of chicken soup and noodle soup and variations of those. One of the favorite food options in this house is salmon, and we were all beginning to crave some miso (perhaps a gut reaction to the antibiotics prescription), so I made for dinner last night a miso-salmon soup, based loosely on this recipe.I used what vegetables I had (carrots, asparagus, broccoli) and added some soba noodles (cooked separately) to the broth, as the girls love those. It was a very comforting dinner, full of goodness. I am thinking this could be a good (and relatively fast and speedy) dinner for a crisp autumn evening too. Definitely a good base recipe for numerous variations.

I did not work on the "presentation" for this one, I just wanted a snapshot to remember it!

So that's how and what we have eaten the past days. We are very much looking forward to 100% good health and lots more good food (I see the delicious champagne mangoes are on the market! Can't wait to get to them!!)
What about you?? What do you eat when your health is down? What nourishes, what entices??