Herbes de Provence adds a nice complexity to our current version of Chicken and Wine. Recipe below.
NO, THE TITLE DOESN’T REFER TO THE THEORY that birds evolved from dinosaurs (although the thought of dining on a dinosaur’s distant relative is pretty cool, you have to admit). It has to do with how cooking and recipes naturally evolve over time.
This recipe is one I’ve made pretty much since I began cooking. And just as my cooking has, it’s evolved and become a little more refined, a little more complex over time. So it’s fitting it should be the very first recipe on Blue Kitchen.
Over the years, I’ve experimented with cooking times, tweaked the herbs and messed with the sauce in various efforts to freshen up a meal that family and friends already loved. There’ve been a couple notable failures: adding chicken stock to the sauce for more flavor—the flavor it added was chicken soup. And adding a little dried thyme—everyone agreed the “thymeless classic” was better.
There has also been a notable success in the last couple of years: Adding Herbes de Provence, a wonderfully aromatic blend of (typically dried) herbs and lavender flowers used in the cuisine of the Provence region of the south of France. The mix of herbs varies—the blend I use contains rosemary, French thyme, tarragon, basil, savory, cracked fennel, lavender and marjoram. This simple addition gives the dish a complexity the bay leaves alone couldn’t deliver.
Chicken and Wine, as I prepare it, is quite distinct from the classic French coq au vin. It uses white wine instead of red, for one thing, and the cooking time is much shorter; coq au vin pretty much demands to be cooked a day ahead and allowed to swap flavors in the fridge overnight. This dish is best when served immediately after cooking.
There’s a comfort food aspect to this dish that makes it a great family meal. But it also has a kind of rustic elegance that makes it good company food too. So here’s the recipe—at least how I’m making it right now.
Chicken and Wine
Ingredients
- 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally into 3/4″ pieces
- 6 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin on (see Kitchen Notes)
- 1-1/2 teaspoons Herbes de Provence, divided
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- flour for dredging
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 2 medium garlic cloves, minced
- 1-1/2 cups dry white wine
- water
- 2 bay leaves
- cornstarch, for thickening
- cooked white rice
Instructions
- Occasionally, the carrots will stay stubbornly crisp if you just add them to the pan. Here’s how to fix that. Take the cut up carrots, put them in a microwaveable container with a little water and nuke them for 3 minutes. If you don’t fear tough carrots, just add them when you add the wine to the pan.
- Season both sides of the chicken with salt, pepper and half the Herbes de Provence, pressing lightly to help it stick. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess. I generally put a couple of heaping soupspoonsful of flour in a plastic bag, add the chicken, twist the top shut and shake it. Nice and easy.
- Heat oil a large, deep skillet or sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken in a single layer, skin side down. Cook until skin is golden brown, 6 to 7 minutes, then turn and brown the other side, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate and reduce heat to medium. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat (honestly, I seldom need to do this).
- Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until it softens and becomes translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in remaining Herbes de Provence. Stir in garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, until it becomes fragrant.
- Add wine, stirring and scraping up any browned bits from the skillet. Add carrots to the pan, draining them if you microwaved them. Return chicken to the pan skin side up along with any juices, nestling the pieces among the carrot chunks. Add a cup or so of water, as needed. The chicken should not be covered by the liquid, but just sit in it. This keeps the skin a nice golden color, instead of turning it all pale and stewlike. Tuck in the bay leaves. Reduce the flame to medium-low, cover the pan and let it simmer, checking occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking or burning. If the liquid is cooking down too much, add a little water, but do so sparingly. After for 20 to 25 minutes, test the chicken with an instant read thermometer; it should register at least 160ºF for the chicken to be cooked through.
