Tonight, we're cookin' up chicken provençal, a slow (but not too slow) cooked French classic. I'll serve it up with wasabi mashed potatoes piped into rounds on a baking sheet, and browned under the broiler. To complete the plate, I add carrots and zucchini in with the chicken, although lots of other root vegetables or squash would also work. I've borrowed from Mark Bittman's recipe for this one.
For the chicken: dredge the thigh and drumstick in seasoned flour and brown, skin side down. Then brown the other side, and as much of the rest of the chicken as possible while seasoning with salt and pepper. You could also do this with breast meat, but in any event, I'd advise going with skin-on, bone-in cuts. You just can't replicate that flavor.
Once the chicken is well browned, remove it from the pan. Sauté chopped shallot and tomato in the remaining olive oil and fat rendered out of the chicken skin. After they soften up, sauté finely minced garlic and olive, and then add chicken stock and/or white wine, as well as chopped fresh herbs. I'm using rosemary tonight since I've got some fresh, but thyme or pretty much any other fresh herb would also work.
Allow the liquid to simmer for a few moments and then add the chicken back in. Simmer on medium-low while covered for five or so minutes, reseason and flip. About half way through, add the vegetables. The time will of course vary depending on how much chicken you've got in the pan, but for two servings (that is, one thigh and one drumstick) tonight, the chicken took about 17 minutes total. So, I let the veggies simmer for 8-10 minutes, and they were perfect.
If you're going to cut the chicken open to check for doneness, go for the joint on a thigh-leg combo, since that's what will finish cooking last.
Wasabi mashed potatoes have already been explained on this blog, but for this presentation, start with a Ziploc bag (unless you have a pastry bag, which would be ideal). Fold the top quarter of the bag down and to the outside to assure you've got some clearance up top after you load it up with mashers. Spoon in the potatoes, reserving one corner, which you'll snip off. Go small on the first snip; you can always make it bigger. Then, on a buttered and floured baking sheet, pipe the potatoes on in any design you like, but keep in mind that something with height may be best since that'll give a good presentation and also brown up better. Also, you want to avoid lumps in you potato mix, since they'll clog up the bag.
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