Garlic Chicken

If I could, I would find some way to reduce all of my cooking down to one pot even if it means washing in between, starting earlier, or altering the fabric of time and space. But all of those one pot meal recipes are always so, shall we say, crap tastic with a side of blah.

So if I find one that reads tasty I'm tempted to try it, when it calls for probably the cheapest cut of chicken I get all the more excited and run around in circles wagging things (I may have also accidentally combined my DNA with a dog, oops).

Anyway, to the Garlic Chicken.

Ingredients

• 2 heads garlic, cloves separated (Yeah, I use less than half of that.)
• 8 chicken drumsticks (about 2 1/2 pounds), skin removed, trimmed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour (I use 3 instead)

Add the oil to a pan and dump in the garlic cloves on medium heat. Let those brown up for a few minutes, but watch them like a hawk. Garlic loves to go from tasty to crispified death on a plate in the blink of an eye.

Remove the garlic to a plate when it's brown enough. I aim for slightly under Jersey Shore tan.

Salt and pepper the drumsticks (which I don't remove the skin from because I have yet to meet an easy peel chicken leg) then drop those into the pan with the now garlicy flavored oil.

Let those brown up for four minutes. This is when I like to chop up mushrooms. I know the recipe doesn't call for it, but they really capture the flavor of the sauce and oh you'll see.

Are the drumsticks nice and brown and hissing like a Madagascar cockroach that stepped on a cat's tail? Add the garlic pack to the pan and the wine and mushrooms.

Due to a lack of planning (and always doing our grocery shopping when blue laws are in effect) I've used red wine both times I've made this. So if that's all you have, it works well too, though the sauce is a bit richer.

Anyway, let that go for a minute. In the mean time whisk together the broth, the mustard, and the flour. The original recipe called for only 2 tsp of flour but I've never had the sauce set up with that so I tried 3 instead and it worked much better.

Dump the broth mixture into the pan, bring to a boil then back down to a simmer and do-si-do, promenade in the corner.

Cover the pan and let it go for 8-10 minutes.

Has it already been 10 minutes? Wow, time flies when you're an inconsequential byte in the data stream of life.

Pull off the chicken. At this point the sauce wasn't thick enough for me, your mileage and the fact you keep a car in the kitchen may vary. So I crank up the heat and stir, baby stir until it's a thick consistency.

Now just plate, hopefully far better than I ever do.

The sauce would work really well with mashed potatoes if anyone ever wanted to eat mashed potatoes when it's OHGODTHESUNEXPLODED!!! outside. It's savory with a nice acid kick from the wine and mustard and the mushrooms soak all that golden goodness up.

Oddly, despite being drumsticks (the red headed step child of the cannibalistic chicken experience) this meal feels kind of fancy for being a little over a half hours worth of work.

And that's my cheap, one pot drumstick extravaganza.

No cats were harmed in the making of this recipe.