Ideas with Legs #10: 40 Garlic Clove Chicken

For those days when 39 cloves of garlic just won't do.

Time runs in circles.

That isn’t meant to be a philosophical statement, or some relativist theory to define our universe and how it works. It’s just something I’ve noticed over the last year or so. I stand still, and time runs circles around me.

It’s been a while since my last idea with legs, and I’m sorry for that. To recap: I was stuck in Norfolk, holed up with my wife in my parents’ home while we reeled from a house purchase that had fallen through at the last possible minute. My temporary kitchen was small. My mind teetered on the brink of madness. And then…

Well, we’ll get back to that. Because time runs in circles around us all, and my life isn’t the only one to have been shaken up in the past twelve months. Nottingham Forest have found their form, last seen sometime around 1995. In other mid-1990s news, Oasis and Pulp are back. And Labour, for that matter. And, in a move everybody is excited about, Donald Trump has gone and pulled a Liz Truss, and now we’re about to tumble into a global recession. And so: the return of Ideas with Legs. Not the hero we wanted, but with chicken legs currently £1.59 a pair at Waitrose, of all places, perhaps the hero we need.

It’s hard not to feel like time is running in circles when, at the age of thirty-five, you find yourself living at home with your parents again. Even in a situation such as mine - knowing it was a holdover, having my wife by my side - it felt like a step backwards. I remembered the last time I spent significant time in my parents’ home, during a breakdown almost fourteen years earlier. I felt constantly aware of the need to hold on to Present Day Stephen. To not lose myself in the teenage behaviours, the familiar character clashes that will happily work their way to the surface, even over a short trip home for Christmas.

I held on, just about. My parents made sure to give us a space of our own, which helped me to keep my routine, more or less. I was grateful, too, that both my parents have somehow actively rebuffed whatever it is that sends people to the right of the political spectrum as they age.¹ Instead, if anything, my parents are becoming more left-leaning. And the traits that lead a person down this path - thoughtfulness, compassion - also meant I (mostly) was able to enjoy the rarest of pleasures: to spend time in the same space as one’s parents, to feel that same security one felt as a child without simultaneously feeling as though you are being treated like a child.

Though we shared a separate space from them, I tried, when I could, to cook a meal for everyone at least once or twice a month. And it was in cooking these meals that the greatest of gaps between us was revealed. For, while I love big flavours and warming spices, my parents each have different ideas of a good gastronomical time.

My father spent much of the last year responding to meals I had made with sentences that started, ‘I’m not usually one for rich flavours’ and compliments that ended with, ‘and it wasn’t too salty, either’. On the other hand, my mother is so averse to spice that I once witnessed her wafting her hand in front of her mouth in a futile attempt to address the burning nature of a KFC.

We spent thirteen months together in all, and finding interesting, delicious things to cook that might appeal to everyone has been a constant challenge. A Chinese feast in June went down well, though my mother and wife each firmly avoided the jellyfish salad. An earlier attempt to make a simple Hainanese chicken turned out to be, I think, universally underwhelming. An ambitious semi-invention, Salmon Choron en Croûte, was probably better received by them than it was by me. A tartiflette proved a reliable, if expensive, winner for everyone involved.

I love facing differing tastes and dietary restrictions when cooking for others. One of my favourite dinners I’ve ever cooked juggled vegans, vegetarians, coeliacs, nut allergies, and more. But a year of catering to the same obstacles was more than enough. I’m back in Nottingham now, and if you want to come for dinner, I beg you to bring a new challenge.

In some ways, 40 Garlic Clove Chicken is the perfect solution to the above problem. It’s an adaptation of a Nigella recipe, which draws on a traditional French dish in which a whole chicken is roasted alongside the titular glut of garlic.

Though the idea sounds overwhelmingly pungent, the roasting mellows the garlic tremendously. By the time the dish is on the plate, it is a relatively subtle, deeply warming meal that will please the most disparate of diners.

There’s also something to be said for the garlic squidge. This dish is best enjoyed after the soft, roasted garlic cloves have been freed from their cases - a gentle and immensely satisfying pinch will do it. You can decide whether the pleasure is entirely yours, or left for your fellow diners to revel in.

A wide, shallow casserole pan will be your best friend here. It comfortably holds four chicken legs, which is the amount I use regardless of whether I’m cooking for two or four. Leftover meat paired with tinned sweetcorn and a little mayo will make for one of the best sandwiches of your life.

