This is one of my most loved French dishes, simple and traditional it is all that is best about farmhouse food. It requires a shocking amount of garlic, but this is cooked so long as to be rendered into the smoothest purée on entering your mouth. As such it is enormously rich (well, to me it is) and very filling. The lemon is cooked so long that it will have almost completely disappeared into the sauce - which, I might add, has to be tasted to be believed.

The French would serve it over plain pilaf or boiled rice but I find it suits a side salad of crunchy leaves and plenty of rustic, crusty bread to mop up the amazing sauce. As a gesture towards your breath it is also as well to be generous with the chopped parsley, though I’ve never been entirely sure that this trick works...

Ingredients - serves 4

8 assorted chicken drumsticks and thighs
20 large cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
1 lemon, peeled, pith removed, thinly sliced
50g butter
500ml chicken stock
1 glass dry white wine
2 tbsp plain flour
salt, pepper

3 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Method

Poach the cloves of garlic in the stock at a bare simmer for 20 minutes, covered so that the stock isn’t reduced.

Season the chicken joints and brown in the butter on all sides in a frying pan - taking about 15 minutes to do so. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer to a casserole. Also with the slotted spoon, remove the whole cloves of garlic from the stock, carefully so as not to squish them, and scatter over the chicken joints together with the lemon slices.

Pre heat the oven to 190°C
Now add the flour to the frying pan and incorporate into the residues, deglaze with the white wine and then add the stock, stirring and scraping to incorporate all meat juices and colouring from the pan. It will thicken as it comes to the simmering point - now remove any excess fat from the surface before pouring the sauce over the chicken, garlic and lemon.

Cover, transfer to the oven and cook for 45 minutes by which time all will be very tender and the sauce exquisite. Scatter over the chopped parsley and then serve two joints per person, carefully adding the cloves of garlic which by now are exceedingly tender. Divide the sauce between the plates, spooning over all.