- And now for the sauce. To thicken the sauce—or to make more sauce if it’s reduced down too much—here’s how. Remove the chicken to a plate. In a small bowl dissolve 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in 2 tablespoons of cold water, stirring carefully and working out lumps against the side of the bowl—any lumps in the mixture will become lumps in your sauce. Spoon a little sauce from the pan into the cornstarch mixture to warm it up. Spoon in some more. Seriously. Then slooooowly drizzle the cornstarch mixture into the sauce, stirring constantly, to avoid lots of nasty little lumps from forming in the sauce. You’ll see the sauce thickening. Return the chicken to the pan to let it warm through again.
- Serve. Plate the chicken thighs along with a serving of rice next to it. Spoon carrots and sauce over the rice and spoon a little sauce over the chicken. Green beans, asparagus or a mesclun salad make good accompaniments.
Kitchen Notes
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Loved the blog on the chicken recipe, especially the comment about cooking it on a second date. The first meal I cooked for my husband was green pepper steak, which was so fragrant, so impressively good-looking, so inexpensive, and so quick to make, and oh-so inedible. It was my first important cooking lesson: cheap meat does not prepared quickly.
Very good recipe, thanks
What’s mesclun salad?? Mustn’t throw out these teasers!
Tanya–Kind of sounds like mescaline, doesn’t it? But rather than being one of man’s oldest known psychedelics [derived from a cactus, no less], it’s actually a salad of young, tender mixed greens, that can include various lettuces, spinach, arugula and herbs. Very tasty, but don’t expect much of a buzz.
Terry–
What a great site! A combination of food, music, photography, stories…good stuff. And thanks for a not-too-complicated recipe for non-chefs like me. Very cool.
The grocery just calls mesclun “spring mix.” I like your name better. 🙂
The grocery just calls mesclun “spring mix.” I like your name better. 🙂
Hey, do you know what herbs go well in that type of salad? I had found an herb mix at Wild Oats, but they don’t seem to carry it anymore. I know it had some dill in it, and I’ve seen cilantro in salad, but I know that there are one or two other herbs that do nicely in mesclun salad.
Hi Terry. Love your site. Just wondering…would olive oil be ok instead of canola or would that ruin the flavor?
Tanya—I usually look for salad mixes, either bagged or bulk, that don’t contain herbs. I find the herbs can sometimes overpower the salad. That said, I LOVE the peppery kick that arugula gives a salad. You can usually find bagged arugula—poetically called ‘rocket’ in Europe and elsewhere—at Trader Joe’s. Sometimes, I’ll mix a spring mix and arugula half and half for a really great salad.
Samantha—olive oil is fine. I’ve become a recent convert to cooking with canola oil because it has many of the same healthful benefits of olive oil, but with a much higher smoke point. So I no longer set off the smoke detector when I’m searing steaks.
To further the “oil debate” I personally find avocado or rice bran oil the best – both have a high smoke points and neither impart too much flavour, the best thing however is both are great for you, and they can be used on salads too…..
This is my very favorite kind of recipe-writing: lots of details and explanations. I like knowing WHY the instructions say to do something. Then, in case I can’t, I can figure out a different way to achieve the same result.
And reading about Marion is always a pleasure, anyway. True, she doesn’t spook easily.
Terry:
Great site, great idea. We’ll try your delicious-sounding chicken dish, but other than Ankara, where does one find Turkish bay leaves?
Cheers!
Thanks Amanda for the info on alternative oils. Never tried either. Will do so if I ever remember to buy any!
Lou—Turkish bay leaves are actually just one of a couple commonly available varieties. The other is California. If you are using Californai bay leaves, recipes generally call for half the amount.
Taking photos of food can be tricky and I think you did a terrific job, Terry. I like recipes with stories attached too. Looking forward to next Wednesday.
Hey Dad, love the site!
Hey everyone, that’s my Dad!
Good News:
Made your chicken and wine and it was fabulous.
Sad News:
Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment
community. The
Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma
complications
from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71.
Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities
turned
out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the
California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain
Crunch.
The grave site was piled high with flours.
Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a
man who
never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show
business, but
his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very
smart
cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being
a little
flaky at times he still was a crusty old man and was considered a
positive roll
model for millions.
Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children, John Dough
and Jane
Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his
elderly
father, Pop Tart.
The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.