Guest post from copy editor Barbara Tuttle.

This recipe started life as Chicken with Spring Garlic and Pedro Ximenez Sherry from the “Moro East” cookbook by Samantha and Samuel Clark. On the way through my daughter’s household and then to ours, it morphed into Braised Chicken with Garlic and Ginger Sherry. Both versions are good but spring garlic (garlic that has not dried so its segments are without separate wrappers) is only available for a couple of weeks a year. Since my garlic is drying in the garden in preparation for harvest later this month (July), I pulled a couple of heads for this dish. Last month the garlic was spring (or green garlic) and could be chopped without any peeling except for the outer peel. This week’s garlic needed a little more work getting some of the drying wrappers off individual cloves.

Pedro Ximenez sherry is sweet, and can be used over ice cream for dessert. We don’t have any, but we do always keep a jar of sherry with peeled ginger in it in the refrigerator. The ginger-infused sherry is wonderful in Asian and other dishes, and it’s a good way to keep ginger available. The best intentions of using up produce can go awry and ginger shrivels eventually. With a little forethought you can always have ginger sherry on hand. Besides the sherry, you can use the sherry-preserved ginger in dishes that call for fresh ginger.

Since we weren’t using sweet sherry we sweetened up the recipe with a little apple cider concentrate (boil down apple cider until about a quarter of its original volume), or you can use pomegranate molasses or whatever interesting sweetener you have, adjusting the amount for how strong it is.

So, the most recent incarnation of this recipe is:

Braised Chicken with Garlic and Ginger Sherry

2 heads of garlic (spring or otherwise)

3 tablespoons olive oil

4 chicken pieces with bone and skin (thighs are best)

Kosher salt

1 teaspoon fennel seed

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1/2 cup ginger sherry

1/2 cup apple cider concentrate

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

For spring garlic, remove outer layer of skin and shop the cloves into chunks, not too fine. For older garlic, remove as much of the wrapper around the cloves as necessary and chop. In a skillet over high heat, add oil. Salt chicken pieces and sear them until golden on all sides. Push chicken pieces to side of pan and add garlic, fennel and thyme. Saute until garlic is slightly golden, then add sherry, cider and boil briefly. Add water and vinegar and turn chicken in the liquid to coat. Cover pan and simmer about 20 minutes, until chicken is cooked through. Add salt, pepper to taste. The pan juices are great served over rice, couscous or buttermilk mashed potatoes.

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