40 Garlic Clove Chicken Legs

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp neutral oil

• 4 chicken legs

• 8 spring onions, finely sliced

• 6 sprigs fresh thyme

• 40 cloves of garlic, unpeeled but with papery excess skin removed²

• 2 tbsp white wine³

Let’s get cooking:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°c. Heat oil in a wide, shallow pan that can be transferred from the hob to the oven and has a lid.

2. Sear the chicken skin-side down over a high heat, until browned. Transfer to a large bowl.

3. Add the spring onions to the pan alongside leaves torn from 3 sprigs of thyme, stir-frying them in the oil and chicken fat for a minute or so.

4. Add the unpeeled garlic to the pan, and place the chicken legs skin-side up on top of the mixture. Add the wine and remaining sprigs of thyme, and season with salt and a generous grind of black pepper. Cover and cook in the oven for 50 minutes.

5. Eat.

At its heart, this is an incredibly simple dish - so there’s no need to get fancy with the accompaniments. A big dollop of mashed potato - I’m even so lazy as to leave the skins on for a rustic meal like this. A portion of peas, cooked in salted water and maybe, just maybe, served with a little butter on top.

• We found a home to call our own back in October, and have since been settling into life in Nottingham. Though we’d been in the city for two and half years before our sojourn to Norfolk, there’s no denying the place feels more like home now that we don’t have to contend with landlord inspections, or the risk of being booted out as rent hikes drive our own house beyond affordability.
  
  I’ve responded by more proactively setting down roots in the city. Building friendships, putting the names of my neighbours into my notes app so I don’t forget them and, finally, bringing my beloved Folkroom to Nottingham.
  
  I started Folkroom when I first moved to London, almost fifteen years ago, and launching a series of regular gigs enabled me to embed myself in my new city. The same happened when I moved to Brighton in 2017, and it’s happening all over again now. My main base of operations in Nottingham is a jazz bar called Peggy’s Skylight. I’ve already managed to bring old friends like Hattie Whitehead and Sophie Jamieson to the city, as well as hosting sell-out gigs for Chris Wood and Martin Carthy. The next few weeks are going to be the busiest for Folkroom in maybe five years. If you want to see some great folk music in Nottingham - or London, or Brighton, for that matter - check out my recent post on the Folkroom Substack, Modern Folk.

• I’ve been listening to a few recent albums on repeat. The new Ichiko Aoba record is stunning, as is Drive to Goldenhammer by Divorce, a band with strong connections to both Nottingham and Folkroom. But - for the moment at least - my heart belongs to the debut album by Maya Delilah, The Long Way Round. The record flitters between soul, R&B and these beautiful, woozy guitar solos that feel like you’re falling asleep in the back of your parents’ car on a Sunday night in 1993, the streetlights passing overhead, bathing the back seats in periodical moments of warm, orange light. I’d like to describe it more accurately than that. I don’t think I can.

• With a year to catch up on, you’d think I’d have some book recommendations to throw your way - but I barely read a thing last year. Instead, I spent most of my evenings writing.
  
  Time runs in circles, but that doesn’t mean it always brings you back to a place you don’t want to be. Case in point: just over a year ago, I signed my first book deal for an idea I’d first pitched over a decade earlier. As a result, I spent the majority of 2024 researching and writing 100,000 words or so on the Disney Animated Classics.
  
  We’re not quite at pre-order stage just yet, but you better believe you’ll be hearing about it when we are. This autumn, you’ll be able to get your hands on what, as far as my (pretty considerable) research suggests, will be the first ever book on the Disney animated canon. I’m really, genuinely, very proud of it. I think I’ve managed to write something that is smart, and silly, and credible, and will hopefully appeal not only to Disney fans but also to people who love film or just want to read a book about the movies that formed a part of all our childhoods.

Anyway, more on that soon. For now, I must return to my never-ending quest to find a suitable sign-off for Ideas with Legs.

Thighs to see you, to see you thighs!⁴

1. It’s a Daily Mail subscription. The thing that does that is a Daily Mail subscription.

2. Three big heads of garlic will yield something close to this - if you find yourself a few under, it’s not a big worry. That said, the first time my friend Nat and I attempted this dish, we ended up using closer to 60 cloves, which, it turns out, is definitely too much.

3. In her fantastic book Fried Eggs and Rioja, Victoria Moore specifically highlights Côtes du Rhône as the best wine to have with a traditional chicken with forty cloves of garlic dish. I’m not going to argue with her on this, though Nigella prefers dry white vermouth, so feel free to use that instead.

4. Nope.