Report from the Twit Army Mess Hall - Braised Chicken with Celery Root & Garlic

Ingredients:
3 lbs bone in, skin on chicken pieces, even if you remove the skin later you need it for flavor in the dish when cooking
1.25 lbs of celery root (check at your local asian or Whole Foods type market), cut into 3/4 inch cubes. N.B. you can't substitute celery for this, you need to find the real celery root
1 whole head of garlic, cloves separated but left unpeeled
1.5 c. chicken broth
1 tbl. olive oil
1 tbl. unsalted butter
2 sprigs of thyme

Preparation:

Heat the oil in the pan & brown the chicken pieces. Put aside in a dish or bowl (if you want to skin them, now is the time after the flavor from the skin has gotten into the pan drippings.

Browning the chicken pieces

Pour out all but 1 tbl of the drippings from the pan and melt the butter. Saute the celery root & garlic until browned, about 5 minutes.

Browning the celery root & garlic

Add the broth & thyme to the pan, bring to a boil & deglaze the pan (i.e. scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan so that they mix with the sauce). Add the chicken, cover & cook until done, about 25 minutes depending on the thickness of the chicken pieces.

Remove the chicken & vegetables, cook down the sauce to the desired consistency (I usually boil it until it reaches the consistency of heavy cream, about 2 minutes).

Serve with crusty bread.

Finished dish ready to serve